Now on display at the Museum of London Docklands, London’s largest late Bronze Age hoard is revealing new details of life in the Thames river valley 3,000 years ago.

Neanderthals must be the most-familiar members of our extended family tree. Since the first discoveries of their bones in the 1850s (a decade that also saw the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species) shook perceptions of what it meant to be human, public fascination has endured unabated. In this absorbing new book, Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes explores the evolution of our understanding of these ‘truly A-list’ hominins, as well as discussing exciting recent discoveries.

Last month we brought you the latest thinking on how scientific techniques are helping to pin down the origins of the Stonehenge bluestones. Now new research has located the most likely source of the monument’s larger sarsen stones. Carly Hilts reports.

At The Box, in Plymouth, 14 colourful giants wait to greet visitors to this new museum (at time of writing, its COVID-delayed opening had been rescheduled to 29 September). Depicting monarchs, mythological beings, and more abstract concepts, these figureheads once graced the bows of 19th-century Royal Navy warships, providing a physical representation of the ships’ names.

Long-running improvement works on a section of the A1 have uncovered rare traces of how contact with the Roman Empire transformed a northern Iron Age settlement at a key routeway junction. Carly Hilts reports.

The late 1960s and early 1970s were a period of massive redevelopment in Gloucester city centre – an area rich in archaeology. It was in this context that Henry Hurst – then the Field Archaeologist attached to Gloucester City Museum – led excavations on three sites from 1968 to 1971.

According to the most recent figures (from 2017), there are some 3,163 non-native species currently present in England, Wales, and Scotland, and 1,266 in Ireland, Dan Eatherley attests. The vast majority of these are plants – including many foods that we take for granted today, from apples to various forms of wheat – but they also include such familiar creatures as sparrows, donkeys, sheep and goats, house mice, and the domestic cat.

If there was one thing that Time Team excelled at during its 25-year run, it was bringing communities together to share in the story of their local area. And it is community that lies at the heart of this new book by the popular archaeology TV programme’s creator and series producer, Tim Taylor. Beautifully illustrated, it offers a comprehensive how-to guide for learning more about the area where you live.

Archaeological investigations ahead of the construction of a station to serve the new HS2 network of high-speed trains have revealed traces of far earlier rail journeys. Carly Hilts visited the site of the old Curzon Street Station in Birmingham to see what has been uncovered.

The clothes worn by archaeologists on site provide a vivid record not only of how the discipline has evolved over time, but of the personal experiences of people working in this field. An exhibition currently running at National Trust Sutton Hoo documents some of these sartorial snapshots. Carly Hilts went along to find out more.