Prehistoric “Poop” Found At Stonehenge Gives Insight Into Ancient Humans

A study of ancient faeces uncovered at a settlement thought to have housed builders of the famous stone monument suggests that parasites got consumed via badly-cooked cow offal during epic winter feasts.

A new analysis of ancient faeces found at the site of a prehistoric village near Stonehenge has uncovered evidence of the eggs of parasitic worms, suggesting the inhabitants feasted on the internal organs of cattle and fed leftovers to their dogs.

Durrington Walls was a Neolithic settlement situated just 2.8km from Stonehenge, dating from around 2500 BC when much of the famous stone monument was constructed. It is believed that the site housed the people who built Stonehenge.   

A team of archaeologists led by the University of Cambridge investigated nineteen pieces of ancient faeces, or ‘coprolite’, found at Durrington Walls and preserved for over 4,500 years. Five of the coprolites (26%) – one human and four dogs – were found to contain the eggs of parasitic worms.

Researchers say it is the earliest evidence for intestinal parasites in the UK where the host species that produced the faeces has also been identified. The findings are published today in the journal Parasitology.  

“This is the first time intestinal parasites have been recovered from Neolithic Britain, and to find them in the environment of Stonehenge is really something,” said study lead author Dr Piers Mitchell from Cambridge’s Department of Archaeology.

“The type of parasites we find are compatible with previous evidence for winter feasting on animals during the building of Stonehenge,” he said.

Four of the coprolites, including the human one, contained the eggs of capillariid worms, identified in part by their lemon shape. While the many types of capillariid around the world infect a wide range of animals, on the rare occasion that a European species infects humans the eggs get lodged in the liver and don’t appear in the stool.

The evidence of capillariid eggs in human faeces indicates that the person had eaten the raw or undercooked lungs or liver from an already infected animal, resulting in the parasite’s eggs passing straight through the body.

During excavations of the main ‘midden’ – or dung and refuse heap – at Durrington Walls, archaeologists uncovered pottery and stone tools along with over 38,000 animal bones. Some 90% of the bones were from pigs, with less than 10% from cows. This is also where the partially mineralised faeces used in the study were found.   

“As capillariid worms can infect cattle and other ruminants, it seems that cows may have been the most likely source of the parasite eggs,” said Mitchell.

Previous isotopic analyses of cow teeth from Durrington Walls suggest that some cattle were herded almost 100km from Devon or Wales to the site for large-scale feasting. Patterns of butchery previously identified on cattle bones from the site suggest beef was primarily chopped for stewing, and bone marrow was extracted.

“Finding the eggs of capillariid worms in both human and dog coprolites indicates that the people had been eating the internal organs of infected animals, and also fed the leftovers to their dogs,” said co-author Dr Evilena Anastasiou, who assisted with the research while at Cambridge.

To determine whether the coprolites excavated from the midden were from human or animal faeces, they were analysed for sterols and bile acids at the National Environment Isotope Facility at the University of Bristol.

One of the coprolites belonging to a dog contained the eggs of fish tapeworm, indicating it had previously eaten raw freshwater fish to become infected. However, no other evidence of fish consumption, such as bones, has been found at the site.

“Durrington Walls was occupied on a largely seasonal basis, mainly in winter periods. The dog probably arrived already infected with the parasite,” said Mitchell.

“Isotopic studies of cow bones at the site suggests they came from regions across southern Britain, which was likely also true of the people who lived and worked there”

 Dr Piers Mitchell

The dates for Durrington Walls match those for stage two of the construction of Stonehenge, when the world-famous ‘trilithons’ – two massive vertical stones supporting a third horizontal stone – were erected, most likely by the seasonal residents of this nearby settlement.

While Durrington Walls was a place of feasting and habitation, as evidenced by the pottery and a vast number of animal bones, Stonehenge itself was not, with little found to suggest people lived or ate there en masse.

Prof Mike Parker Pearson from UCL’s Institute of Archaeology, who excavated Durrington Walls between 2005 and 2007, added: “This new evidence tells us something new about the people who came here for winter feasts during the construction of Stonehenge.”

“Pork and beef were spit-roasted or boiled in clay pots but it looks as if the offal wasn’t always so well cooked. The population weren’t eating freshwater fish at Durrington Walls, so they must have picked up the tapeworms at their home settlements.”

Incredibly Well-Preserved 1,000-Year-Old Wooden Ladder Discovered In The UK

Archaeologists in the UK have made many fascinating discoveries while excavating at a site known as Field 44 near the village of Tempsford in Central Bedfordshire.

Some weeks ago, archaeologists working in the area announced the remains of a Roman malting oven that could be the earliest physical evidence for beer-making in the UK, dating back more than 2,000 years to the Iron Age. Evidence of early Iron Age porridge and bread-making has also been uncovered.

In recent days MOLA archaeologists have unearthed an incredibly, well-preserved 1,000-year-old wooden ladder.

According to the MOLA scientists, the ladder was found in a well, where water and mud preserved the wood for 1,000s of years! Preliminary reports state the ladder comes from a cluster of watering holes dated to the Middle Iron Age (c.300-100 BC).

In the vicinity archaeologists also found Roman artefacts and evidence of an ancient farm that has offered an incredible glimpse through time to see how life has changed over the last 6,000 years.

The farm’s story spans a 700-year period from Middle Iron Age to the Roman conquest and beyond. Well before the farmstead existed, people were already visiting this area. Although no evidence of where they lived has been found, they left behind signs of their activities.

Flint arrowheads were discovered dating back to the Neolithic (c. 4000-2200 BC) and Bronze Age (c. 2600-700 BC), suggesting people were hunting animals in the surrounding landscape well before the farmstead existed.

The first evidence of a settlement is from the Middle Iron Age (c. 300-100 BC), with the unearthing of two large roundhouses dating back to that period.

They measure more than 15 meters in diameter and contain evidence of the remains of butchered animals, pottery, loom weights, and personal items. This shows that people both lived and worked in them.

After the Roman conquest in AD 43, there is evidence, that the settlement expanded and continued to be occupied for around 400 years. During this time, farming was an essential activity at this settlement.

This is proved by the discovery of an oven used to dry grains and make malt for brewing, as well as by the querns (simple hand mills for grinding grains) and cereals found on site.

However, this was also a place where goods were being produced and traded. Archaeologists have identified a Roman pottery kiln with a vast number of wasters (pots which failed during the firing process).

Moreover, a number of higher-status small finds have also been uncovered, beyond what is expected of a typical farmstead in this part of the country. Together these discoveries show the growing wealth and importance of the settlement.

“These early excavations suggested that the site had a long and complex history, which is now being revealed,” MOLA archaeologists say.

3,500-Year-Old Spearhead Found in England

A rare Bronze Age spearhead has been found by workers while developing a wetland in Gloucestershire. Experts discovered it at Cirencester Sewage Works, near South Cerney, earlier this year and on 10 May estimated it is about 3,500 years old.

Archaeologists said it appeared to be a family heirloom that was placed into a pit for a reason unknown.

Other items unearthed include a selection of prehistoric pottery fragments and flint tools.

The spearhead was found on 22 March at the site owned by Thames Water, which is being turned into a wetlands area to improve biodiversity.

Cotswold Archaeology project manager Alex Thomson said: “Items like this are quite rare and during the Bronze Age they would have been equally as rare and quite special.

“It’s always exciting as you never know what you’re going to find, it could be absolutely nothing or, as in this instance, you could find more than you bargained for.”

Mr Thomson said he thought the spearhead was likely associated with a “wider settlement” found nearby during excavations undertaken in the late 1990s.

Thames Water archaeologist Victoria Reeve added: “We knew we were likely to come across something interesting while carrying out the work, which is why we had Cotswold Archaeology on site ready to record any archaeology that was present, but we were blown away by what we actually discovered.

“It was one of the first things that came out and normally if we had started excavating, we might have expected something to turn up more mid-way through.

“There’s been a lot of work in this wider area, so if you bring all of those sources together, then you can start to plot where you think people might have been in the past.”

The items will be taken back to a laboratory for analysis and then handed to the Corinium Museum in Cirencester.

Stonehenge: Archaeologists unearth 10,000-year-old hunting pits

Thousands of pits believed to have been used by prehistoric hunters have been unearthed near Stonehenge. The find, by University of Birmingham and Ghent University researchers, included sites over 10,000 years old.

One of the pits, which was 13ft (4m) wide and 6.5ft (2m) deep, was the largest of its kind in northwest Europe, the archaeologists said.

The discoveries were made using a combination of novel geophysics and “traditional” archaeology, they added.

The researchers said the pits, dating from between around 8,200 BCE and 7800 BCE, showed hunter-gatherers had roamed the landscape during the early Mesolithic period when Britain was re-inhabited after the last Ice Age.

The discovery was partly made with a technique known as electromagnetic induction survey, which uses the electrical conductivity of soil to provide information that can be used to find materials underground.

It was the first extensive electromagnetic induction survey undertaken in the Stonehenge landscape, according to the University of Birmingham.

Paul Garwood, senior lecturer in prehistory at the University of Birmingham, said what had been discovered was “not a snapshot of one moment in time”.

“The traces we see in our data span millennia, as indicated by the 7,000-year timeframe between the oldest and most recent prehistoric pits we’ve excavated.

“From early hunter-gatherers to later Bronze Age inhabitants of farms and field systems, the archaeology we’re detecting is the result of the complex and ever-changing occupation of the landscape.”

Dr Nick Snashall, the archaeologist for the Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage Site, said the team had revealed some of the earliest evidence of human activity yet unearthed in the Stonehenge landscape.

“The discovery of the largest known Early Mesolithic pit in northwest Europe shows this was a special place for hunter-gatherer communities thousands of years before the first stones were erected,” Dr Snashall said.

Philippe De Smedt, associate professor at Ghent University, said the combination of new techniques and traditional archaeology had revealed otherwise “elusive” archaeological evidence around Stonehenge.

Traces of Hyde Abbey Found in England

Remains of the core of a medieval wall have been found just 80cm below the garden of a house near Winchester in a major archaeological discovery this week. The excavation at Hyde Abbey, the burial place of Alfred the Great, also discovered a huge foundation, for what believed to be the north wall of a church.

Most stonework from the abbey has been robbed over time for reuse. Hence the archaeological team was delighted that the trench revealed some intact stonework to the north and floor surfaces to the south. This is the first discovery of the church nave of Hyde’s medieval abbey, according to the archaeologists.

Dig organiser David Spurling said the nave of the huge church under the gardens of Hyde had never been found before despite being the burial place of Alfred the Great. Over 80 metres long, it has remained hidden beneath the houses, gardens and roads in Hyde.

The latest dig, known as Hyde900, has now located the north wall for the first time, only some 80cm below the garden of 6 King Alfred Place.

Householders, Paul and Kat McCulloch had already had their garden dug during the 2020 Hyde900 Community Dig, but no remains of the abbey were found apart from demolition materials left over after the destruction of the abbey.

However, that dig, and the subsequent dig in 2020 at four other gardens in the vicinity, indicated that the trench in number 6 King Alfred Place missed the north wall of the nave by only two or three metres.

Mr Spurling said: “When we put together the new information from previous digs and had the results from the University of Winchester’s ground-penetrating radar survey done by David Ashby, we talked it over with Paul and Kat who jumped at the offer that we could once again dig the garden again – but to avoid Kat’s peony.

“Consequently, Hyde900 organised a limited scale single trench dig, to be staffed by some of our experienced volunteers, as it was expected that any remains would be at least 1.5 metres below the grass. As ever Professor Martin Biddle took a keen interest in the plans, and visited the dig at an early stage, being in Winchester for the launch of a further volume in the Winchester Excavations series.

“After an early find of a Morris Minor bumper and plenty of demolition rubble left over from the Bridewell, the prison built in 1793 over the site of the church, the team were delighted to see the remains of the core of a medieval wall, amazingly only 80cm below ground level.

“Further digging revealed a huge foundation, for what can only be the north wall of the church, no less than 2.7 metres in width.”

Prof Biddle expressed his pleasure at the results and said: “What a tremendous amount of new and important information from one trench.

“It’s a really vital addition to what we know about this important abbey.”

Paul and Kat McCulloch were also delighted at the discovery.

They said: “This dig has achieved results far beyond our expectations.

“To find intact stonework from the 12th-century abbey is rare; the excavation now confirms the exact location of the abbey nave.

“In addition, the find of a rare sculptured beakhead, perhaps representing a mythical beast, such as a Griffin, was a bonus. It is most likely to be a fragment of a voussoir (the wedge-shaped stone which is part of an arch) forming one of the orders of the arch over the doorway to the church. This will shortly be on display in Winchester Museum.”

The results of the dig have helped the Hyde900 expert cartographer Dave Stewart to redraw the north wall abbey church with certainty – but the west end is perhaps for the next annual Hyde900 Community dig scheduled for August 18-21.

Miniature Bible the Size of a Coin Found in UK Library Storage

A tiny Bible that can only be read with a magnifying glass is among thousands of mysterious treasures rediscovered at a Leeds library during the lockdown. The 1911 miniature replica of the 16th century ‘chained Bible’ is about the size of a £2 coin but contains both the Old and New testaments printed on 876 gossamer-thin India paper pages. 

Librarians said the origins of the bible, which measures 1.9in (50mm) by 1.3in (35mm), are a mystery. 

Rhian Isaac, special collections senior librarian at Leeds City Library, said the book was billed as the smallest Bible in the world when it was printed, although this was almost certainly not true.

Asked where it came from, she said: ‘We don’t know. It’s a bit of a mystery, really. A lot of items in our collection were either bought over time or might have been donated.

‘We’ve done quite a lot of work during the lockdown on cataloguing our rare books and special collections.

‘Before that, hardly any of these books had ever been seen by anyone or ever been found, really.’

Ms Isaac said the Bible’s origins were a mystery because it only resurfaced when library staff decided to do a comprehensive survey during the Covid lockdowns.

More than 3,000 new items have been catalogued, including some dating back to the 15th century.

Among them was a copy of Nouveau Cours de Mathematique, by Bernard Forest de Bélidor (1725) and Oliver Twiss — a rip-off version of Oliver Twist which was printed by the creators of the Penny Dreadfuls. 

The great Victorian novelist was so angered by the plagiarised works that he went to court to have them banned. But the judge in the case ruled that ‘no person who had ever seen the original could imagine the other to be anything else than a counterfeit’. 

Also among the discoveries was a copy of the Nuremberg Chronicle, dating to 1497. Oddly, however, the Leeds City Library copy has the outline of a key pressed into it, suggesting one was hidden inside the book.

Librarians are now hoping the tiny Bible and other items found will be cherished by all visitors and not just academics and researchers. 

‘It’s a massive thing for us,’ Ms Isaac said. ‘Now people can come in and find them and look at them.’

She said anyone can come in and ask to see the tiny Bible.  

‘We ask people to get in touch and we can bring them out for people to see. You don’t have to be an academic or a researcher. 

‘If you’re just interested, we can get them out for you and you can come and read them in our beautiful Grade II-listed building, which is a wonderful place to come and do some studying,’ Ms Isaac added.

‘We would rather these books were used and read. That’s what they were made for and that’s what we encourage people to come in and do, instead of locking them away.

‘They belong to everyone in Leeds. We’re just the guardians of them, really.’

Ms Isaac said a visitor may even come in with a clue to where the Bible came from.

A new study tells Stonehenge was ‘built on land inhabited by deer, elk and wild boar’

Red deer, elk and wild boar would have roamed opened woodland and meadow-like clearings in the area of Stonehenge 4,000 years before the iconic standing stones were constructed, according to new research.

Scientists from the University of Southampton have examined Blick Mead, a Mesolithic archaeological site about a mile away, and found that the area had not been covered in dense, closed-canopy forests as previously thought.

Instead, they believe that it would have been populated by grazing animals and hunter-gatherers.

Lead researcher, Samuel Hudson, of Geography and Environmental Science at Southampton, explained: “There has been the intensive study of the Bronze Age and Neolithic history of the Stonehenge landscape, but less is known about earlier periods.

“The integration of evidence recovered from previous excavations at Blick Mead, coupled with our own fieldwork, allowed us to understand more about the flora and fauna of the landscape prior to construction of the later world-famous monument complex.

“Past theories suggest the area was thickly wooded and cleared in later periods for farming and monument building.

“However, our research points to pre-Neolithic, hunting-gatherer inhabitants, living in open woodland which supported aurochs and other grazing herbivores.”

The research team analysed pollen, fungal spores and traces of DNA preserved in ancient sediment (sedaDNA), combined with optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) and radiocarbon dating to produce an environmental history of the Wiltshire site.

Using this evidence, they built a picture of the habitat in the area from the later Mesolithic (5500 BC) to the Neolithic period (from 4,000 BC).

A university spokesman said: “The study indicates that later Mesolithic populations at Blick Mead took advantage of more open conditions to repeatedly exploit groups of large ungulates (hoofed mammals) until a transition to farmers and monument-builders took place.

“In a sense, the land was pre-adapted for the later large-scale monument building, as it did not require clearance of woodland, due to the presence of these pre-existing open habitats.

“The researchers suggest there was continuity between the inhabitants of the two eras, who utilised the land in different ways but understood it to be a favourable location.”

The findings of the team from Southampton, working with colleagues at the universities of Buckingham, Tromso and Salzburg, are published in the journal PLOS ONE.

Ancient skeletons reveal the history of worm parasites in Britain

Britons have suffered from worms since the Bronze Age, new research shows, with parasite infections peaking during the Roman and Late Medieval periods.

Things began to get better during the Industrial period, in part thanks to improvements in hygiene in parts of the UK, before the Victorian ‘Sanitary Revolution’ ushered in a nationwide reduction in infections.

Oxford researchers analysed ancient skeletons in an effort to establish the size and scale of parasitic worm infections in the UK over the course of history.

They hope that understanding how parasitic worm infections changed in the past, it could help public health measures in regions of the world still experiencing problems today. 

Infections with parasitic worms are a big problem in some tropical and sub-tropical regions of the world. 

But in the past, they were much more widespread and were common throughout Europe.

The research team looked for worm eggs in the soil from the region where the infected intestines of 464 human skeletons would have been, at 17 sites dating from the Bronze Age to the Industrial Revolution.

They found that worm infections peaked in Britain during the Roman and Late Medieval periods when infection rates were similar to those seen in the most affected regions today.

Things changed in the Industrial period. Worm infection rates differed a lot between different sites – some sites had little evidence of infection, while in others there was a lot of infection.

The researchers think that local changes in sanitation and hygiene may have reduced infection in some areas before nationwide changes during the Victorian ‘Sanitary Revolution’.

The co-first authors, Hannah Ryan and Patrik Flammer said: ‘Defining the patterns of infection with intestinal worms can help us to understand the health, diet and habits of past populations. 

‘More than that, defining the factors that led to changes in infection levels (without modern drugs) can provide support for approaches to control these infections in modern populations.’

Humans are infected with roundworms and whipworms through contamination by faecal matter and catch some tapeworms by eating raw or undercooked meat or fish. 

The team will next use their array of parasite-based approaches to investigate other infections in the past. This includes more large-scale analyses of human burials, as well as continuing their ancient DNA work.

Their ambition is to employ a multidisciplinary approach, working closely with archaeologists, historians, parasitologists, biologists and other interested groups to use parasites to help understand the past.

The study has been published in the journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases.