In the mid-1980s, a group of archaeology graduates excavated a Roman villa in the Cotswolds but the true significance of the villa is only just being revealed: not only is it the earliest known example of a Roman stone building in the Cotswolds (built AD 75–100), it stands within a late Iron Age enclosure that also contains […]

The traditional image is of backward, hostile, bluepainted hordes led by a red-haired fury. Unlike the Celtic sophisticates of the South East, with their wheel-thrown tablewares and imported wines, the Norfolk Iceni were rural primitives. Or were they? Megan Dennis, specialist in Late Iron Age metalwork, pays tribute to the high culture of Boudica’s people.

Hand axes from the Ice Age have been dragged up from the North Sea, just off Great Yarmouth.  The 28 hand-axes are over 100,000 years old and were found along with bones and teeth in gravel dredged from the sea floor. 

Do we really have a way of integrating amateur help into field archaeology these days?   At the Archaeology 2008 conference, university professors and leaders of archaeology’s commercial sector vied with each other to show they were deeply professional and amateur-friendly. And there was some success — but it was plain enough that the gaps […]

James Morrison takes CA inside the growing danger to maritime archaeology posed by private salvers – is there any 'middle ground'? When uniformed Spanish Civil Guard officers boarded a US-registered commercial archaeology vessel off Gibraltar in July 2007, amid rumours its crew were hiding the location of a £250 million hoard of gold and silver […]

Evidence that some of our prehistoric ancestors travelled considerable distances has come from two graves in Upper Largie, near Kilmartin in Argyll and Bute.

Bath — Aquae Sulis — was one of the jewels of Romano-British civilisation. What happened to it when the Romans left? Roman specialist James Gerrard has been studying the tantalising evidence for the end of Roman Bath.

In CA 213, the Opinion article on Community Archaeology: Against the Odds outlined a problem of exclusion arising from the commercialisation and bureaucratisation of archaeology in England. Whilst I agree whole-heartedly with the main points, I think the article used a worryingly narrow definition of Community Archaeology — that of professionals running one-off grant funded […]

The dust has settled on our first big Current Archaeology event, and I am happy to report it was a great success.   Over 500 people attended, including delegates, speakers, moderators, press and guests; not bad for a first try!      With big events like conferences, there will always be something that could have […]

On February 14, I attended the Society of Antiquaries London and the Annual All-Party Parliamentary Archaeology Group Lecture to hear Hungarian archaeologist Dr Zsolt Visy (a Fellow and expert in the Roman archaeology of central Europe) discuss his work in establishing provenance for the Sevso Treasure. This meeting was quite exciting, it being the first […]