Remains of up to 100 children were found during a dig at a holy site in Wales

The bodies of 100 children have been discovered in what is believed to be an ancient burial ground.

Archaeologists in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, made the grim discovery.

They had been excavating an area surrounding the mysterious St Saviours, a suspected friary which dates back more than 600 years.

Archaeologists found hundreds of skeletons at the historic site. Experts explained that ‘extraordinarily, one-third of these remains are infants under the age of four.’

A strange puncture wound was even found in one of the skulls excavated, the Western Telegraph reported.

The injury could have been caused by ‘projectile fired’ which could indicate ‘the first suggestion of medieval warfare in the town’.

St Saviours itself was stumbled upon by builders digging foundations for a new bar in Haverfordwest.

Head of the Dyfed Archaeological Trust, Fran Murphy, says financial transactions recorded by a local church indicate the existence of the friary.

There could be around 300 corpses at the ancient burial ground, but the Trust is hesitant on putting an exact finger on the total just yet.

‘We know it’s there because of a series of monastic references, mainly records about money,’ said Miss Murphy.

‘At its height, there were apparently eight friars who were part of the friary before it was dissolved and passed into private hands.

‘It was dissolved in the 1530s with one of the friars scrubbing his name from the list of friars at the priory which is peculiar and might have been a protest to its closing.’

The friary of the Dominican Order is believed to have stood in Haverfordwest for about three centuries.

The Dominicans, or Black Friars, had a different agenda than most monastic orders in that they went amongst the population, preaching, praying and teaching.

DAT Archaeological Services started work at the site known as Ocky Whites in February and is scheduled to be at the site until next January.

The old Ocky Whites building is currently being redeveloped into a three-storey local food and beverage emporium with a bar and rooftop terrace.

Remnants of Ancient Roman Turret Discovered at Hadrian’s Wall in England

Remnants of a turret from Hadrian’s Wall were unearthed by archaeologists during construction work for student accommodations in Ouseburn, near Newcastle, England.

Hadrian’s Wall was a defensive fortification that spanned 73 miles across Roman Britain. Sixteen stone forts were built every 1,000 paces, with 80-mile castles, turrets and 6 supply forts set in between.

Construction along the Stonegate Road route began in 122 CE and took seven years to complete.

The turret is the only known example of its kind found east of Newcastle. Additionally, the team uncovered a walled ditch and six berm obstacle pits. The finds were announced on Wednesday in a press release by Pre-Construct Archaeology.

Turret 3a, as the structure is now known, is roughly 39 feet long, with foundations that run as long as 8 feet wide.

No remnants of clay or flagged floor surface were found within the structure, and the archaeologists said this loss may have resulted from construction or levelling undertaken during the 19th or 20th century.

They did, however, find a single fragment of a tegula, a tile used in roofing by Romans, among the foundations of the northern wall. 

Six shallow pits recorded within the berm, the area between the wall and the wall ditch, would have held cippi, or sharpened branches.

Scott Vance, the site director for the find, said the discovery “has demonstrated that the potential for significant archaeological remains relating to Hadrian’s Wall can survive in the more built-up areas of urban Tyneside.”

The proposed student accommodations will be designed around the turret, which will be preserved.

Neolithic culinary traditions of ancient Brits uncovered

A team of scientists, led by the University of Bristol, has uncovered intriguing new insights into the diet of people living in Neolithic Britain and found evidence that cereals, including wheat, were cooked in pots.

Using chemical analysis of ancient, and incredibly well-preserved pottery found in the waters surrounding small artificial islands called crannogs in Scotland, the team were able to discern that cereals were cooked in pots and mixed with dairy products and occasionally meat, probably to create early forms of gruel and stew. They also discovered that the people visiting these crannogs used smaller pots to cook cereals with milk and larger pots for meat-based dishes.  

The findings are reported today in the journal Nature Communications.

Cereal cultivation in Britain dates back to around 4000 BCE and was probably introduced by migrant farmers from continental Europe. This is evidenced by some, often sparse and sporadic, recovery of preserved cereal grains and other debris found at Neolithic sites.

At this time pottery was also introduced into Britain and there is widespread evidence for domesticated products like milk products in molecular lipid fingerprints extracted from the fabric of these pots. However, with the exception of millet, it has not yet been possible to detect molecular traces of accompanying cereals in these lipid signatures, although these went on to become a major staple that dominates the global subsistence economy today.

Previously published an analysis of Roman pottery from Vindolanda [Hadrian’s Wall] demonstrated that specific lipid markers for cereals can survive absorbed in archaeological pottery preserved in waterlogged conditions and be detectable through a high-sensitivity approach but, importantly this was ‘only’ 2,000 years old and from contexts where cereals were well-known to have been present. The new findings reported now show that cereal biomarkers can be preserved for thousands of years longer under favourable conditions.

Another fascinating element of this research was the fact that many of the pots analysed were intact and decorated which could suggest they may have had some sort of ceremonial purpose. Since the actual function of the crannogs themselves is also not fully understood yet (with some being far too small for permanent occupation) the research provides new insights into possible ways these constructions were used.

During analysis, cereal biomarkers were widely detected (one-third of pots), providing the earliest biomolecular evidence for cereals in absorbed pottery residues in this region.

The findings indicate that wheat was being cooked in pots, despite the fact that the limited evidence from charred plant parts in this region of Atlantic Scotland points mainly to barley. This could be because wheat is under-represented in charred plant remains as it can be prepared differently (e.g., boiled as part of stews), so not as regularly charred or because of more unusual cooking practices.

Cereal markers were strongly associated with lipid residues for dairy products in pots, suggesting they may have been cooked together as a milk-based gruel.

The research was led by Drs Simon Hammann* and Lucy Cramp at the University of Bristol’s Department of Anthropology and Archaeology.

Dr Hammann said: “It’s very exciting to see that cereal biomarkers in pots can actually survive under favourable conditions in samples from the time when cereals (and pottery) were introduced in Britain. Our lipid-based molecular method can complement archaeobotanical methods to investigate the introduction and spread of cereal agriculture.”

Dr Cramp added: “This research gives us a window into the culinary traditions of early farmers living at the northwestern edge of Europe, whose lifeways are little understood. It gives us the first glimpse of the sorts of practices that were associated with these enigmatic islet locations.”

Crannog sites in the Outer Hebrides are currently the focus of the four-year Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded ‘Islands of Stone’ project, directed by two of the paper’s authors (Duncan Garrow from the University of Reading and Fraser Sturt from the University of Southampton) along with Angela Gannon, Historic Environment Scotland.

Professor Garrow said: “This research, undertaken by our colleagues at the University of Bristol, has hugely improved our knowledge of these sites in many exciting ways. We very much look forward to developing this collaborative research going forwards.”

The next stage of the research at the University of Bristol is an exploration of the relationship between these islets and other Neolithic occupation sites in the Hebridean region and beyond as well as a more extensive comparative study of the use of different vessel forms through surviving lipid residues. These questions form part of an ongoing Arts and Humanities Research Council/South-West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership-funded PhD studentship.

* Dr Hammann is now based at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg in Erlangen, Germany.

A couple discover over ₹2 crore gold coins in the kitchen during the renovation

A life-changing event occurred in a UK couple’s life when they decided to renovate their house. According to a report by The Times, a UK-based couple found 264 gold coins under the floor of their kitchen.

The North Yorkshire couple has decided to sell these ancient gold coins, which are worth 250,000 pounds ( ₹2.3 crores).

The collection, which is reportedly more than 400 years old, will be sold through an auction, which is being handled by Spink & Son.

The surprising discovery was made when the couple lifted the floorboard of their 18th-century detached property in the village of Ellerby.

Initially, the couple thought they had hit an electric cable when they lifted the floor. But they found a stash of coins inside a metal, about the same size as a coke can buried just six inches under the concrete.

The couple has been staying in that house for the past 10 years.

When the couple inspected the stash, they found, that the coins were dated from 1610 to 1727, during the reigns of James I and Charles I.

n a separate incident, 86 gold coins were found in Madhya Pradesh’s Dhar district in August this year. Eight labourers allegedly stole 86 gold coins worth about ₹60 lakh found by them during the demolition of an old house in Madhya Pradesh.

The labourers then distributed the ‘ginnis’ (gold coins), which may be of archaeological importance, among themselves without informing local police following which they were arrested, Additional Superintendent of Police Devendra Patidar said.

He said the labourers found the coins while removing the debris of an old house a few days back. Following a tip-off, the police came to know that the eight labourers distributed the coins among themselves, he said.

The police arrested these labourers and seized 86 coins collectively weighing around one kilogram.

The price of those coins is about ₹60 lakh, but it may go up to ₹one crore after ascertaining their archaeological significance.

Ancient roman sarcophagus found at London building site

An ancient Roman sarcophagus has been excavated from a building site in central London. The 1,600-year-old coffin found near Borough Market is thought to contain the remains of a member of the nobility.

Archaeologists have been unable to identify the body as the stone coffin has been left filled with soil after being robbed, experts believe.

The sarcophagus will now be taken to the Museum of London’s archive for analysis. The coffin was found several metres underground with its lid slid open, which indicates it was plundered by 18th-century thieves.

Gillian King, senior planner for archaeology at Southwark Council, said she hoped the grave robbers “have left the things that were of small value to them but great value to us as archaeologists”.

The grave owner must have been “very wealthy and have had a lot of social statuses to be honoured with not just a sarcophagus, but one that was built into the walls of a mausoleum” Ms King said.

She added: “We always knew this site had the potential for a Roman cemetery, but we never knew there would be a sarcophagus.”

The coffin was found on Swan Street last month after the council told developers building new flats on the site to fund an archaeological dig.

Researchers discovered the coffin six months into the dig as they were due to finish their search.

Experts at the Museum of London will now test and date the bones and soil inside.

Anglo-Saxon Trade Hub Found at Monastery Site in England

Archaeologists have unearthed a long-forgotten trading hub that researchers say would have enjoyed comparable status to London in the Middle Ages.

The find on the banks of the Thames in Cookham, Berkshire, has been hailed as “a once in a generation discovery” by the University of Reading.

It includes infrastructure that suggested the area was used extensively for importing and exporting goods.

The university said the site was abandoned in the late 9th Century.

Archaeologists began work on the land next to the Holy Trinity Church after evidence pointed to it being the site of a “lost” 8th Century monastery.

The excavation team said what it went on to find “ranks alongside the most extensively preserved early medieval monastic sites ever investigated in Britain”.

They found evidence of a waterside loading area, workshops for industrial activities like metalworking, and bread ovens to feed the local population.

The university said the area “could have enjoyed similarly important status as a trade and production centre to larger towns like London and Southampton”.

Gabor Thomas, the excavation’s lead archaeologist, said: “This is a once-in-a-generation archaeological discovery.

“We have not just rediscovered the location of this monastery but shown that it’s in a remarkable state of preservation.

“We have uncovered a densely occupied riverside trading and production zone, complete with streets and loading areas.

“This level of infrastructure and planning is surprising and compares with larger trading and production sites known as ‘wics’ that were the only towns of the period.”

He said Cookham’s population would have been considerably smaller than London but similarities in the way the monastery was organised reflected “its importance as a place of trade and production on the River Thames”.

“The discoveries at Cookham will enable us to build a detailed picture of daily life within a monastery of this period, including Cookham’s role as an economic hub for the Middle Thames region,” he added.

The monastery is believed to have thrived in the 8th and early 9th centuries, reaching its peak under the control of powerful Anglo-Saxon queen Cynethryth.

Cynethryth was the only Anglo-Saxon queen known to have been depicted on a coin and had been married to King Offa, who ruled one of the era’s main kingdoms, Mercia, until his death in 796 AD.

Possible Medieval Pub Found in Northern England

Archaeologists excavating a site in East Yorkshire say they may have stumbled on a medieval alehouse. Volunteers have spent the past three weeks searching for the remains of a village at High Hunsley, near Beverley.

Assistant site director Emma Samuel said a large number of pottery beakers and jugs had been unearthed, suggesting a pub may once have served the village.

Also found were sheep and cattle bones, giving rise to an alternative theory there was a hostelry, said Ms Samuel.

She said: “From their design, we know the beakers date back to about the 13th Century. The site could well have been a pub or some kind of large house, perhaps even a hostelry.

“The bones, belonging to sheep and cows, were carefully butchered. Perhaps people gathered here to eat? There may well have been a hostelry here.”

Ms Samuel said in medieval times it was dangerous to travel at night, so people on the move would seek out a place to stay.

“People would stop and rest,” he said. “It was a myth that everyone owned horses back then. They didn’t. Horses were expensive. People would often walk. People had to stay overnight somewhere when making long journeys.”

The three-week “community dig” led by Humber Timelines and Ethos Heritage CIC also unearthed a knife, chisels and jewellery from between the 7th and 13th Centuries, including a clasp used to fasten a shirt, a hair pin and a copper brooch, thought to be of Celtic origin.

Prior to the dig, geophysical surveys of the site revealed more than a dozen stone structures, as well as a larger building, which may have been the pub or hostelry, the team believes.

Ms Samuel, a director at Ethos Heritage CIC, said she suspected the settlement probably had its origins rooted in the 7th Century, or even earlier, although further work was required to confirm this.

Teams plan to return to the site next year to resume excavations.

Study Investigates Rate of Parasite Infections in a Medieval City

Research examining traces of parasites in the remains of medieval Cambridge residents suggests that local friars were almost twice as likely as ordinary working townspeople to have intestinal worms – despite monasteries of the period having far more sanitary facilities.  

One possibility is that the friars manured their vegetable gardens with human faeces

Piers Mitchell

A new analysis of remains from medieval Cambridge shows that local Augustinian friars were almost twice as likely as the city’s general population to be infected by intestinal parasites.

This is despite most Augustinian monasteries of the period having latrine blocks and hand-washing facilities, unlike the houses of ordinary working people.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge’s Department of Archaeology say the difference in parasitic infection may be down to monks manuring crops in friary gardens with their own faeces, or purchasing fertiliser containing human or pig excrement.

The study, published today in the International Journal of Paleopathology, is the first to compare parasite prevalence in people from the same medieval community who were living different lifestyles, and so might have differed in their infection risk. 

The population of medieval Cambridge consisted of residents of monasteries, friaries and nunneries of various major Christian orders, along with merchants, traders, craftsmen, labourers, farmers, and staff and students at the early university.

Cambridge archaeologists investigated samples of soil taken from around the pelvises of adult remains from the former cemetery of All Saints by the Castle parish church, as well as from the grounds where the city’s Augustinian Friary once stood.

Most of the parish church burials date from the 12-14th century, and those interred within were primarily of lower socioeconomic status, mainly agricultural workers.

The Augustinian friary in Cambridge was an international study house, known as a studium generale, where clergy from across Britain and Europe would come to read manuscripts. It was founded in the 1280s and lasted until 1538 before suffering the fate of most English monasteries: closed or destroyed as part of Henry VIII’s break with the Roman Church.  

The researchers tested 19 monks from the friary grounds and 25 locals from All Saints cemetery and found that 11 of the friars (58%) were infected by worms, compared with just eight of the general townspeople (32%).

They say these rates are likely the minimum, and that actual numbers of infections would have been higher, but some traces of worm eggs in the pelvic sediment would have been destroyed over time by fungi and insects. 

The 32% prevalence of parasites among townspeople is in line with studies of medieval burials in other European countries, suggesting this is not particularly low – but rather the infection rates in the monastery were remarkably high.

“The friars of medieval Cambridge appear to have been riddled with parasites,” said study lead author Dr Piers Mitchell from Cambridge’s Department of Archaeology. “This is the first time anyone has attempted to work out how common parasites were in people following different lifestyles in the same medieval town.”

Cambridge researcher Tianyi Wang, who did the microscopy to spot the parasite eggs, said: “Roundworm was the most common infection, but we found evidence for whipworm infection as well. These are both spread by poor sanitation.”

Standard sanitation in medieval towns relied on the cesspit toilet: holes in the ground used for faeces and household waste. In monasteries, however, running water systems were a common feature – including rinsing out the latrine – although that has yet to be confirmed at the Cambridge site, which is only partly excavated. 

Not all people buried in Augustinian friaries were actually clergy, as wealthy people from the town could pay to be interred there. However, the team could tell which graves belonged to friars from the remains of their clothing.

“The friars were buried wearing the belts they wore as standard clothing of the order, and we could see the metal buckles at excavation,” said Craig Cessford of the Cambridge Archaeological Unit.

As roundworm and whipworm are spread by poor sanitation, researchers argue that the difference in infection rates between the friars and the general population must have been due to how each group dealt with their human waste.

“One possibility is that the friars manured their vegetable gardens with human faeces, not unusual in the medieval period, and this may have led to repeated infection with the worms,” said Mitchell.

Medieval records reveal how Cambridge residents may have understood parasites such as roundworm and whipworm. John Stockton, a medical practitioner in Cambridge who died in 1361, left a manuscript to Peterhouse college that included a section on De Lumbricis (‘on worms’).

It notes that intestinal worms are generated by an excess of various kinds of mucus: “Long roundworms form from an excess of salt phlegm, short roundworms from sour phlegm, while short and broad worms came from natural or sweet phlegm.”

The text prescribes “bitter medicinal plants” such as aloe and wormwood, but recommends they are disguised with “honey or other sweet things” to help the medicine go down.

Another text – Tabula medicine – found favour with leading Cambridge doctors of the 15th century, and suggests remedies as recommended by individual Franciscan monks, such as Symon Welles, who advocated mixing a powder made from moles into a curative drink.

Overall, those buried in medieval England’s monasteries had lived longer than those in parish cemeteries, according to previous research, perhaps due to a more nourishing diet, and a luxury of wealth.