Evidence of ‘super henge’ surrounding Stonehenge

Scientists have unveiled a remarkable new picture of Stonehenge and its surrounding areas, including the remains of an even bigger ‘super henge’ nearby.

The mammoth project, led by Prof. Vince Gaffney at the University of Birmingham in conjunction with the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology, is likely to transform our knowledge of this iconic landscape.

For the project, Dr Richard Bates of the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, used remote sensing techniques and geophysical surveys to discover hundreds of new features which now form part of the most detailed archaeological digital map of the Stonehenge landscape ever produced.

Electromagnetic survey results
showing the outer bank at Durrington Walls
marking the circumference of the new super henge

The startling results of the survey include 17 previously unknown ritual monuments dating to the period when Stonehenge achieved its iconic shape. The project has also revealed completely unexpected information on previously known monuments. Arguably the most significant relates to the Durrington Walls ‘super henge’, situated a short distance from Stonehenge. This immense ritual monument, probably the largest of its type in the world, has a circumference of more than 1.5 kilometres (0.93 miles). The geophysical results have provided a new model of this feature that encompasses the vast monument in one complete picture. Geophysics used in archaeology may never be the same again and the team now hopes to apply a similar approach to other iconic sites. In Orkney, Dr Bates is currently applying some of the new techniques to study the landscapes around the henges of the Ring of Brodgar and Stones of Stenness.

The project is the subject of a BBC documentary Operation Stonehenge: What Lies Beneath, which aired on BBC 2 on 11 September. [press release].

The project recently was awarded Research Project of the Year 2017 by Current Archeaology magazine.

The first common market

Long before we had mountains of grain and vast lakes of wine accumulating to excess across the continent our ancestors had worked out that the best entrepreneurial way to stay ahead was through trade with as wide a market as possible. A study to be published in Science this week describes the first evidence for grain traded across Europe 8000 years ago, 2000 years before the accepted beginning of farming in Britain.

Divers at Bouldner Cliff with flints (The Maritime Trust)

The team of scientists, which includes Dr Richard Bates from the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of St Andrews, Prof. Vincent Gaffney from the University of Bradford and the Universities of Warwick, Birmingham and Southampton studied two submerged sites at the extreme ends of Britain, off the shores of the Isle of Wight and Orkney, to discover sediment sequences that contained wheat grains. In the southern site, einkorn DNA (an early form of farmed wheat) was collected from material that had previously formed a land surface which was later sealed by sediment and submerged by rising sea levels. When the grain was dropped, the Mesolithic people were leading a hunter-gatherer existence as farming had only spread as far as Southern Europe. As the einkorn was not native to Britain, in order for it to have reached this site, there must have been contact between the people of Briton and the Neolithic farmers. This contact could even have been across narrow land bridges over what is now the English Channel and southern North Sea.

Flints from Bouldner Cliff
(The Maritime Trust)

The novel ancient sediment DNA analysis used in the study could unlock many other secrets of long lost areas, especially those surrounding our coasts. These areas were once at the heart of different societies but the locations make their study particularly challenging. For St Andrews, the work continues in the Orkney Isles around the iconic Neolithic landscapes where the team will use these techniques to continue investigating the land of the ancestors who constructed the monuments at these sites. [press release]

Science article: Sedimentary DNA from a submerged site reveals wheat in the British Isles 8,000 years ago (DOI: 10.1126/science.1261278).
BB News:  Scientists find evidence of wheat in UK 8,000 years ago

New research centre at St Andrews: CATCH

The Centre for Archaeology, Technology and Cultural Heritage (CATCH) is a multi-disciplinary centre that brings together researchers from across the University of St Andrews. The Centre promotes research into all aspects of past human activity from across the globe, with the aim of making our research accessible to the widest audience as possible. The Centre brings together arts and sciences in order to investigate how humans have been influenced by, and changed, their environment.

The Schools, Departments and Units involved in CATCH are: Art History, Classics, Computer Science, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Geography & Sustainable Development, History, Museum Collections Unit and Social Anthropology.

"Digitising cave art will prevent it being lost forever"
New Scientist, April 2014

Sweeping success at British Archaeological Awards

Projects run by Jo Hambly, Ellie Graham and Tom Dawson of the School of History have won in two of the five categories at the prestigious, biennial British Archaeological Awards 2014, with a third project being Highly Commended. Tom picked up the awards at a ceremony in the British Museum on Monday 14th July, collecting the award for Best Archaeological Innovation for their ShoreUPDATE app from TV presenter and gastronome, Loyd Grossman; and the award for Best Community Engagement Archaeology Project for the Scotland's Coastal Heritage at Risk Project from Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Culture, Ed Vaizey. Their Wemyss Caves 4D website (http://4dwemysscaves.org/), developed with the Save Wemyss Ancient Caves Society and the York Archaeological Trust, was Highly Commended in the Best Public Presentation of Archaeology category.

ShoreUPDATE app:  An app and interactive website that presents the results of 15 years of survey and research at the coast, allowing individuals to access and correct data on the coastal heritage in their area and add additional information that updates the project database. Visit the interactive map of sites at risk: http://www.scharp.co.uk/sites-at-risk.

Scotland's Coastal Heritage at Risk Project (www.scharp.co.uk): SCAPE developed the Scotland Coastal Heritage at Risk Project so that researchers could involvethe public to more effectively tackle the important national issue of coastal erosion. The team's philosophy is that eroding coastal heritage provides opportunities for everyone to enjoy and benefit from taking part in archaeological and historical exploration and discovery. 

Wemyss Caves 4D (http://4dwemysscaves.org/):  The Wemyss Caves in Fife contain the highest number of Pictish carvings in the world. Cutting edge digital recording and interpretation of the caves and carvings has made them accessible to all. Start your journey of discovery here.

Oldest hominin footprint surface outside Africa found

Research by a team of scientists, including  Dr Richard Bates of the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences, believe they have found the oldest hominin footprint surface outside of Africa, with an estimated date between 1 and 0.78 million years ago. Analysis of the newly discovered elongate prints at the site at Happisburgh, Norfolk, suggest a mixed-age group of both juveniles and adults. In many cases, the arches, fronts, in one case including toes, and backs of the feet can be seen. The footprints, which indicate movement in a southerly direction along a river, were subsequently buried by thick sequences of deposits when East Anglia was covered in ice around half a million years ago. The only known species in Europe of the age of the footprints are Homo antecessor. It was at the Happisburgh site that in the early 2000s artefacts and associated plant and animal remains were recorded as the earliest evidence outside southern Europe for human activity, extending the record of human occupation of Northern Europe by 350,000 years. Biological remains suggest these people were living in an environment similar to that of present-day southern Scandinavia. [PLOS ONE article] [BBC News story]

From 13 February to 28 September 2014, the research from Happisburgh will feature in a new exhibit on Palaeolithic Britain “Britain: One Million Years of the Human Story” at the Natural History Museum. Much of this work is a result of the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain (AHOB) project funded by the Leverhulme Trust.

The Ancient Human Occupation of Britain (AHOB) project is highlighted in the Leverhulme Trust Annual Review 2013.

Britain: One Million Years of the Human Story

From 13 February to 28 September 2014 a new exhibit will be on show at the Natural History Museum, London that highlights some of the (literally) ground-breaking research undertaken by scientists from St Andrews and elsewhere in the UK as part of the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project of the last 10 years. Britain: One Million Years of the Human Story presents key material and evidence from a number of important sites in and around the UK that help to document the dramatic story of changing landscapes and the people who lived in them over the last million years. Two of the sites that this major exhibition showcases have been the focus of research for Dr Richard Bates of the Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences for the past 5 years. At La Cotte de St Brelade in Jersey, high resolution marine mapping combined with geophysical modelling is allowing archaeologists to 'drain' away the sea and literally step back in time to walk through the ancient landscapes. The new views from the mammoth butchery cave site are providing alternate context for understanding the prolific finds that have been dug from the site over the last century. At Happisburgh in Norfolk, geophysical surveys are not only revealing the hidden landscape but are also being used to target direct archaeological investigation. This is already showing dividends with new discoveries giving a unique perspective on the people who walked the ancient river shores over 800,000 years ago.

Mammoth butchery cave site at La Cotte de St Brelade in Jersey

The Beginning of Time?

British archaeologists discover what may be the world’s oldest calendar in a field in Scotland.

V. Gaffney et al. 2013 'Time and a Place: A luni-solar 'time-reckoner' from 8th millennium BC Scotland', Internet Archaeology 34. http://dx.doi.org/10.11141/ia.34.1

Dr Richard Bates, Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences, and a team of archaeologist from the Universities of Birmingham and Bradford believe to have found in Aberdeenshire what could be the world’s oldest ‘calendar’. The calendar was created by hunter-gatherer societies and dates back to around 8,000 BC. The Mesolithic monument is a lunisolar device that pre-dates the first formal time-measuring devices found in the Near East (dated at 5000yrs ago). The team have investigated the site and conducted computer models that recreate the lunar-solar conditions at the time the monument was first constructed. The curious pattern of pits, at Warren Field, Crathes, mimics the phases of the Moon but also aligns with Midwinter Sunrise, thus allowing a time-sync of the moon cycles with the solar year and seasons. The site is not only internationally important in itself but there is good indication of other similar sites in Scotland. Dr Bates further believes that discoveries such as these demonstrate Scotland’s vast untapped potential for the Mesolithic and is, of course, further evidence of Scottish inventiveness! [full article][press release]

Community involvement project to monitor archaeological sites

Tom Dawson (School of History), managing director of SCAPE (Scottish Archaeology and the Problem of Erosion), is working on the prioritisation of action at archaeological sites threatened by coastal erosion. Funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, Historic Scotland and the Crown Estate will enable project staff to work with the public to record and monitor sites using a specially designed smart phone app and an interactive website. The three-year project will involve communities from around the entire coast of Scotland. As well as monitoring known sites and recording new discoveries, local groups will also tell the project team which sites they feel are most deserving of further work. At least twelve of the sites selected by the public will be subjected to more detailed study. A range of follow-up projects will record the threatened remains in both conventional and new ways. This could include archaeological excavation, making films about sites, laser scanning, constructing 3D models from aerial photographs or recording sites through photography and art.