Happy New Year! I hope you had a lovely break over the Christmas period.
Winter always puts me in mind of cosy fireplaces but when did humans first learn how to create fire for themselves, rather than relying on embers from lightning strikes and wildfires? New evidence from Barnham in Suffolk has pushed this story back hundreds of thousands of years further than previously thought. Our cover feature explores this exciting discovery, and the revolutionary biological, technological, and social changes that were sparked by being able to harness flames on demand.
We then travel to Sipson Farm, 500m from Heathrow Airport. Today the surrounding area is dominated by modern infrastructure, but a five-year excavation has revealed evidence of human activity spanning 6,000 years.
Moving from a wide landscape to small islands, our next feature explores the archaeology of Loch Finlaggan on Islay, once a key power centre for the MacDonald Lords of the Isles. Why did an apparent backwater blossom into a site of such strategic importance and what has been learned about the area’s broader history?
Finally, we visit Hadrian’s Wall, examining these famous fortifications from a rather different perspective in our two concluding articles. What can we learn about life on the Roman frontier by examining the region’s geology, and the ways in which its occupants related to and used trees?
This issue also includes further details of our upcoming conference. CA Live! 2026 will be on 28 February, run in partnership with UCL’s Institute of Archaeology. Turn to p.60 for the latest information about the event, and the nominees for our annual awards.