Evans and Chenery analysed the samples for strontium and oxygen, which reflect local geology and climate respectively, and carbon and nitrogen, which reflect diet. Together, these isotopes are a useful means of exploring where the individuals are most likely to have originated. By completing a careful preparation and chemical separation process in the laboratory, the elements are extracted and their isotope composition can be measured. The remains of bodies belonging to the skulls had been discarded haphazardly in another area of the same grave, which was a re-used quarry pit.
Many of the executed men suffered multiple wounds to the skull and jaw as well as the upper spine, inflicted by a sharp-bladed weapon and thought to relate to the process of decapitation. Other wounds so far identified include a cut to the pelvis, blows to the chest and defensive injuries to the hands. To find out that the young men executed were Vikings is a thrilling development.
You can view it on either the full flip page version of the magazine: www. Barry Hobson hand raised in white shirt , a retired general practitioner, welcomes a group of visitors to the excavation site. Hobson took a degree in Archaeology at Bradford University after his retirement.
Tipi project. The discipline of archaeology provides a useful tool to help instill a reverence for the places and objects that define our past, a respect for our shared cultural heritage, and to emphasise the importance of protecting it now and in the future. Interactive shelter modules Images and text by the Project Archaeology Team.
Project Archaeology was founded two years later to employ education in the protection of cultural resources on publicly owned lands throughout the nation. Because the programme is designed to be delivered primarily by classroom teachers, all Project Archaeology educational materials provide ways for educators to teach science, social studies, language arts and mathematics, promoting citizenship, civic dialogue, and cultural understanding through the examination of heritage preservation issues.
That same year, the America Education Strategy called for Federal agencies to lead the way in promoting education objectives. Under the heading Project Archaeology, the BLM planned to develop a resource guide and comprehensive heritage educational programme for teachers and other youth educators, which would use a variety of activities to teach pupils about the science of archaeology and the stewardship of cultural resources. Operations were transferred to Bozeman, Montana, in Project Archaeology now includes 28 state and regional programmes and has published a new curriculum, Project Archaeology: Investigating Shelter, for teachers and pupils in upper elementary grades.
The curriculum guide has been distributed throughout the USA and several other countries, and has been adapted by various organisations, such as the Smithsonian Institution, for other uses. The primary means of distributing Project Archaeology curricular materials is through professional development workshops for teachers.
The workshops offer a variety of engaging, hands-on experiences, and educators often have the opportunity to experience local archaeological sites and listen to special guest speakers.
In Montana, for example, workshop participants visit stone circle and buffalo jump sites, and in , educators camped in tipis on the edge of the Little Big Horn Battlefield during Crow Native Days. Participants woke to bugle calls and the US Cavalry in full 19th century uniform crossing the river on horseback headed to an annual re-enactment of the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
In Project Archaeology launched its first online course. In partnership with the University of Utah and the Utah Museum of Natural History, the course offers teachers the opportunity to fit a workshop into their busy schedules, allowing them to log in and participate in the eight-week course on their own time. In addition, they can discuss implementation strategies with their peers, fulfilling a need for professional interaction and mutual support.
Teachers have access to supplementary materials including regional investigations and historic photographs on our website, allowing them to localise the curricular materials, focusing on their specific region.
The response has been overwhelmingly positive and three online workshops are scheduled for Project Archaeology activities are hands-on, interactive, and engaging opportunities that both teachers and pupils enjoy — and the experience leads to real learning. Pupils learn to think like archaeologists, using observation, inference, classification and context to piece together the puzzle of past lifeways.
Once pupils understand the basic skills, they apply them to a particular regional investigation that emphasises their own local history. In each regional investigation, pupils have the opportunity to meet a descendant who guides them through the investigation.
The descendant representatives are integral to learning and demonstrate to the pupils that descendant communities have not vanished. There are currently eight regional investigations and we plan to add more in the future to ensure pupils have the opportunity to study their local history and environment. The final lesson exposes learners to the four different perspectives of developers, archaeologists, new home owners and descendant community members, and allows pupils to consider the implications of land use decisions.
We hope that pupils develop understanding of social and cultural differences, and carry this experience with them into the future. The journey continues as Project Archaeology enters its 21st year.
The organisation continues to grow, and in and we will expand the online courses, explore new opportunities with informal science education, and continue to develop our network of educators and archaeologists.
Many countries face the problem of looting and site destruction. These issues are vast and complex, but education has enormous value in confronting them, and instilling respect and understanding of the past in young people can assist in protecting our cultural heritage.
A programme like Project Archaeology that engages pupils in the past can foster the necessary sense of stewardship to help protect our cultural resources, now and in the future.
The exhibition presents several themes exploring the myths, reality and heritage of Alexander BC using art, terracotta figurines, papyrus, tapestry and various multimedia. At just yearsold he succeeded his father and two years later embarked on the great expedition that would assure his fame, taking him to Syria, Egypt, Persia, Bactria and India.
His presence in these regions had a lasting impact on architecture, art, language and culture, and over time they displayed Greek influences in a process that became known as Hellenism. Exploring the myths of Alexander, this part of the exhibition uses images from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries and decorative arts display his heroic deeds and conquests, with paintings by Pietro Antonio Rotari and Sebastiano Ricci, and a tapestry depicting The Family of Darius before Alexander the Great.
Limestone, In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, he played a prominent role in Persian literature in which he is known as Iskander. He is also recognisable in finely-executed miniatures. Bringing Alexander into the present day, photographer Erwin Olaf presents the king through a photographic series and short film, skilfully conveying his character traits and features.
Spanning years, the exhibition reflects the international, timeless appeal of Alexander the Great, depicting his life, legacy and relevance even in modern times, and runs from 18 September, - 18 March, at the Hermitage Amsterdam.
Objects from Egypt and Persia, from the nomads and the Babylonians, show the rich cultures he encountered on his travels, and can be traced by visitors using interactive maps and computers. Here, the exhibition also highlights the Greek influence on those cultures. Terracotta figurines depicting men and women, gods and satyrs, musicians and Eros, and stone fragments of architecture, testify to the artistic wealth that characterised the Hellenistic territories from the fourth century BC to the first few centuries AD.
While many of these works reflect the Greek spirit of cheerfulness and playfulness, the Greeks also took an interest in the atypical, such as disabilities and deformities. Portrait study of a Ptolemaic king Egypt. The collection at the University of East Anglia has captured the imaginations of archaeologists and artists alike, exploring the shape of the human form in miniature. Affectionately known as the Toy Department, the exhibition hopes to push the limits of our understanding of ancient figurines and encourages viewers to think about their personal responses to the human form in miniature.
The oldest expressions of human form are very small, and the making and keeping of small figurines is widely shared by certain human societies. In prehistoric Japan and the Balkans people had begun to explore new ways of identifying themselves, and figurines played an important role in showing how these pioneering villagers may have experienced the world and expressed their place within it.
However, after a century of painstaking archaeological investigation, recording and interpretation, the figurines remain mysterious; some appear distinctly male or female whereas others are less identifiable, and do not look human at all.
However, several theories for their purpose have been proposed. Some archaeologists focus on ritual and spiritual life as an explanation for the figurines, other interpretations suggest functions such as magical items, afterlife accessories, fertility images, votive objects and initiation objects.
The exhibition sits alongside contemporary artworks that invite visitors to understand and appreciate the objects in new ways, providing inspiration for contemporary artists working in a variety of media, from prints and drawings to animation and performance.
The creators of these objects thousands of years ago attempted to convey some meaning through their figurines, and the contemporary works remind us of the spectrum of possibilities they embody. Those featured in unearthed are from central and eastern Japan, from Sannai Maruyama, and the important historical collections from University Museum at the University of Tokyo. The features of their faces are depicted, including eyes, eyebrows, noses and even nostrils mouths, and hair.
Some are shown wearing ornaments, and all have breasts indicating that they represent women. This is the first time that the University Museum, University of Tokyo has allowed any of these important objects to be displayed overseas. Balkans: Farming, accompanied by pottery-making, first entered Europe from its region of origin, the co-called Fertile Crescent of the Near East through Aantolia, modern-day Turkey, and across the Eastern Mediterranean.
These early European farmers lived in villages and made small clay figures. The majority of the figures from this region in unearthed come from Romania, occupied early by farming groups who spread along the Danube and its tributaries. However, there are additional figurines from the Republic of Macedonia and Albania.
The Republic of Macedonia was, until the s part of the former Yugoslavia, and some of the most remarkable clay figures from the entire Balkans come from this small, landlocked country. Most of the Macedonian figures appear to depict women and are often discovered near the hearth, and perhaps the most outstanding form is that of the body of a woman, wearing jewellery and with a splendid coiffure, fused on to the roof of the model of a house.
Over 20 examples of these Great Mother or Magna Mater figures are known. The exhibition includes the newly-discovered Portrait of an Eneolithic Ancestor, excavated at the Shrine of St Atanesie.
Unusually, this figurine was modelled on an the face of an adult male, his ears pierced for earrings made of some organic material. The Albanian figurines have not been shown outside of Albania until now. Under the aegis of the University of East Anglia, a new generation of archaeologists and cultural heritage specialists have been trained and are bringing the treasures of Albanian cultural heritage into the 21st century.
The exhibition will run from 22 June - 29 August The extensive Saxon ramparts and much of the Saxon street pattern still survive, and part of these banks surround a green open space in the heart of the town called the Kinecroft, providing the backdrop for Wallingford Museum. Wallingford is one of only four towns mentioned in Magna Carta in During the 17th century Civil War, Wallingford Castle was a major Royalist stronghold, and almost the last in the country to surrender after it had held out successfully against a week siege by Parliamentary troops.
It was eventually destroyed in but the impressive earthworks still survive and are publicly accessible. The museum opened in Initially the galleries were only on the first floor with an attic store above and a ground floor entrance lobby from a side door. In we. At the same time we became a charitable company. This three-year project is the result of collaboration between the Universities of Leicester, Exeter and Oxford, with practical excavation input and documentary research from TWHAS, and hosted locally by the museum.
After the first season of geophysics and digging in , TWHAS organised a highly-successful conference and the papers given, with additional material, have been published as The Origins of the Borough of Wallingford — Archaeological and Historical Perspectives.
A second successful conference on Medieval Wallingford was organised last year on behalf of the Burh to Borough Project by Wallingford Museum and a third, Wallingford Castle in Context, is planned for October 9, The intention is to dig test pits 1. Each pit is fully excavated and recorded, finds removed and analysed, and provides a comprehensive picture of strata and occupation levels in different parts of the town. Whilst this technique has been used in a village situation, this is the first time it has been tried in an urban context.
To date 30 pits have been excavated and reported. The museum has a vital role to play in the developing picture of the history of Wallingford, but there are future concerns to be addressed. Storage space for the collections has become a critical issue and we have been actively seeking a solution to this growing problem for several years.
The answer lies in the utilisation of the open yard immediately behind Flint House, which is part of our lease. After a couple of false starts, we had a breakthrough in September last year when it was suggested that we build a traditional timber framed structure as a public spectacle on the Kinecroft — a Festival of Traditional Skills — and then crane the completed frames into position behind the nearby Flint House. It was an exciting idea.
A disabled WC and a second, ambulant WC, plus a covered activity area for outdoor events such as Family Archaeology Day, would complete the facilities. See plan below. Apart from the attraction of building in green oak and its environmental attributes, there is a unique benefit to the proposed timber frame. They were also responsible for the construction of the Abingdon School Boathouse and the award-winning Northmoor Trust building at Little Wittenham. Preliminary plans were drawn up by November and presented to our landlords, Wallingford.
We held a private launch in our local hotel and presented the guests with an information pack sponsored by a local printer.
Detailed plans were completed and the planning application submitted in early January Nearly people wrote to the District Council in support of the scheme, urging the planners to give it their permission, which was granted in mid-March. Meanwhile at a public launch in the Town Hall nearly people signed up in support of the scheme and 80 took away forms to sponsor beams in the proposed building.
For children, we are holding a competition for the best decorated peg. Sponsors will have their names carved into the beams by a local woodcarver.
At the same time, local woodland owners were contacted to ask them to donate oak trees to the project. The response was remarkable. We now have all the oak we need, around 70 trees in total, all sourced within a radius of 10 miles of the museum. The tree operation has also been a key educational tool. Children have visited the sites and watched the felling in progress, and will follow through with a replanting scheme we are organising to replace the timber taken out much of which has been removed for thinning or because of dying trees.
We have to date submitted nearly applications to grant-giving bodies but this is where our tight timetable proved to be our temporary undoing. We discovered that many of the Trustees meet only once a year and decisions were being made too late for an August build.
This does at least buy us time to raise more funds and complete the grant applications. If we are unable to use them, we will have to seek a timber-frame contractor, but one who is prepared to build the frame in public view and maintain the community involvement. Meanwhile, raising the funds is the key issue. Public support continues and we are still selling pegs and encouraging sponsorship of beams as well as pursuing grant applications.
Our next big fund-raising event will be on 21 August, , a Mediaeval fair on the Kinecroft. Further events are planned for the future. Despite the delay we are still fully committed to the project, which is crucial for a number of reasons. The volunteer-led scheme has fired imaginations and seems to have become something of a flagship for the community, recognising its key role in the economic viability of its future.
The museum still desperately needs to expand for practical reasons collections, better mobility access, space for larger groups etc. Si Cleggett a. Perhaps this is a reflection of modern capitalism and the loss of individual identity in a life dominated with the relentless pursuit of social advancement.
Paradoxically, physical manifestations of perceived social dominance today may reflect a need to climb out of an individual identity and gain access to a social grouping we aspire to but interpret in different ways. Modern archaeologists are consistently guilty of making the assumption that the acquisition of material goods in the distant past was an accepted vehicle to asserting individual position. Of course, material goods can equally be seen as tools, containers and necessary accoutrements for the perceived journeys into afterlives determined by social and cultural values, but a grave should not exclusively been seen as an opportunity for aggrandisement.
The stresses of weaning, childhood mortality and birth itself would surely have presented something of a lottery to societies, communities and cultures who would had relied upon reproduction for their very survival almost as much as food sources.
This was expanded upon in The Making of the Modern Family by Edward Shorter who claimed that in certain societies mothers viewed the development and happiness of infants with indifference on the basis of high mortality rates. However, historical evidence also points to a deep emtional attachment of people to their children. The loss of a child in the early modern era would be traumatic and emotional but in prehistory it may have had other dimensions.
The transition in funerary practises from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age in Cyprus could arguably be seen as the polar opposite of those recorded in the Kafkalla Plateau. In general terms, the Cypriot Neolithic from B. The communal and often chambered tombs of the British Neolithic from B.
C give way to largely individual burial in the Bronze Age from B. In , I took part in the excavation of an extensive Bronze Age cemetery complex in Deneia, Cyprus. These cemeteries lie to the south of the Ovgos valley and occupy around six hectares of the limestone Kafkalla plateaux. With over a thousand tomb shafts visible across the area, Deneia is the largest known Bronze Age burial ground on the island.
Throughout the twentieth century and even today, archaeologists working in Cyprus have paid little or no attention at all to human remains. I carried out a field assessment of the human remains from a single tomb and established that it contained at least 46 individuals.
This figure vastly outnumbered previously acknowledged Bronze Age tomb populations on the island and it quickly became apparent that a significant proportion of the remains were actually subadult. Of these, 19 were foetal to one year of age, eight were young children years , two were older children years and two were adolescents years. Contrary to popular belief, it seems that the infant and sub-adult skeletons do survive as well as those of adults, and unless excavators recognise human remains for what they are, another century of erroneous and wildly inaccurate publications are inevitable.
So what does all this mean? It means that children were interred within the same burial spaces as adults during the Cypriot Bronze Age from at least B. C to around B. The ability to produce viable offspring must have been fundamental to the very survival of prehistoric communities. The proportion of sub-adults within one small sample of a single tomb that was in use for perhaps over years suggests that the number of sub-adults who survived to adulthood must have been very much higher than believed.
Archaeologists really have little notion of the place of sub-adults within the daily lives of prehistoric communities and yet here at least, in death, there is no major distinction between them and adults. If archaeologists accept the idea that Bronze Age communities in Cyprus had a developed and structured concept of afterlives, it would follow that sub-adults also had a place or a perceived role to play also, hence burial in the same tomb spaces.
Arguably, the ability to produce children amongst the female members of society may have resulted in an elevated status within the community and children may have been viewed as prestige achievements of these women: new members of the community to farm, hunt, produce goods and enrich the fabric of society for the future.
Children were potential assets; pots were for storing and eating. A community that sees a place and a role for children in an afterlife is hardly likely to devalue them during life, and on an island subject to flux, change and cultural influence, the survival and viability of new members would have been vital. For over a century, Bronze Age children have been playing hide and seek with archaeologists who have failed to grasp the concept that an essential part of the game is to search for them.
It really was a once in a lifetime experience to take part in such an important excavation. Prior to this the last excavation on Guernsey of a Neolithic burial-ritual monument was undertaken in at Les Fouillages. The following year a small team came over to search the museum archive and conduct the first ever detailed survey of the monument since its discovery in This initial phase of work led to an archaeological evaluation that included the excavation of six trenches in July this year.
Delancey Park, one of 18 or so free-standing stone late prehistoric burial-ritual monuments, comprises two parallel lines of stone that extend for some nine-and-a-half metres eastwest. Archaeological sites often leave surface traces of what is buried beneath the soil.
In principle working like a table scanner but operated from a plane, laser beams are directed to the ground, while connected to an accurate GPS and an inertia measurement system, generating a point cloud image of the ground surface. One advantage of LIDAR is that it can often see through vegetation, locating sites otherwise obscured by woodland or tropical forests.
Archaeologists have been using drones for a number of years to capture sites from the air. Before that, we used a variety of homemade kites, helium balloons and model planes — filling the gap between aerial photographs and images taken from the top of Landrovers and shaky ladders. Drones can take photographs in low light and in frost and snow conditions when the archaeology can better visualised. One particular application is to mimic LIDAR, by taking overlapping vertical images, and with ground control typically paper plates at fixed points it is possible to generate three-dimensional point cloud imagery, using standard software packages.
Geophysical techniques can help locate targets to investigate. Soil resitivity for example is a measure of how much the soil resists the flow of electricity. It can uncover differences in soil moisture to reveal buried structures and can reliably range up to around 1. However it is slow, as probes have to be inserted into the ground at regular intervals, but it can produce highly detailed results.
This can reflect the pattern of archaeological features created through either burning, or by soil bacteria that can leave magnetic traces in the soil. It is a fast technique, and has proven especially good for desert sites, such as in ancient Egypt. Recently, sensitive magnetometers with multiple sensors, mounted on a cart and linked to GPS, are capable of surveying many hectares in real-time a day and revealing entire landscapes, such as those around Stonehenge.
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Reply as a Guest, or login:. Name required. Mail will not be published required. Excavations at Blue Creek. Photo: Maya Research Program.
Twenty years of archaeology at Blue Creek. Tuesday, March 1, Featured , Projects. Map 1: Location of Blue Creek. Structure 9 in the Late Classic period. Structure 9 in the Early Classic: Ahau masks. Map 2: Blue Creek Precinct. Intact Vessel from Structure 4 Cache. Typical ditched agricultural field systems. Map 3: Plan of Kin Tan. Termination events in Kin Tan group. Yucatecan style shrine, Rosita group. Share this: Email Print Facebook.
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