We’re proud to announce that Sian O’Neill at the Cambridge office has received a Certificate of Appreciation from local schools for hosting students in work experience placements. This recognition highlights the impact of helping students develop key skills like communication, teamwork, and confidence in a professional setting. These placements offer students a real-world view of potential career paths, bringing to life jobs they are considering for their futures.
We’re pleased to display this certificate at our office and online; this partnership is a meaningful way to invest in the next generation, and we look forward to continuing this initiative.
The end of the school term means one thing at the Cambridge Office – work experience placements! We have been proud to host students from Sawston Village College for the past 11 years and have increased our provision to students from other schools and colleges in the region too since 2021. This year we have hosted 12 students over the past 2 months!
Harry excavating a cremation urn with Osteologist Petra
For insurance reasons we can’t have under 18 year olds working on construction sites so the majority of the placement is based in the office – working on finds and environmental processing and archiving. We do our best to make our placements as interactive as possible, introducing students to different career paths within archaeology through taster sessions with various staff members in different roles, such as specialist finds analysis, photography, and GIS.
Sawston Village College students on a site tour with Rita’s Saxon teacup pot
We also try to get students out to visit an excavation and were very lucky this year to have an amazing Saxon project based just ten minutes from our office, where they were present to see rare and unusual artefacts actually coming out of the ground, such as the small Saxon cup pictured here!
One of thousands of bags of bone marked this year!
As well as providing a comprehensive view of archaeology for our students, we also of course expect them to work hard and this year have had particular legacy project that needed to be prepared for archive. With their help we should be able to deposit the 640 boxes of animal bone that they meticulously marked by Christmas!
So, many thanks of course to our work experience students for all of their time and effort: Harry from Linton Village College; Audrey, Charlie, Lewis, Luca and Matthew from Sawston Village College; Isabel from Trumpington Community College; Ben from Tring School; Daniel from Hinchingbrook School; Sam from Kings College London; Seb from Parkside Community College; and Ró from Swavesey Village College!
This stunning Anglo-Saxon cast saucer brooch is our star find so far from a site in the West Midlands! It would originally have had garnet inlays and dates to the 6th century.
Although research is still in its early stages, no parallels have been found for this combination of animal decoration and triskele motif, suggesting the brooch could be a significant discovery.
What a find! Last week Tamsin, one of our archaeologists, found this bronze age socketed axe during an evaluation in Hertfordshire.
Socketed axes were developed during the Late Bronze Age, an evolution on the earlier “palstave” type axes which characterised the Middle Bronze Age in Britain and Ireland.
This example has a side loop that probably helped secure the head to its haft, and dates to about 1100 – 800 BC.
For #WorldHeritageDay we’d like to share our recent work at the Tower of London.
PCA has been commissioned by Historic Royal Palaces to undertake built heritage work during several stages of restoration at the Tower of London. In 2018, during the replacement of the protective staircase in the Flamsteed Turret, the timber covers and the underlying stone stair vice built from 1075/79 to 1100 were recorded. In 2021, building recording was carried out when the walkways leading to and from the Wakefield Tower were replaced, while in 2023 a petrological survey of the Cradle Tower was undertaken prior to repair.
Building recording at Wakefield Tower.
Our petrological survey of Cradle Tower identified poor quality stone in need of repair.
A medieval stone culvert in Wakefield Tower.
Petrological analysis in the Flamsteed Turret identified the same 1080 to 1090/93 building break as that seen elsewhere in the fabric of the White Tower, around 23m OD.
We’re accustomed to unearthing fascinating artefacts, but every so often, something extraordinary is discovered which sends ripples through the archaeological community.
During recent excavations in Suffolk, our team found two very unusual Roman coins. Dr Peter Guest, who has undertaken extensive research on the coins has just posted his findings on LinkedIn.
The coins in question belong to the reign of Carausius, a usurper who ruled Britain and northern Gaul from 286 to 293 AD. Carausius’s coinage served as a canvas for sophisticated propaganda, which portrayed Carausius as an equal to the official emperors of the time, Diocletian and Maximian, and as the upholder of traditional Roman values. He was clearly particularly fond of the poet Virgil, especially his Aeneid (which was 300 years old at the time).
I struggled with the 2 new coins for a while because the combination of obverses and reverses didn’t make sense. Their obverses bear the emperor’s helmeted radiate bust facing left with spear and shield and the legend IMP CARAVSI-VS AVG (‘The Emperor Carausius Augustus’). The helmeted obverse bust was modelled on a type issued during the reign of Probus (276-282) and, although it is known for Carausius, it was not common.
Dr Peter Guest
The coins’ reverses are equally intriguing, also derived from coins of Probus but of a type unknown on Proban radiates and only known from gold aurei struck ing Rome and Siscia. on Carausian radiates. The reverses depict the helmeted emperor facing left, holding a spear and shield. He addresses two supplicants on either side, with the legend “PACAT ORBIS” (Peace-bringer to the world). The mint marks on these coins – //oXXVL – are previously undocumented for Carausius.
This type of Carausian radiate is not recorded in the relevant volume of Roman Imperial Coinage (published in 1933) and there is no mention of it in the Online Coins of the Roman Empire corpus (https://lnkd.in/eKSY9ppm), or anywhere else for that matter.
With the invaluable assistance of colleagues from The British Museum, including Andrew Burnett and Dr. Sam Moorhead, Dr Guest discovered that two other coins of the same type and mint mark had been recorded since 1933, providing crucial context and validation for our find. The inclusion of these coins in the upcoming edition of Roman Imperial Coinage Vol. V.5 further cements their significance in numismatic history.
Yet, questions remain. What were these rare coins doing at a settlement in West Suffolk, amidst a cache of 596 other Roman coins?
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