It was long thought that huge and complex monuments like Mount Pleasant in Dorset had developed over many centuries – but new dating evidence suggests that the diverse elements of this site came together much faster than previously imagined, with intriguing implications for our understanding of these late Neolithic enclosures. Carly Hilts reports.

A Neolithic timber circle has recently been identified in Somerset near the village of Priddy. It is the first such monument to be formally identified in the county.

Earlier this year, excavations on two sections of the N73 between the historic towns of Mallow and Mitchelstown in the north of Co. Cork have revealed a rich picture of how the landscape was used through the centuries.

Archaeological work carried out by HS2 archaeologists at Wellwick Farm, Buckinghamshire, has uncovered evidence of activity at the site spanning 4,000 years, from the Neolithic to the medieval period, and including both ceremonial and domestic uses.

Where did the Stonehenge bluestones come from? Scientific advances are allowing us to pinpoint the outcrops that they were quarried from with ever-greater accuracy. Rob Ixer, Richard Bevins, and Duncan Pirrie describe some of the latest thinking.

A project, headed by researchers from Trinity College Dublin, has sequenced the DNA of more than 40 individuals excavated from both Mesolithic and Neolithic funerary contexts across Ireland. The results illuminate not only the Irish transition to an agrarian way of life but also the social hierarchies that might have formed during this time.

Archaeological investigations 3km from Stonehenge have revealed a series of massive pits possibly representing a late Neolithic circular boundary centred on the Durrington Walls ‘superhenge’.

Archaeologists at the Ness of Brodgar, Orkney, have identified the impression of woven cloth preserved on a piece of Neolithic pottery, potentially representing the oldest evidence for textiles found in Scotland to date.

A project investigating the archaeology of the River Boyne is revealing the river’s significance in the wider monumental landscape of Brú na Bóinne, Co. Meath.

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.