From Scotland to the Hampshire coast, Neolithic to Roman, excavation,
treasure and a controversy involving English Heritage and UFOs: variety is one of archaeology’s strengths, and this issue certainly reflects some of the best and most curious in current British archaeology.
Our main feature is a consideration of recent events at Silbury Hill. A collapse that occurred last year in the centre of the famous mound (right) has been well covered by the media. Here for the first time, we get an archaeological perspective on what happened and what is being done to remedy it.
‘Unique prehistoric gold jewellery found near Winchester’, said the British Museum’s press release in March. Current Archaeology has been talking to the man who made what archaeologists say is one of the great British finds of Iron Age craftsmanship.
More Iron Age metalwork has been recovered from Fiskerton, Lincolnshire, but here the story is not so much the quality of the workmanship as the extraordinary preservation, including a unique currency bar with the stub of its wooden handle still attached. There were also a couple of logboats and rows of oak posts.
We visit other new excavations at Oram’s Arbour and Hayling Island, both in Hampshire, and take a digital tour of the landscape around Stonehenge. Finally, in Scotland we reveal a geological surprise at a much smaller stone ring on Machrie Moor.
This issue is edited by Mike Pitts. Mike began his career as the curator of Avebury Museum, then spent 16 years running Stones Restaurant in Avebury. He is now a writer and archaeologist who has written books ‘Hengeworld’ and ‘Fairweather Eden’. Last year he was joint winner of the Transco Archaeology Press Award, with the Guardian’s Maev Kennedy.