3,000 Skeletons Found During London Railway Construction

Approximately 3,000 skeletons, some dating back to the 1500s, have been discovered and are being excavated as part of the construction of a new train station being built near London.

They came from every parish of London, and from all walks of life, and ended up in a burial ground called Bedlam. Now scientists hope their centuries-old skeletons can reveal new information about how long-ago Londoners lived—and about the bubonic plague that often killed them.

Archaeologists announced that they have begun excavating the bones of some 3,000 people interred in the 16th and 17th centuries, who now lie in the path of the Crossrail transit line. They will be pored over by scientists before being reburied elsewhere.

One recent workday, just meters (yards) from teeming Liverpool Street railway station, researchers in orange overalls scraped, sifted, and gently removed skeletons embedded in the dark earth. In one corner of the site, the skeleton of an adult lay beside the fragile remains of a baby, the wooden outline of its coffin still visible. Most were less intact, a jumble of bones and skulls.

“Part of the skill of it is actually working out which bones go with which,” said Alison Telfer, a project officer with Museum of London Archaeology, which is overseeing the dig.

Due to open in 2018, the 118-kilometer (73-mile) trans-London Crossrail line is Britain’s biggest construction project and its largest archaeological dig for decades. The central 21-kilometer (13-mile) section runs underground, which has meant tunneling beneath some of the oldest and most densely populated parts of the city.

For Londoners, that has brought years of noise and disruption, but for archaeologists, it’s like Christmas. Almost every shovelful of the earth has uncovered a piece of history, or prehistory: bison and mammoth bones; Roman horseshoes; medieval ice skates; the remains of a moated Tudor manor house.

Chief archaeologist Jay Carver says the Bedlam dig could be the most revealing yet.

“It’s going to be archaeologically the most important sample we have of the population of London from the 16th and 17th centuries,” Carver said.

Bedlam cemetery opened in 1569 to take the overspill as the city’s churchyard burial grounds filled up. It is the final resting place of prosperous citizens and paupers, religious dissenters including the 17th-century revolutionary Robert Lockyer and patients from Bedlam Hospital, the world’s first asylum for the mentally ill. The hospital’s name, a corruption of Bethlehem, became a synonym for chaos.

Tests on the bones by osteologists may reveal where these Londoners came from, what they ate, and what ailed them—which in many cases was the plague. There were four outbreaks of the deadly disease over the two centuries the cemetery was in use, including the “Great Plague” that killed 100,000 people in 1665.

Carver says researchers will analyze DNA taken from the pulp in the skeletons’ teeth to help fill in the “evolutionary tree of the plague bacteria.”

The technique was used to discover the plague bacterium, Yersinia pestis, in 14th-century skeletons excavated at another Crossrail site, identifying them as victims of the Black Death that wiped out half the city’s population in 1348.

Scientists should be able to compare the bacterium found in Bedlam’s plague victims with the 14th-century samples, helping to understand whether the disease—which still infects several thousand people a year—has evolved over the centuries.

Sixty archaeologists working in shifts—16 hours a day, six days a week—will spend about a month removing the remains. After the scientific study, they will be reburied on Canvey Island in the Thames Estuary—the latest in a long line of Londoners to move east out of the congested city.

The old burial ground will be the site of a new train station, whose users will probably give little thought to the history beneath their feet.

But Telfer says she never forgets that these fragile bones were once living, breathing individuals.

“When you are doing something like this, you do feel a connection with them,” she said. “I think you have a responsibility to treat them with great respect. It’s quite a special process.”

UK Dig Discovers 9,000-Year-Old Remains

A collection of 400 Roman coins in 1995 was found in Oxfordshire west of Didcot, indicating the land had been lived on for centuries. As plans progressed for 3,300 new homes, schools, and shops on the 180-hectare site, archaeologists were called in to investigate. It has taken them nearly three years to excavate 30 hectares, but they now know people have been living in Didcot for about 9,000 years – since the end of the last ice age.

Timeline of finds at the site

As news has spread about the finds, local residents have begun a fight to save at least some of it.

‘Offering to gods’

The fields, west of the town, have given a near-complete timeline from when hunter-gatherers arrived in Oxfordshire in 7,000 BC, through to the present day villages surrounding the site. Those earliest remains were found by Steve Lawrence, from Oxford Archaeology, the firm which carried out the dig. He was walking around the site one day during the dig and spotted bits of flint on the ground.

On closer inspection, the flint had clearly been worked and there were hundreds of pieces, dating back to around 7,000 BC. They would have been used on spears by hunter-gatherers who camped along the ridge to stalk their prey. The most significant find of the dig was a rare Neolithic bowl from about 3,600 BC – when people began to settle down and farm the land. It was found upside down in a hole where a tree had stood,” explains archaeologist Rob Masefield, from RPS Planning and managing the project.

“It may have been an offering to the gods of the underworld.”

Ritual burials

Over time new settlements were established across the site, which meant each part excavated unveiled a glimpse of a different era. Another rare find was a pond barrow – a stone-lined 12m wide circular depression – which the archaeologists believe was used for “exposure burials”.

Mr. Masefield said the body would be put up high on a raised platform and “the bones picked clean by birds and other animals”.

“Only ever a dozen or so pond barrows have ever been excavated so this provided some great new information,” he added. Up to 50 burials, of both adults and children, were identified.

Mr. Masefield said: “It’s possible that three or so of these burials in [grain storage] pits are what we call ‘special burials’, because it’s not the usual way of doing it.

“It could be ritual or they could be social outcasts.”

He said there is evidence found at other sites – though not at Didcot – suggesting Iron Age people did practice human sacrifice and may even have “bred” individual human beings solely for this purpose.

“They are found with immaculate nails and signs of having lived a privileged life, almost like royalty,” he said.

“When the person is killed it’s been done in three different ways. It appears to be a ritual.” Archaeologist Kate Woodley, from Oxford Archaeology, said the team still had a lot of work to do analyzing the finds from the dig, which could take another two years.

“We don’t want to say too much too early and get it wrong.

“We’ll get a more precise picture with carbon 14 dating and sampling.”

‘Losing our history’

Karen Waggott, who is campaigning to preserve the site, feels the findings at Didcot were not revealed until “it’s too late to save the site” from being built on.

“We’re only just finding out about this, and you blink and more houses have gone up,” she said.

“We’re losing our history just as we’re finding out about it.”

But Mr. Masefield said although the site was the largest and “most significant” dig in recent years in Oxfordshire, there was nothing of “schedulable value” – so important that it could be legally protected.

He said it was so significant because it “allows the interpretation of a large area of the landscape through the ages”. The project was funded by developer Taylor Wimpey and had it not been for the firm’s support, it would not have happened, he explained. To save some of the archaeology, Mrs. Waggott suggested a “history trail” through the new estate, information boards to mark discovery spots, and a museum.

“They should leave a piece of land where the [Iron Age] village was.

“Maybe if they could build a little roundhouse – then our children can see what was here once.”

A spokesman for Taylor Wimpey said: “We are eager to safeguard this window to the past.

“Much of the Roman farmstead, for instance, will be preserved under sports pitches.

“Our intention is for the development to provide homes for generations to come in Didcot, just as the site has done for thousands of years.”

Possible Elizabethan Playhouse Unearthed in London

Experts believe the Red Lion outdoor theatre in London was built around 1567.

Archaeologists believe they have discovered the remains of London’s oldest playhouse that was built only three years after the birth of William Shakespeare.

Dozens of timbers were found at the site in east London that experts believe could have been part of the outdoor stage and seating of the Red Lion, the earliest purpose-built playhouse, dating from about 1567.

It was thought to have been built by John Brayne, an entrepreneur who went on to build another larger theatre that staged plays by a young Shakespeare at the end of the 16th century.

Little is known about the playhouse but it features two lawsuits from the 1560s when Brayne sued the carpenters because of shoddy work.

No physical evidence of the playhouse had been discovered until excavations in January 2019 started to uncover the timbers at the site of a planned housing development.

The playhouse is thought to have been a prototype that was used as a venue for companies of travelling actors, said Stephen White, who directed the excavation of the site.

“I thought we were on a hiding to nothing,” Mr White said. “There was a chance that something might be there – but it was a surprise.”

The theatre pre-dates by more than three decades the more famous Globe Theatre, which became closely associated with Shakespeare and the company of actors he wrote for during his career.

The Globe was re-created as a theatre and opened in 1997 on the banks of the River Thames and is one of London’s most popular tourist attractions.

Archaeologists believe the playhouse was part of a sprawling complex that developed from a farm, an inn, and an animal-baiting venue, according to the archaeologists from University College London.

They also found bottles, tankards, and a mug bearing the symbol of King Charles II, who reigned from 1660 to 1685.

“This is one of the most extraordinary sites I’ve worked on,” said Mr. White. “After nearly 500 years, the remains of the Red Lion playhouse …. may have finally been found.”

Drought Led To Discovery Of Ancient Roman Forts And Roads In Wales

The draught in Wales led in 2018 to the discovery of old Roman fortresses, roads, and military cantonments in a village in the United Kingdom. The aerial view of the area revealed 200 such places which suggested the ruins of ancient Roman times could be made possible.

“Britannia,” a researcher from the Royal Commission for Ancient and Historical Monuments in Wales, quoted a science magazine and reported that the Roman legions had entered the rural areas of Wales.

Experts also revealed the ruins of the marching camps at Monmouthshire in the vicinity of Caerwent.

“The camps are truly interesting, used to stay overnight Romans had built on the maneuvers in hostile territory.” Researcher Toby Driver said the discoveries “turn on the heads everything we know about the Romans.”

The aerial investigator for the Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales said the new research published in the journal Britannia showed the “Roman military machine coming to rural Wales”.

In Monmouthshire, the researchers have identified a new “marching camp” at a site near Caerwent.

“The marching camps are really, really interesting. They are the temporary overnight stops that the Romans build on manoeuvres in hostile territory.”

The site would have provided defensive positions, camping and kitchens for bread ovens.

“This is when Wales is still a very dangerous place to be for the troops, they are still under attack,” added Dr Driver. The entire area heading into south-east Wales through Usk to Caerleon would have been peppered with similar sites, believe the experts, as the Roman armies fought a 20-year battle to crush resistance amongst Celtic tribes, notably the Silures in southern Wales.

But these sites were “ploughed away pretty quickly” when the fighting was over.

“This is only the third marching camp in south-east Wales that we have discovered. We know there should be more of these around to show how the army was moving in Wales – it shows the big routes they are pushing through to control different parts of Wales,” added Dr Driver.

With conquest came reinforcements, and that meant forts. The aerial photographs confirmed the locations of at least three new fort sites, including the first found in the Vale of Gwent at Carrow Hill, west of the Roman town of Caerwent and the Roman legionary fortress at Caerleon.

The crop images show it had inner and outer defensive structure and a “killing zone” in between, perfectly ranged for a javelin throw.

The photographs found a long suspected fort site at Aberllynfi near Hay-on-Wye is indeed Roman, even though part of it has long since been built over by housing.

While further investigations at Pen y Gaer in Powys, near Tretower and Crickhowell, have revealed new detailed structures previously undiscovered – despite digs and surveys on the ground. The researchers, who included Roman experts Jeffrey Davies and Barry Burnham, have also been able to identify details of new villas – including at St Arvans, north of Chepstow in Monmouthshire.

The location had previously been considered a temple site, after part of a bronze statue of Mars was unearthed. But the heatwave images make it clear this was a Roman villa of some note, with its room structure clearly visible. Perhaps the most startling discoveries have been pieces of unknown Roman road.

One shows how the Roman armies pushed their way south from Carmarthen to Kidwelly, reinforcing speculation the town was home to a Roman fort – even if it may now be covered by Kidwelly Castle.

“It’s the scale of the control of Wales which is exciting to see,” said Dr Driver.

“These big Roman roads striking through the landscape – straight as arrows through the landscape.”

After the driest May on record, Dr Driver hopes he will be able to get back in the air as soon as coronavirus lockdown measures allow, to see if he and his teams can find more pieces of the Roman puzzle in Wales.

“There are still huge gaps. We’re still missing a Roman fort at Bangor, we’ve got the roads, we’ve got the milestones – but no Roman fort. We’re still missing a Roman fort near St Asaph, and near Lampeter, in west Wales, we should have one as well,” he said.

“Although we had loads come out in 2018, we’ve got this big gaps in Roman Wales that we know should have military installations – but you’ve got to get out in dry weather to find them.”

A prehistoric Atlantis in the north sea may have been abandoned after being hit by a 5mt tsunami 8200 years ago

A huge landfall occurred on the Norwegian coast, known as the Storegga Slide just over 8,000 years ago. The event created a catastrophic tsunami, with waves almost half as high as the Statue of Liberty, that battered Britain, and other landmasses. And now the most accurate computer model ever made of the tsunami suggests that it wiped out the remaining inhabitants of a set of the low-lying landmass known as Doggerland off the coast of the UK.

The new study of scientists from Imperial College London will be discussed at the General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna. They explain how devastating the tsunami would have been, using sophisticated computer modelling and paleobathymetry – a background study of underwater depths.

And they conclude it would have spelled disaster for the remaining inhabitants of Doggerland.

Dr. Jon Hill, one of the study’s authors, says to BBC, “the research we did is use advanced computer modelLing to look in the Storegga slide.

‘We’re the first to discover dissymmetry at the time, which no model has done before.

‘So we’re able to quantify what the tsunami looked like at Doggerland – no other study has predicted what the wave would have looked like.’

The huge wave that was created in the Storegga Slide occurred when a large chunk of coastal shelf 180 miles (290 km) long fell into the sea. The slide was a single event 8,200 years ago, creating a wave that travelled across the Norwegian Sea in a few hours.

Fifteen hours later, the wave would have reached Belgium and Holland. Dr Hill said it would have been equivalent to the 2011 Japanese tsunami in its scale.

Waves at Doggerland would have been five metres high, as opposed to 10 metres in the Japanese tsunami, as the land was so low-lying just a few metres above sea level.

‘It would have been completely inundated by a 5-metre wave,’ Dr Hill explains.

‘If you put a 5-metre wave towards Doggerland it would have been devastated.’ Archaeological evidence for this area is relatively sparse at the moment. So far, we are relying mostly on finds made by fishermen.

But the evidence heavily suggests it was inhabited and, according to Dr Vince Gaffney of  the University of Birmingham who authored the book Europe’s Lost World: The Rediscovery of Doggerland, they would have ‘suffered dramatically.’

‘If we look at what the study tells us they’re talking about waves that are, in Scotland, as much as 40 metres high,’ he says. 

‘The inhabitants of any low-lying areas like Doggerland would have suffered dramatically if hit by something of that size.’ Dr. Gaffney continues, however, that it is hard to know exactly the extent of habitation on Doggerland because it is very inaccessible.

Described as ‘Britain’s Atlantis’ it is now located under busy sea lanes in murky water. Thus, according to Dr. Gaffney, ‘we know little about the people who inhabited these areas.’ Dr. Hill says that modelling tsunamis of this type are important for understanding our history.

But they can also provide us with data on what we can expect from similar events in the future. Although he stresses no such event is likely to occur any time soon, the UK is susceptible to such dangers.

‘Part of the research is to find out what would happen as the oceans warm,’ he says.

‘Rising sea levels are an indicator but there’s no correlation between rising sea levels and tsunamis.’ The chances of another event on the scale of the Storegga Slide happening soon is, he says, ‘not likely to happen at all.’ Dr Gaffney adds, though, that these events are known to have occurred throughout history.

‘We sometimes think we’re a safe place to live in the UK,’ he says.

‘But sometimes there are risks even in Britain and that’s worth noting.’

Roman coin hoard found in England near Welsh border revealed

Silver coins from almost 2000 years to the Roman period have been declared a treasure by metal detectors after they are found in a field.

A treasure inquest held at Cardiff Coroners’ Court saw senior coroner for Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan Andrew Barkley declare a range of objects, including finger rings, a brooch, and a hoard from the Late Bronze Age, as treasure.

The hoard of 91 Roman coins was discovered in Wick, in the Vale of Glamorgan, by Richard Annear and John Player.

They were found partly scattered by the previous ploughing. The founders left the undisturbed portion in the ground before reporting the find to the Portable Antiques Scheme in Wales (PAS Cymru) and archeological curators at National Museum Wales.

It is believed the coins date back to the period of Emperor Nero, from 54Ad to 68AD, to Marcus Aurelius, from 161AD to 180AD.

The latest coin was struck in 163-4AD and three coins were issued by Mark Antony in 31BC.

Edward Besly, the numismatist at National Museum Wales, said: “Each coin represents about a day’s pay at the time, so the hoard represents a significant sum of money.

“The hoard’s findspot is only a mile as the crow flies from that of another second-century silver hoard found at Monknash in 2000, which compromised 103 denarii, buried a little earlier, around 150AD.

“Together the hoards point to a prosperous coin-using economy in the area in the middle of the second century.”

One of the rings is silver and in the form of a decorated band, which has been engraved and then inlaid with niello. It dates from the 12th century.

The other ring is gold and has a repeating pattern of alternating half-flowers filling triangular panels, separated by a deep zig-zag moulding. It dates back from the late 15th century.

Dr. Mark Redknap, head of collections and research for the Department for History and Archeology at National Museum Wales, said: “These are finger rings from different centuries reflecting different traditions of fine metalworking, which are important indicators of changing fashions in South Wales and the Medieval period.”

Other items found in Llancarfan included a 15th or 16th-century silver finger ring and a 13th or 14th-century silver brooch. A 15th-16th century silver pendant, a 17th-century silver-gilt finger ring, and a Late Bronze Age hoard were found in Penllyn, Vale of Glamorgan. This antique silver uk is worth a lot of money as many collectors show great interest in antiques this age.

An early 18th-century gold finger ring was found in Rhoose, Vale of Glamorgan, and another Late Bronze Age hoard was found in Pentyrch, Cardiff.

The items will now be taken to the Treasure Valuation Committee, in London, where they will be independently valued. In most cases, the value of the treasure is split equally between the finders and landowners.

For over 2,000 years, hundreds of gold and silver torcs lay hidden in a Norfolk field discovered by one man and his metal detector.

Maurice Richardson has brave all weathers with his reliable metal detector for 40 years and dreams of the buried treasure. But he almost ignored an unpromising beep when he was searching for waste from a wartime air crash while he was being pelted with rain.

However the 59-year-old is glad his curiosity got the better of him after his persistence in digging through more than two feet of Nottinghamshire mud yielded a stunning 2,000-year-old gold treasure.

Now the artifact, an Iron Age torc, has been sold for a mammoth £350,000, and it was unveiled at the British Museum as the most valuable discovery in recent times.

The intricately decorated collar was so perfect that Mr. Richardson, a tree surgeon in his day job, initially struggled to convince experts it wasn’t a forgery.

‘I got the signal, but it was raining quite hard and I thought it was not going to be worth it,” he said.

‘However, it played on my mind, so I started to dig.  

‘It was about two foot four inches down and when I got within four inches I decided to use my hand. I got down on my stomach and started scraping the soil away and it was then I saw what it was.  

‘You look and look for things like this and you read about other people finding them, but it never happens to you.  

‘It’s a wonderful feeling and just shows that anyone can do it. It’s not about the money, but the fact that it has been saved for the nation.

‘It’s 2,000 years in the ground and it is unique. What are the chances of walking acres of field and passing over it? The odds are astronomical.’

The collar is similar to others found across Iron Age Europe and closely resembles the Great Torc, found at Snettisham in Norfolk in 1950 and now one of the British Museum’s most-loved treasures. It was painstakingly crafted using around 50m of hand-rolled dark gold alloy wires which were in turn plaited into eight thin ropes and then twisted together – the word torc comes from the Latin for ‘twist’.

Finally, hollow rings were attached to either end, carved with spiral patterns as well as animal and plant forms. Such jewellery would have been worn by the most powerful men and women in Celtic Britain or placed on statues of gods.

The collar found by Mr Richardson in a secret location near Newark in February 2005 was probably buried as an offering in about 75BC, more than a century before the Roman conquest. Terrified of being burgled, he hid it under the floorboards of his home before carrying it to the local coroner’s office in a Morrison’s plastic bag.

‘When I got there I unwrapped it and plonked it on the desk, and he stopped in his tracks and said “My God, where did you find that?”‘ he said.

After being authenticated by experts it was bought by Newark and Sherwood council for £350,000, most of the money coming from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, and is due to be displayed at the local museum.

The proceeds were split between Mr Richardson – who put his share towards a new car and kitchen – and Trinity College, Cambridge, which owns the land.  Sarah Dawes, the council’s head of leisure and cultural services, said she had been ‘blown away’ when she saw it.

‘We thought it was fake, it was too good to be true,’ she admitted.

‘You can put a value on an object like this, but in terms of importance and the nation’s history you cannot put a price on it.’

Other finds include a 13th-century medieval silver seal matrix and a horde of more than 3,600 Roman coins. Culture minister Barbara Follett said interest in searching for long-lost artefacts had been boosted by television programmes like Time Team as well as celebrity treasure hunters such as former Rolling Stone Bill Wyman.