‘Stunning’ Anglo-Saxon burial site found along HS2 route

An Anglo-Saxon burial site containing the remains of more than 140 people interred with some of their most favoured objects, including jewellery, knives and even a personal grooming kit, has been discovered by archaeologists working on the HS2 route.

The site, near Wendover, Buckinghamshire, contained a “stunning set of discoveries”, said the historian Dan Snow. “Traditionally, this period has been dismissed as a dark age. But archaeology has filled the gaps.”

The findings would “tell us more about how our predecessors lived, fought and ultimately died”, he said. “It is one of the best and most revealing post-Roman sites in the country.”

One skeleton, a male aged between 17 and 24 at the time of death, was found with a sharp iron object embedded in his vertebrae, suggesting he suffered a violent death.

Osteologists who have examined the skeleton believe a weapon was thrust into his body from the front before embedding it in his spine.

A vivid blue stain on his collarbone came from a brooch used to hold up garments. Many of the site’s skeletons were found with two collarbone brooches keeping cloaks or peplos – long outer robes worn by women – in place.

One female skeleton was found with a vast array of goods, including a complete ornate pale green glass bowl thought to be made around the turn of the fifth century, indicating she was a person of high status. Other items found with her remains included rings, brooches, iron belt fittings and ivory objects.

The site contained 138 graves with 141 inhumation burials and five cremation burials, making it one of the largest Anglo-Saxon burial grounds uncovered in Britain. More than 2,000 beads were unearthed, along with 89 brooches, 40 buckles, 51 knives, 15 spearheads and seven shield bosses.

Dr Rachel Wood, the lead archaeologist for Fusion JV, the company that carried out the fieldwork, said it was a “once in a lifetime discovery”.

“It’s rare to discover Anglo-Saxon cemeteries, especially with this many individuals – men, women and children – and an amazing range of grave goods.

Almost all the individuals were buried with fantastically decorated brooches, but we’ve also found the glass and amber beads, swords, shield bosses, spearheads, fantastically decorated pottery jewellery – quite a lot of unique objects.

“The fifth and sixth centuries are not ones we know a lot about, and all the objects we found will be able to tell us a lot about these people. It gives us a great snapshot of society.”

Most of the individuals appear to have been relatively wealthy, able to import some of the items from across Europe. Two glass cone beakers that were uncovered intact would have been used to drink wine brought to England from abroad. The beakers are similar to ones that were made in northern France, although some were also made in England at the time.

The discoveries include personal grooming items, such as ear wax removers, toothpicks, tweezers, combs and a tube that may have contained a cosmetic such as eyeliner.

A team of 30 archaeologists worked on the site for almost a year, completing fieldwork in 2021. As well as the Anglo-Saxon burial ground, evidence of Neolithic, bronze age, iron age and Roman activity was discovered.

The HS2 route has proven rich in archaeological finds. More than 1,000 archaeologists have worked on 60 separate sites between London and the West Midlands over the past three years.

Objects that have been unearthed will be preserved and many will eventually be displayed in museums. But larger finds will be bulldozed to make way for the new rail line.

‘Rare and significant’ brooch found at site linked to KING ARTHUR

Archaeologists stumbled across the “rare and significant” piece of jewellery and hailed it as the first evidence that the area was home to the rich and powerful during the time. The Romano-British brooch was discovered in a field at St Mabyn, Cornwall, less than a mile from Castle Killibury hill fort, previously identified as the origin of Arthur’s Camelot.

The discovery has now raised the prospect that the brooch might once have belonged to his queen, Guinevere.

The hill fort is today known as Castle Killibury and has not previously yielded much interest after being ploughed for centuries.

The brooch was found in a meadow known as Chapelfield, where developers are now seeking planning permission to build 14 houses.

The piece of jewellery is made of a copper alloy and archaeologists think it dates from the 5th or 6th century – around the time a real King Arthur might have lived.

Although many sites claim to be associated with Arthur, what makes the Castle Killibury hill fort of potential significance is that the connection was first suggested by Welsh writers. 

Usually, claims are made to serve more parochial interests.

Romano-British copper alloy brooches signify that the people who lived here had some importance

The artefact is currently undergoing recording and conservation at the Royal Cornwall Museum.

The owners of the brooch, who also own the field where it was found, live in Malaysia.

But the publicly-available archaeological report attached to Cornwall Council’s planning documents says: “The brooch is a rare and significant find, suggestive of a reasonably ‘well-healed’ Romano-British farmstead settlement.”

The archaeologists were surprised by the discovery, as they had been expecting only medieval finds.

Some Arthurian scholars claim that the 11th-century Welsh tale of Culhwch and Olwen – thought to be the very first literary reference to a legendary King Arthur – placed his headquarters at “Celliwig in Cornwall”.

They suggest that the similarity of the name, and the fact that it is a hill fort from the right period in history, place the site at Castle Killibury. 

Other scholars dispute this and say the Culhwch and Olwen story places Arthur’s headquarters in Wales.

The St Mabyn brooch was found in May and is described in a report written last month. 

It comes just weeks after archaeologists, commissioned by English Heritage found evidence of an important Romano-British castle at Tintagel, long celebrated by poets as King Arthur’s birthplace.

The “Pompeii” Of Bronze Age Houses Was Just Uncovered In Britain

In the marshy fens of Cambridgeshire, archaeologists have uncovered what is being described as the “best-preserved Bronze Age dwellings ever found” in Britain.

The incredible find provides a snapshot into the everyday life of those living in the marshes around 3,000 years ago. Following a fire, the circular houses and their contents collapsed into an underlying river and became enveloped in a thick layer of silt, perfectly frozen in time. 

The houses show an astonishing level of preservation. Not only have the posts that supported the floors and beams of the roof survived in situ but an array of objects from everyday life have also been spectacularly preserved.

From textiles and tools to cooking pots that still contain their last meal, the incredible conditions have led some to compare it to a Bronze Age Pompeii.

The extent of domestic objects found sandwiched between the roof and the floor when the house collapsed is unprecedented from any British site.

“It feels almost rude to be intruding,” explained Mark Knight, director of the site that is being excavated by the Cambridge Archaeological Unit, to The Guardian.

“It doesn’t feel like archaeology anymore, it feels like somebody’s house has burned down and we’re going in and picking over their goods.” These goods were not just everyday objects either, many were precious and expensive at the time.

A bronze sickle has been found, for example, as have glass beads that may once have formed a necklace.

The dwellings were originally discovered in 1999 when a series of poles were noticed sticking out of the edge of the fen. But it wasn’t until 2006 when extensive excavations revealed the true extent of what had been preserved in the waterlogged ground, that the significance of the site really became apparent.

The settlement was built on a series of poles sunk deep into the river channel over which they sat. At the time they were standing, the region would have been a watery network of rivers winding their way through the marshes before emptying out into the Northern Sea.

And yet despite residing in the marshes, it seems that the people were not living off them. The researchers were surprised to find that they were not eating fish, eels or clams, nor were they using reeds to make things with. Instead, it seems they were eating domestic animals such as pigs and sheep.

The spine of a cow was even found in one of the smaller buildings, leaving some to suggest that the meat may have been left to hang before the fire destroyed everything.

Considering the closest dry land where grazing could have occurred at the time was around half a kilometre (0.3 miles) away, this completely changes how archaeologists thought Bronze Age people utilized the landscape and resources surrounding them.  

This could imply that the location of the settlement had less to do with food, and more to do with control.

During this time, the rivers would have been the main transport links, so perhaps by controlling these, the inhabitants could have gained wealth, power, and status, an idea supported by the variety of food found buried in the buildings.  

17th-Century British Shipwreck Found in International Waters

The discovery of a shipwrecked warship that sank while carrying a future king has been hailed as the most important maritime find since the Mary Rose. The Gloucester ran aground off the coast of Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, in 1682, nearly killing the Duke of York, who became King James II of England.

The find, which was discovered by divers in 2007, has only just been revealed due to security reasons. Maritime expert Prof Claire Jowitt said it was of “international importance”.

The Gloucester’s exact whereabouts were a mystery until it was discovered 15 years ago half-buried in the seabed 28 miles (45km) out to sea, having sunk while navigating treacherous sandbank. The disaster, in which hundreds of passengers and crew died, threatened to change the course of history. However, the then Duke of York fled the sinking ship with moments to spare and went on to become the Catholic heir to the Protestant throne in an era marked by religious and political unrest.

Prof Jowitt, an authority on maritime cultural history and based at Norwich’s University of East Anglia (UEA), said: “Because of the circumstances of its sinking, this can be claimed as the single most significant historic maritime discovery since the raising of the Mary Rose in 1982.

“The discovery promises to fundamentally change understanding of 17th Century social, maritime and political history.

“It is an outstanding example of the underwater cultural heritage of national and international importance… the full story of the Gloucester’s last voyage and the impact of its aftermath needs re-telling.”

Norfolk-based printer brothers Julian and Lincoln Barnwell, together with their late father, friend James Little and another unnamed friend, spent four years on diving expeditions to find the Gloucester’s watery grave. Lincoln said he was inspired by memories of the Mary Rose’s lifting, but the team was feeling defeated when he eventually spotted a large cannon on the seabed.

Listen: The Norfolk men who found HMS Gloucester

“It was awe-inspiring and really beautiful,” he said.

“It instantly felt like a privilege to be there, it was so exciting.

“We were the only people in the world at that moment in time who knew where the wreck lay – that was special and I’ll never forget it.”

His brother Julian said they initially had no idea how historically significant the Gloucester was.

“We had read the Duke of York was on board but that was it,” he said.

“We were confident it was the Gloucester, but there are other wreck sites out there with cannons, so it still needed to be confirmed.

“There is still a huge amount of knowledge to be gained from the wreck, which will benefit Norfolk and the nation.”

Although the team discovered the 340-year-old shipwreck in 2007, it was not until the ship’s bell was recovered in 2012 that the Receiver of Wreck and Ministry of Defence decisively identified it. Since then the “at-risk” site – in international waters – has had to be protected, which is why the discovery is only now being made public and its exact location undisclosed.

• Images reveal erosion of ‘at risk’ 1665 shipwreck
• Aerial photographs show a 125-year-old shipwreck
• Indiana Jones fans may have found the largest coin hoard

A major exhibition is being planned to run from February to July 2023 at Norwich Castle Museum. An accompanying research project will also examine the circumstances of the tragedy and conspiracy theories.

While the Gloucester was not a slave-trading ship, many people from diverse cultural backgrounds lost their lives and historians will make sure their stories are told, the UEA said.

What was The Gloucester and what is left of it?

Launched in 1654 with 54 guns and 280 crew, The Gloucester is the only surviving third-rate Cromwellian warship. It took part in multiple battles and became part of the Royal Navy fleet after 1660, when King Charles II was restored to the throne. The shipwreck is split down the keel, with remains of the hull submerged in sand, and it is not known how much of it is intact. There are no plans to raise any part of it.

As well as the ship’s bell, divers have found clothes, shoes, navigational equipment, personal possessions and unopened wine bottles. One of the wine bottles bears a glass seal with the coat of arms of the Legge family – ancestors of George Washington, the first US President. No human remains have been found so far – only animal bones.

Did the future King save dogs and priests over crew?

The Gloucester had set sail from Portsmouth to Edinburgh to allow the Duke of York to conduct royal business at the Scottish Parliament. It struck a sandbank during a strong gale 28 miles (45km) off Great Yarmouth on the morning of 6 May 1682 and sank within an hour. The Duke of York and John Churchill, the future Duke of Marlborough, were rescued in the ship’s boat. While some of the estimated 330 people on board were rescued by boats from the fleet, it is believed between 130 and 250 sailors and passengers perished.

Witnesses claimed the future King saved Catholic priests and his dogs over courtiers and crew, and, given that a royal had to leave a ship first, caused countless deaths by delaying his escape. He accepted no responsibility for the tragedy – despite arguing over the ship’s course, as former Lord High Admiral – and blamed the pilot, who was later imprisoned. The diarist Samuel Pepys, who was travelling in the royal fleet, wrote that some survivors and victims were plucked “half dead” from the sea.

What would’ve happened if the Duke of York had died?

The Duke of York went on to become King James II of England and Ireland (and King James VII of Scotland) in 1685, on his brother’s death. Had he drowned in 1682, King Charles II’s illegitimate son, James Scott, the Duke of Monmouth, might well have inherited the throne. The reign of King James II – a Catholic – was marked by political and religious turmoil and he was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Some of those who took part had taken a dim view of the Duke over his actions on The Gloucester.

The revolution created a new type of state, contributed greatly to the modern world and might not have happened had he died at sea, the UEA said. Alternatively, civil war might have ensued between those who supported the Duke of Monmouth against the claims of the Duke of York’s legitimate daughter, Mary and her Dutch husband, William of Orange, it added.

Remains of Thousands of Iron Age Frogs Uncovered in England

An unprecedented trove of 8,000 bones presents archaeologists at a road dig with a prehistoric mystery

Archaeologists working near the site of an iron age home near Cambridge were perplexed when they uncovered a vast trove of frog skeletons. Quite why more than 8,000 bones had been piled up and preserved is a prehistoric mystery.

They were all recovered from a single 14-metre-long ditch, right next to the site of an iron age roundhouse at Bar Hill, where there was a settlement during the middle and late iron age (400BC-AD43).

The discovery was made by the Museum of London Archaeology (Mola) Headland Infrastructure, conducting excavations as part of the National Highways A14 Cambridge to Huntingdon road improvement scheme.

Although it is not unusual to find frog bones at ancient sites, archaeologists are baffled by the sheer quantity of those unearthed at Bar Hill.

Dr Vicki Ewens, Mola’s senior archaeozoologist – a specialist in ancient animal bone – told the Observer: “In my experience, mainly working on sites from London, we don’t get that many frogs. To have so many bones coming from one ditch is extraordinary.”

Noting that these bones belong primarily to the common frog and common toad, species found in garden ponds across the country, she said: “We’ve also had possible evidence of pool frog, which is exciting… It’s not something that we usually find archaeologically.

“In my research, I’ve only found two Saxon sites with single bones on each. They’re a frog that was only found in East Anglia that died out in the 1990s, possibly due to habitat loss, but has recently been reintroduced.”

As this is prehistory, finding an explanation is difficult, although ancient civilisations – including the Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Greeks and Romans – all saw the frog as a symbol of fertility, among other associations.

It is unlikely that these amphibians had been eaten by the people living at the settlement. The archaeologists say that, while there is evidence of amphibian consumption in Britain dating to the stone age, these bones have no cuts or burn marks. If the frogs had been boiled, however, this may not have left traces.

Evidence of charred grain found near the site suggests that its inhabitants were processing crops that would attract pests such as beetles and aphids, which frogs are known to eat. So perhaps the frogs were drawn to the area by the promise of food, the archaeologists suggest.

Other potential explanations include “a prehistoric frog tragedy”. The archaeologists say that frogs are known to move in large numbers in spring in search of breeding waters and these could have fallen into the ditch and become trapped.

According to one hypothesis, the unusual death toll might also have been caused by winter hardship. While hibernating frogs sometimes hide in the mud, extreme cold can kill them and perhaps they fell victim to a particularly severe winter.

Alternatively, they may have suffered disease, just as in the 1980s, when UK frogs were devastated by a ranavirus.

It is unclear how deep the ditch was. The field team dug through about a metre of topsoil and subsoil to reach it. Only small quantities of domestic waste were found at the site, including sherds of iron-age pottery.

The amphibian bones were among a huge number of finds, from artefacts to human remains, during around 40 excavations that took place between 2016 and 2018 across an area spanning 234 hectares. Analyses are still ongoing, even though excavations have now concluded.

Ewens has spent the past two years studying the bones of animals, including cattle. Once all the studies come together, it is hoped they will shed new light on lives led thousands of years ago and discover the reason behind the death of so many amphibians.

Europe’s ‘largest ever’ land dinosaur was found on the Isle of Wight

Remains of Europe’s largest-ever land-based predator dinosaurs have been discovered on the Isle of Wight, scientists say.

Palaeontologists at the University of Southampton identified the remains, which measured more than 32ft (10m) long and lived 125 million years ago.

The prehistoric bones belonged to a two-legged, crocodile-faced, predatory spinosaurid dinosaur.

PhD student Chris Barker, who led the research, said it was a “huge animal”.

The remains, which include pelvic and tail vertebrae, were discovered on the south-west coast of the Isle of Wight.

The carnivore has been dubbed the “white rock spinosaurid”, after the geological layer in which the remains were found.

“This was a huge animal, exceeding 10m in length and probably several tonnes in weight,” Mr Barker said.

“Judging from some of the dimensions, it appears to represent one of the largest predatory dinosaurs ever found in Europe – maybe even the biggest yet known.”

It would have lived at the beginning of a period of rising sea levels and would have stalked lagoonal waters and sandflats in search of food.

Co-author of the research, Darren Naish, said: “Because it’s only known from fragments at the moment, we haven’t given it a formal scientific name. We hope that additional remains will turn up in time.”

Most of the fossils were found by Isle of Wight dinosaur hunter Nick Chase, who died just before the Covid pandemic.

Jeremy Lockwood, another co-author of the study and a PhD student at the University of Portsmouth and Natural History Museum, said: “I was searching for remains of this dinosaur with Nick and found a lump of the pelvis with tunnels bored into it – each about the size of my index finger.

“We think they were caused by bone-eating larvae of a type of scavenging beetle. It’s an interesting thought that this giant killer wound up becoming a meal for a host of insects.”

The discovery follows previous work on spinosaurids by the University of Southampton team, which published a study on the discovery of two new species in 2021.

Metal detectorist unearths 2,000-year-old penis pendant

A metal detectorist recently discovered a silver, penis-shaped pendant in Kent, England that was likely worn around the neck to protect a person from misfortune around 1,800 years ago. 

Ancient Roman writers such as Marcus Terentius Varro (lived 116 B.C. to 27 B.C.) and Pliny the Elder (A.D. 23 to 79) mention how the phallus and representations of it are thought to have had the power to protect a person from evil.

Many depictions of the phallus have been found throughout the Roman Empire and scholars often believe that they were created to avoid bad luck. 

The pendant (also called an amulet) is about 1.2 inches (3.1 centimetres) long, with a tiny ring at the top for a string (necklace) to go through. It dates back to a time when the Romans controlled England, between A.D. 42 and 410. 

While such amulets in the shape of a penis were frequently seen throughout Roman Britain, they are typically made of copper-alloy rather than silver like the one from Kent, Lori Rogerson, a finds liaison officer with the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS), wrote in a report(opens in new tab) on the artefact. 

“Being a higher-quality metal than copper-alloy, silver may have been thought to strengthen the phallus’ protective abilities,” Rogerson told Live Science in an email.

“We know that children were protected by these apotropaic [having the power to stop evil] devices, and the archaeological evidence suggests their use in Britain was very popular within the Roman army.”

Roman men, women, children and even animals wore pendants like this, in an effort to ward off the so-called evil eye, said Cyril Dumas, a scholar at Musée Yves Brayer who has researched and written about these artefacts. “This amulet is against the effects of ‘the evil eye,’ a personification of bad luck,” Dumas told Live Science in an email.

As for the choice of metal, perhaps the person who commissioned or bought the piece of jewellery had enough money for a higher-quality metal.

“The choice of silver as a material can be for many reasons, one of which is simply because the wearer could afford it and the pendant then also becomes an object of display,” Rob Collins a project manager and research coordinator at Newcastle University’s School of History, Classics and Archaeology, told Live Science in an email.

“However, I suspect that silver also has magical properties or affiliations associated with it as a material,” added Collins, who has studied and written about artefacts like this one.

Metal detectorist Wendy Thompson found the amulet on Dec. 31, 2020, and she reported her to find to the Portable Antiquities Scheme, a program run by the British Museum and National Museum Wales that tracks finds made by metal detectorists.

The artefact is now going through the treasure process required by U.K. law, which may result in it entering a museum collection in Britain.

Newly Identified Inscription Names Ancient Greek Students

Experts in the UK have discovered that an ancient Greek marble slab which had spent more than a century in storage is inscribed with the names of graduates of the Ephebic College, an elite military academy that prepared young Athenian men for adulthood, British broadcaster ITV reported on Thursday.

“On seeing it we realized that this was not a copy of an already known inscription, but it was a completely unique new discovery which had been in the storerooms of the [National Museum of Scotland] for a very long time, since the 1880s, and it listed a group of young men who called themselves co-ephebes or co-cadets and friends,” Dr Peter Liddel, a professor of Greek history and epigraphy at the University of Manchester, told ITV.

“It turned out to be a list of the cadets for one particular year during the period 41-54 AD, the reign of Claudius, and it gives us new names, names we’d never come across before in ancient Greek, and it also gives us among the earliest evidence for non-citizens taking part in the ephebate in this period,” added Liddel, who led the team that made the discovery.

Similar to a “graduate school yearbook,” the marble slab would probably have been displayed in the college and was intended to “create a sense of camaraderie and comradeship among this group of people who had been through a rigorous training program together and felt like they were part of a cohort,” Liddel told ITV.

Containing the names of 31 young men who made it through the rite of passage, the marble slab dates to the first century AD and is believed to offer valuable insight into Athenian society at the time.