This battered but fascinating find is a heavily rolled and mineral-stained biface, probably a handaxe, dating back to the Lower-Middle Palaeolithic period. It measures 87mm long, 82mm wide, and 44mm thick, and is of lenticular/cordiform shape. One side displays centripetal working with opposed removals on the other. Its well-worn condition indicates long periods spent within active burial environments, such as glacial tills or river terrace deposits. The natural deposits beneath the site are Lowestoft Formation glacial till, dated to the Anglian glaciation, around 400,00–500,00 years ago. Though its exact origin isn’t certain, if it’s from these glacial tills its rolled state indicates that it pre-dates them, making it an exceptionally old and rare discovery. However, as it was found close to the surface, such an attribution is far from certain. No other Palaeolithic artefacts have been recorded in the vicinity.
. This adult pig mandible, covered in butchery marks, is one of many medieval zooarchaeological finds from our Central Winchester Regeneration site. Finds such as this offer a window into the ways people used and processed livestock; each find is like a puzzle piece in the intricate story of our history.
This clay tobacco pipe, which reads ‘PEACE 1856’, commemorates the treaty of Paris which ended the Crimean War. The pipe was made in Winchester at the Bridge Street kiln site by Richard Goodall who ran the site from 1860 until at least 1914. The pipe mould has a long and complex history; it was originally used by James Chamberlain and lacked the shields, which were added after the 1856 peace treaty. The mould was then passed on to Richard Goodall, probably via his father, Richard Sr., and occurs in the 1860s deposits from his kiln site in Winchester, so it was clearly in production for some time after the event commemorated. We may well come across more pipes from this kiln site in our ongoing work at the Central Winchester regeneration site!
Meet Rowan, who was lucky enough to find the Roman ‘Darlington Eagle’ on their first ever site as a commercial archaeologist!
For the Festival of Archaeology Rowan shares the thrill of finding this amazing artefact and why they love working in commercial archaeology. Rowan outlines theories about the eagle put forward so far… is it the Lost eagle of the ninth, off a helmet or military standard, or is it simply scrap metal? Is it a brazier or part of an oil lamp? What do you think?
In Roman Britain brooches were worn as symbols of identity. They revealed various aspects of an individual’s life such as where they came from, and their status and position in society.
This type, in the form of a sitting cockerel, is thought to indicate that the wearer was a devotee of the cult of Mercury. These are usually found individually, so this pair, recovered from a pit fill in Suffolk, is a remarkable find.
This little raven, holding a seed in its beak, was recovered from a Late Roman farmstead in Suffolk. Similar objects often show the bird sitting on a globe with a hole in the base, suggesting they were finials. The intriguing context of this example hints at a religious connection; it was found alongside a range of metalwork that suggests this part of the site had a distinct use compared to the rest of the farm. We’re cautious to label it a shrine as we’ve yet to fully assess the assemblage, but there was definitely something different going on! Could the assemblage shed light on Late Roman religious practices and beliefs? We’re excited to uncover its secrets!
Staff from our office there have unearthed over 1.5m of a timber-lined medieval well, buried in the alluvium under Upper Brookes Street car park, whilst carrying out a mitigating archaeological excavation ahead of the construction of a new medical practice.
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Site Supervisor Tom worked alongside Elliott, Colin and Holly to recover the brilliantly preserved timbers from the deep urban stratigraphy.
We look forward to what the post-excavation processing can reveal of the timbers and associated sediments.
A red phone box in Great Yeldham has been repurposed in an inspired way by the community: as a mini museum with a display of finds from our excavation in the village!
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Prior to the construction of new homes, PCA undertook an archaeological investigation of the site. Trial trenching revealed artefacts dating from the Mesolithic/Neolithic, Iron Age and Roman periods so a second stage of fieldwork, consisting of three excavation areas, was carried out in the summer of 2021.
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The earliest human activity encountered was a shallow pit or natural hollow containing 45 pieces of worked flint, including a bladelet core of Mesolithic/early Neolithic date (very broadly 8000–3000 BC), which also contained fragments of animal bone, charcoal and a few charred cereal grains. The site is close to a stream with a good source of flint pebbles suitable for knapping, and a passing band of hunter-gatherers had found it a good spot to spend time making tools and having a meal on at least one occasion.
Many millennia passed before humans left a further imprint on the site. In the Late Iron Age (100BC to AD43) several ditches were dug as part of a nearby farmstead’s extensive field boundary system. Few artefacts of this period were recovered from the ditches, indicating that the farmstead stood some distance from the site; this was further attested to by the discovery of a group of cremations dating to the same period.
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Several of the cremation pits were furnished with grave goods, including fineware pottery vessels and a Chatelaine set, a belt adornment that was typically presented to Roman girls as a ‘coming of age’ gift. The range of grave goods suggests that the people buried here were moderately prosperous with access to markets supplying Roman goods in the years before the Roman invasion.
Around the middle of the 1st century AD, perhaps in the decade immediately following the Roman invasion, the area of the Late Iron Age ditch system and cremations was re-organised. This may have been associated with a change in land ownership, as no attempt was made to respect the location of the cremation cemetery and the new ditch system was set out on a different alignment. There was little evidence for domestic occupation, although a number of pits and postholes may be associated with agricultural activities. However, several of the ditches contained relatively sizeable assemblages of Roman pottery and a small Roman knife was recovered from one feature, suggesting that the ditch system lay close to an area of occupation, probably to the south or west of the site. In the western corner of the site two large Roman extraction pits were investigated (probably dug for clay), which were up to 30m in diameter and up to 2.4m deep. This part of the settlement appears to have fallen out of use in the 2nd century AD.
The process of examining the results of the excavation is currently underway and will be reported on in due course. The excavation has provided a great opportunity to learn about Great Yeldham’s distant past, in an area that has seen limited detailed archaeological investigation.
PCA would like to thank Rose Builders (Properties) Ltd for commissioning and funding the work, Nick Cooke of RPS Group for appointing PCA to undertake the excavation and Teresa O’Connor of Place Services at Essex County Council for monitoring the work and providing archaeological advice and guidance. Finally, a big thank you to Christine Caney and her husband for arranging the display.
We have an unusual find from a site in East London – the severed head of a monkey from a mid-19th-century context.
Our animal bone specialist Kevin says “Its wisdom teeth haven’t erupted so it is probably less than 6 years of age but definitely more than 2 years. I think it is likely to be a macaque type, the most famous of which is the variety living on Gibraltar, which is also known as the Barbary Ape. The same type also lives in North-West Africa especially in the Atlas mountains, where no doubt the Gibraltar monkeys originate.”
Kevin adds “It’s too large to be an organ-grinder’s monkey, these were small capuchin monkeys. It may have been a sailor’s pet which suffered the ignominy of being stuffed, hence the discovery of just the head (the taxidermist would just keep the head, feet and tail parts of the skeleton).”
Monkeys were highly desirable pets in the 18th and 19th centuries, to the extent that a popular book called Notes on Pet Monkeys and How to Manage Them was published in 1888.
“The menagerie and the zoological collection are incomplete without a certain complement of monkeys; and whatever else may awe, and frighten, and command the admiration of the gaping crowd, it is this department that awakens the broad grin and the hearty laugh.”
Arthur Henry Patterson
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Alongside tips on the care and management of monkeys, the book is full of “amusing stories” of owners who’d acquired them with the expectation that they’d behave like mischievous children only to find them destructive and wild. Patterson suggests to be “Bully, Peggy, Mike, Peter, Jacko, Jimmy, Demon, Barney, Tommy, Dulcimer, Uncle or Knips” as suitable names for monkeys but adds that “Pets are liable to fall ill, so there is a chapter on ‘Monkey Ailments and How to Cure them.’ If they can’t be cured and die, Mr. Patterson gives us instructions how to stuff them!
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