For Those Interested in Archaeology

I'm safe now, got two ex-dragons wives.

 

*bumped* for an update-
"Scotland’s earliest line is to be commemorated as it approaches its 300th anniversary, along with plans to excavate a short stretch.
The Tranent to Cockenzie Waggonway in East Lothian was built on wooden rails to haul coal to power coastal salt works – the country’s biggest industry of the time.
Opened in 1722, it used horses and gravity to bring the coal north from the mines. Now a footpath, excavations last year revealed imprints of the wooden rails and a cobbled horse path between them, a metre beneath the surface.
It was named as one of Scotland’s top five archaeological finds of 2019 by Dig It Scotland, the country’s archaeological hub.
There are now plans to open up a 10m-15m stretch to better understand how it was built.
The waggonway’s history is intertwined with the Jacobites, with the line built on estates seized from supporters of the Old Pretender, Bonnie Prince Charlie’s father James Edward Stuart, after the failed rising of 1715.
Thirty years later, his son, the Young Pretender, led Jacobite forces to victory over an army loyal to King George II at the Battle of Prestonpans in 1745, part of which was fought over the waggonway."
www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/heritage-and-retro/heritage/scotlands-earliest-railway-so-old-jacobite-battle-was-fought-over-it-2790437

 

Only thing I dug up was a 1935 quarter I discovered with a metal detector...but I find this thread more interesting all the time...especially when someone discovers buried Roman or Viking treasures in some field.

 

It's happened twice now in fields practically on my doorstep. Maybe I need a new hobby.

 

Bet it would still have been worth a fair amount.

 

Logical, since some of these places are too big to have just been forts-
"A hillfort in Aberdeenshire is one of the largest ancient settlements ever discovered in Scotland, researchers have said.
University of Aberdeen archaeologists say 4,000 people may have lived in more than 800 huts perched high on the Tap O' Noth near Rhynie.
Many had thought it dated from the Bronze or Iron Age.
The team said carbon dating suggested it was likely to be Pictish, dating back as far as the third century AD.
They believe at its height it may have rivalled the largest known post-Roman settlements in Europe.
Archaeologists from the university have conducted extensive fieldwork in the surrounding area since 2011.
Prof Gordon Noble, who led the research, described the discovery that activity at the site extended into the Pictish period as the most surprising of his career."
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-52660032?fbclid=IwAR18cJlp3hSA2E4QQWW7crhSIQES8wA1IMoYHsEqPKg94X7aPRw__77mrJY

 

"For more than 200 years Mingary Castle off the coast of Scotland lay ruined and abandoned.
The impressive fortress is nestled on the top of a rocky cliff, where its windows gaze out to sea.
Dating back as far as the 13th century, the castle was clearly once important due to its impressive vantage point - but was abandoned two centuries ago.
Since 2013, the site and castle have been designated as historically important and work is now ongoing to preserve and restore the impressive building.
But hidden within its walls is a bizarre room, closed to the outside world more than 500 years ago.
And when it was finally opened six years ago, historians made a disturbing discovery - bones.
Those renovating the castle came across the tiny room, which measures just 6 feet across and is only 6 feet high, entirely by accident.
Builders had discovered a passageway in the north wall of the imposing building, which is close to the village of Kilchoan on Scotland's Ardnamurchan peninsula.
It was as they started excavating that they came across the chamber - and historians are at a loss as to what it was used for.
But the room, which is not believed to have been touched since the 16th century, did contain fragments of bone.
Jon Haylett, a local historian with the Mingary Castle Trust, believes the room will have been sealed off when the walls had to be filled in to strengthen them against cannon fire."
www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/secret-bone-filled-room-opened-22023149

 

Indigenous rock art found in the NT one of just three such examples worldwide

Archaeological breakthrough finds rare 'once in a lifetime' stencilled rock art

Kimberley rock art could be among oldest in the world

 

So not really saying anything new then.
"Valuable stone axes found at a 6,000-year old hilltop burial site in Germany have suggest Neolithic societies were not as egalitarian as once thought, experts said.
The two weapons were found at the Hofheim-Kapellenberg site 140 years ago, but have only just been connected with the recently-discovered burial mound.
Their connection to the funereal mound indicates they came from a society in which elites were able to amass wealth.
The hilltop enclosure of Hofheim-Kapellenberg — one of the best-preserved above-ground sites remaining from the Neolithic — features an entire rampart system and was first studied in the late 19th Century.
Excavations in the enclosure had previously revealed evidence of a village — likely of around 900 inhabitants — that dated back to around 3750–3650 BC.
However, recent digs unearthed a 295 feet (90 metre) -wide burial mound that is thought to predate the village — hailing back from around 4500–3750 BC.
Experts led by archaeologist Detlef Gronenborn of the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum in Mainz have now linked to the mound two valuable stone axes that had been excavated from the area back in the 1880s.
One of the pair of weapons was made out of the green ornamental mineral jade — which must have been sourced hundreds of kilometres away, in the western Alps.
The presence of the grand axes and burial mound are indicative of members of an elite class — one capable of amassing the wealth and influence needed to construct such a monument."
www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8361055/Valuable-axes-German-burial-site-suggest-Neolithic-societies-not-egalitarian-thought.html

 

"Researchers have discovered the world's oldest 'bug' on record - a 425-million-year-old fossilized millipede.
The remains were uncovered on the Scottish Island of Kerrera and suggest bugs and plants evolved much faster than previously believed.
After analyzing the petrified insect, the team determined that the ancient creatures left lakes to live in complex forest ecosystems in just 40 million years.
Researchers used a technique to determine that the millipede is 75 million years younger than previously estimated by extracting zircons, which is a microscopic mineral needed to accurately date the fossils."
www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8367057/Worlds-oldest-bug-fossilized-425-million-year-old-millipede-discovered-Scottish-Island.html

 

wow.
"Evidence of woven textile from 5,000 years ago has been found for only the second time in Scotland.
The piece of Neolithic fabric has not survived, but archaeologists did find the impression it left on the wet clay of a pot millennia ago.
The discovery was made by archaeologists examining markings on pottery from Ness of Brodgar in Orkney.
Evidence of Neolithic woven textile in Scotland was first found at Flint Howe, near Stranraer, in 1966.
An impression of the fabric had also been spotted on a piece of clay."
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-52892411

 

A perfectly preserved ancient Roman mosaic floor has been discovered near the northern Italian city of Verona.
Archaeologists were astonished by the find as it came almost a century after the remains of a villa, believed to date to the 3rd century AD, were unearthed in a hilly area above the town of Negrar di Valpolicella.
After the discovery in 1922, the site was mostly left abandoned until a team from the Superintendent of Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape of Verona resumed digging last summer. The team returned to the site in October and again in February before the excavation was suspended because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The mosaic was found a few metres beneath a row of vines a week after work got going again.
“After countless decades of failed attempts, part of the floor and foundations of the Roman villa located north of Verona, discovered by scholars a century ago, has finally been brought to light".

Ancient Roman Mosaic Floor Unearthed Beneath Italian Vineyard | Smart News | Smithsonian Magazine

 

There's a programme doing the rounds on one of the channels where a scientist came up with the idea of using either infra-red or ultraviolet filters on satellite cameras to rediscover hundreds of lost archaeological sites across the world. Amazing stuff.

"The buildings and layout of an entire Roman town has been revealed by scientists using ground-penetrating radar.
A quad bike was coupled up to a series of sophisticated machines which used radio-waves to take a detailed look at what is hidden deep underground.
It mapped the town of Falerii Novi, located near Rome, and identified a baths complex, a market and a temple, among other relics.
Researchers from the universities of Cambridge and Ghent also discovered a unique public monument unlike anything else found from ancient Rome, they say.
Other finds include a vast theatre; the housing of the working class in two insulae; and the city's sprawling network of water pipes.
Falerii Novi is a well-studied Roman site, located around 30 miles (50km) north of Rome.
The town was born out of conflict between the Romans and the Faliscan people who inhabited the Lazio region of Italy.
Rome eventually defeated the natives in 241BC and seized their weapons, slaves and most of their territory.
The original town of Falerii was then destroyed and the Romans would go on to a millennium of domination in the area.
In contrast, the Faliscans and their language would be extinct within a century.
After Falerii was destroyed, a new city was built by the enterprising Romans just three miles (5km) away. This would become known as Falerii Novi.
Falerii Novi, the replacement city, was abandoned around 700AD as the empire fell into decline.
The original city however, was developed and survives today in a different guise, as Civita Castellana."
www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-8399037/Entire-Roman-city-buried-underground-mapped-archaeologists.html

 

Gordon....

Lately, I'm running into one documentary after another where the featured archaeologist makes the claim that there is no proof, or an EXTREMELY small amount of proof, for a SAXON-JUTE invasion of post Roman Britain.

The archaeological evidence seems to indicate more than ever before that the Saxons were already present in Wessex and southward of a rough line that comprised most of Wessex and a portion of Northumbria.
Burial sites that are uncovered point to a very mixed race of people, with Saxon, Briton and Pictish/Welsh DNA present at all points.


What does this mean for our understanding of Saxon Britain?

Was it a BENIGN ocupation rather than a full blown Norman style conquest?

Further, does this explain why Alfred The Great had such a torrid time trying to free Britain of Danish/Norwegian incursions, because his subject people were not all agreed on the relative merits of kicking out the Danes altogether, based on their tribal/ethnic differences, of which religion and belief systems must have played a big part?

Whats happening to English history of this period....is it truly being almost entirely rewritten?

Christopher

 

Hi Christopher,
The idea's actually been challenged since at least the 1970s. There's no evidence of an actual planned 'invasion' in the modern sense, rather than successive waves of immigration. There are actually passages in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles which describe laws being passed prohibiting violence against the British in minority enclaves like Kirton-in-Lindsey, Elmet-in-Burnet etc, which were actually surrounded by areas of Anglo-Saxon settlement. Dare say fighting took place, human nature being what it is, but the majority seem to have assimilated peacefully eventually, like the Vikings in the Danelaw, and Scotti and Vikings in Scotland.
Think the reticence to back Alfred was more due to a fear of retribution if he failed, or simply that many Saxons might have intermarried with the Vikings and didn't fancy fighting relatives. Always been fascinated by the Great Viking Army since watching a For Schools programme as a kid.
Don't think history's being rewritten in the politically revisionist sense (though that's always a danger), as much as being reinterpreted in the light of new evidence. A lot of what I was taught at school has been reshaped as knowledge expands, and sometimes it's completely at odds with accepted thinking. Great example is the First Scottish War of Independence; most Scots think it ended with the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314- since that's what they think they were told at school- rather than the Treaty of Edinburgh & Northampton in 1328.

 

Be careful when anyone is arguing there is no "proof" for something. They are actually arguing there is no evidence for it and as the old saw goes, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. OTOH absence of evidence you would expect to find if such and such happened is a pretty strong indicator that it might not have happened.