The foundations of the medieval Dominican friary of Stirling – and evidence that the lives of its occupants were far from frugal – have been discovered on the outskirts of the medieval burgh during recent excavations by GUARD Archaeology.

An ongoing project by University College Cork (UCC) is revealing the living conditions of convicts imprisoned on Spike Island – a small island in Cork Harbour – during the 19th century.

In the last decade or so we have experienced a revolution in archaeological science, and one of the most exciting aspects of this is the extraordinary level of detail that we can glean from everyday objects. But while we are constantly pushing the boundaries of what we can discover from archaeological remains, we are also constantly reminded of the constraints we still face. This dichotomy is well evidenced in a study, recently published in the journal Analyst, on the detection of opioids in archaeological contexts.

One of Yorkshire’s earliest high-status Roman settlements may have been discovered. While many Roman 3rd- and 4th-century sites have been found in the area, this is one of only a handful found from the earliest roman settlers in Britain.

Volunteer and community groups/projects are invited to apply to the Community Archaeology Radiocarbon Dating fund before 30 November.

The first clear evidence for possible prehistoric habitation on Staffa, a small island in the Inner Hebrides, has been uncovered during a recent excavation.

It has long been assumed that the technique of spinning thread has a lengthy and robust history. New evidence, though, suggests that a different way of making thread – called splicing – was instead the norm throughout most of Europe and the Near East during prehistory.

Recent excavations at the Theatre, the playhouse where most of Shakespeare’s early plays were first performed, have uncovered evidence from the first stages of its use, when it was remodelled from Holywell Priory into an Elizabethan performance space.

The remains of a Roman villa and aisled hall have been discovered during a Cambridge Archaeological Unit excavation in advance of the new University of Cambridge development at Eddington, a new district of Cambridge.

Kinneil House in Bo’ness, just outside Falkirk, is not only a striking 16th- to 17th-century structure, once the principal seat of the wealthy Hamilton family: its estate preserves a rich historic landscape that is also home to a stretch of the Antonine Wall and the only visible example of an Antonine Wall fortlet, as well as the workshop where James Watt perfected the steam engine.