Legend has it that the Rothwell charnel chapel was discovered when a grave digger tumbled into an underground vault stacked with bones. This alarming incident brought to light a rare exampleof an intact medieval ossuary in England. Our cover feature explores why the dead were assembled in this manner, and how common the practice was.
Two of the dead at Portmahomack, today a small Scottish fishing village, seem to have been brutally slaughtered during a Viking attack. A major research project has pieced together the remarkable story of this settlement, and evidence for a Pictish monastery that attracted the raiders.
Archaeologists have also been examining the rise and fall of a community on the Ll≈∑n peninsula in Wales. Here, an open prehistoric settlement developed imposing defences, before fading into obscurity once more.
Ever since Sellar and Yeatman wrote their spoof 1066 and All That, it has been widely appreciated that there are two memorable dates in English history: 55 BC and AD 1066. But has this focus on the invasions of Caesar and William the Conqueror unjustly eclipsed a third memorable date? In 1016, Cnut’s Vikings secured dominion over the country, but how much survives from this forgotten conquest of England?
Finally, celebrities are often said to seem shorter in the flesh, but the difference of 790 feet between Hadrian’s Wall and its icy counterpart in Game of Thrones must be a record. We tackle the cultural afterlife of Rome’s most famous border.
Matt Symonds
IN THIS ISSUE:/n
FEATURES/n
PICTS ON THE PENINSULA/n
Portmahomack reinvented
Known for its Pictish carved stone monuments,Portmahomack in north-east Scotland has undergonemany major transformations over time. Excavationsat the fishing village’s church and burial groundhave unravelled the settlement’s story from the6th to the 16th century.
MEILLIONYDD/n
The life and death of an Iron Age community in Wales
The Ll≈∑n Peninsula is home to many defendedprehistoric settlements, but few of these have beeninvestigated. We take a look at ongoing excavationsat Meillionydd, where seven seasons of digginghave so far uncovered a quarter of the largedouble ringwork enclosure.
1016 AND ALL THAT/n
Excavating the Viking conquest of England
Fifty years before the Battle of Hastings,Cnut defeated Edmund II at Assandun, capturingEngland. What archaeological evidence remainsof the Viking conquest 1,000 years on?
THE NAMELESS DEAD/n
Exploring the Rothwell charnel chapel
Work at Rothwell, one of only two sites in Englandwhere a medieval charnel chapel and its contents arepreserved, is giving new insights into why bones wereplaced in these ossuaries.
BEYOND THE ARCHAEOLOGY/n
The cultural afterlife of Hadrian’s Wall
From the Byzantine historian Procopius to Gameof Thrones, how have writers over the centuriesreimagined this iconic Roman frontier?
NEWS/n
Meeting Londinium’s migrant population; Mesolithic dog’slong walk; Vindolanda’s 2016 collection; Long barrowexcavated in the Cotswolds; Halifax residents revealed;Home from Rome in Bedford?; Teeth reveal prehistorictravel; Pistil Meadow myths laid to rest; Finds tray
REGULARS/n
Comment
Joe Flatman excavates the CA archive
Context
Expanding a Neolithic landscape at Dorstone Hill
Reviews
Finding Shakespeare’s New Place; Hidden Histories;The Tale of the Axe; The Use and Reuse of Stone Circles;Roman Derbyshire; Moving on in Neolithic Studies
Exhibition
Opus Anglicanum at the V&A
Preview
Digging for Britain with Alice Roberts
Sherds
Chris Catling’s irreverent take onheritage issues
Odd Socs
TheWelsh Perry and Cider Society