This month, our features and news stories highlight just how important advancing technology is for archaeology. Revisiting old sites, old bones, and old theories with new tools, perspectives, and practice will invariably shed a whole new light on what we thought we knew. If there is a better argument for the importance of investing in archaeological study and research, we haven’t yet heard it!
Three of our features deal with the archaeology of houses, from the plain to the palatial. The Neolithic building surface found at Marden Henge is perhaps most tantalising, both for what it might indicate is lying beneath the surface of a Wiltshire field, and for how this could change our understanding of the world famous sacred landscape nearby. What we love is the fact that Marden appeared onthe front cover of CA in 1969 (issue 17); here we are, 42 years later, and CA is going strong, Marden is going strong, and archaeology is going … well, just going. Finally, to round off the issue, we have a fantastic story from an independent society who really hit the jackpot.
FEATURES/n
SETTLEMENT UNDER THE SAND/n
New Viking discoveries in Orkney
A massive, lost Norse longhouse at the Bay of Skaill has been rediscovered and excavated.
FIT FOR A KING/n
The palace at Stirling Castle
Restoration has revealed the Renaissance splendour of one of Scotland’s most iconic sites.
MARDEN HENGE/n
Wiltshire’s secret superhenge
Mid-way between Stonehenge and Avebury, bigger than Durrington: the ‘unsung’ henge.
RUBBISH OR RITUAL?/n
Roman well yields its booty
Excavation at Tollgate Farm, Staffordshire, has produced some remarkable Roman results.
NEWS/n
Sutton Hoo’s ‘folk cemetery’; Canine guardians at Hallaton; IoA celebrates 75 years; more from Orkney; the DMV that turned into a temple; Magnificent Severn; Puddletown Forests’s Roman road; memorial for Geoff Egan.
REGULARS/n
Reviews/n
Book: Behind the Colonnade
Film: The Eagle
Sherds/n
Chris Catling’s irreverent takeon heritage issues.
Last Word/n
Editor in Chief Andrew Selkirk visits with Lilian Ladle.
Odd Socs/n
The Church Monuments Society.