Iron Age hill fort restored
Work has been completed to restore the area around the Uley Bury Iron Age hill fort. The DEFRA-backed project covers 38 acres on land above the village of Uley (Cotswolds, England). The hill fort, which dates back around 2500 years, is encircled by a bridle path that gives wonderful views over the Severn Vale. It is both a Scheduled Ancient Monument and, because of its species-rich grassland, a Site of Special Scientific Interest.
Before the conservation work was carried out, trees had been self-seeding and the top of the site was farmed for arable crops. This had meant that the area of undergrass was shrinking and with it the valuable rare habitat of chalk/limestone grassland. Tree roots were damaging the monument's structure and the trees themselves were obscuring the landscape views.
Geoff Newman, adviser for the Rural Development Service in the South West, said: "It is thanks to the support of our other partners and the hard work of the Cotswold Warden volunteers that this conservation work has been carried out." The work includes reversion of the arable area on the hill fort to grass and the introduction of grazing by local cattle, together with fencing to ensure this is possible. Rob Iles, speaking on behalf of English Heritage South West, said: "The long term future of the monument has been secured. It means the public can enjoy some of the best views in Gloucestershire from the bridle paths around this fantastic hill fort."
Source: This is The South Cotswolds (22 July 2005)
http://www.thisisthesouthcotswolds.co.uk/dursley/news/NEWS10.htmlPlans for Stonehenge put on hold
The British Government has announced that the plans to rebuild the traffic and environment around Stonehenge - which included an ambitious and controversial tunnel under the site - are to be shelved, as rising cost estimates for the project cast doubt on its validity. Following work carried out by the Highways Agency, the estimates for the project rose from £284m to £470m, due apparently to soft weak chalk in the soil and a high water table.
The inspector's report from the public inquiry on the Stonehenge proposal - which the government has been sitting on for almost a year - unequivocally supported burying the road in a 1.3 mile (2.1km) tunnel. However, in announcing his conclusions, Dr Stephen Ladyman, Roads minister, said: "Our recognition of the importance of Stonehenge as a World Heritage Site remains unchanged but given the scale of the cost increase we have to re-examine whether the scheme still represents value for money and if it remains the best option for delivering the desired improvements." The Government is now set to carry out a detailed review of all the options to find what will be best for the site, it says.
However the National Trust, which is keen to see the situation resolved, called on Government to use this review of the site to explore 'creative solutions' that safeguard the central objective of reuniting the ancient stones with the surrounding landscape of the World Heritage Site. The Trust also expressed concern that the review of options should not in any way diminish the quality of the long-awaited project, or delay it substantially.
English Heritage, on the other hand, continues to believe the present scheme is the most effective in terms of the structure of the site, and cost effectiveness: "We continue to believe that the proposed road scheme represents the best value for money for achieving all the desired improvements while offering protection to the underlying archaeology." said their statement.
The Council for British Archaeology (CBA) hopes the Government will reconsider the whole scheme. "We were strongly opposed to the planned tunnel," said Mike Heyworth, Director of the CBA. "Now it sounds as if they're going to kick it into the long grass." The CBA confirmed that it remains resolutely opposed to the proposals for a short tunnel, which removes the A303 from the immediate vicinity of the stones but only at the cost of major damage to the rest of the World Heritage Site.
Chris Woodford of the Save Stonehenge group, said: "This was always a quick and dirty motorway scheme pretending to be an archaeological improvement." Friends of the Earth, which opposed turning the A303 into a virtual motorway, opposed the tunnel because it was not long enough. Now they fear a cheaper solution might make matters worse. FoE's Mike Birkin said: "We are deeply worried that the Government may come forward with a cheaper and more damaging proposal instead. They should also cancel the plans to turn the A303 into a second strategic route into the West."
Also the new, Australian-designed visitor centre is dependent on resolving the roads issue. It would replace squalid facilities damned 12 years ago by the parliamentary public accounts committee as "a national disgrace". Mike Pitts, an archaeologist who has excavated at Stonehenge, and written about the site, said: "This is terrible news. In the wake of winning the London bid for the Olympics, it hardly encourages belief in the government's support for grand projects."
Now the Government is to go back to the drawing board with
Stonehenge's managers English Heritage, and with the National Trust, which ownsmuch of the land around the area, after seven years of working on the massive project.
Sources: Department of Transport, BBC News (20 July 2005), 24 Hour
Museum, Country Life, The Guardian, The Times, Western Daily Press
(21 July 2005), Western Daily Press (22 July 2005)
http://www.dft.gov.uk/pns/displaypn.cgi?pn_id=2005_0081http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/wiltshire/4699477.stmhttp://www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/nwh_gfx_en/ART29513.htmlhttp://www.countrylife.co.uk/countrysideconcerns/news/stonehengeonhold.phphttp://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1532745,00.htmlhttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1702151,00.htmlhttp://www.westpress.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=14604...9&contentPK=12872608http://www.westpress.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=14627...4&contentPK=128798453d laser scanning at Callanish complex
The Callanish Stones (Outer Hebrides, Scotland) have been recently measured using high resolution 3D laser scanning. The laser scanning was commissioned by Stewart and Emma Mitchell of the Callanish Blackhouse Tearoom as part of their ongoing project to promote the Callanish standing stones.
The survey of the site has been made by Archaeoptics Ltd. and it will be used to produce educational material relating to the stones, their position within the greater Callanish complex and current archaeo-astronomical theories. The data will also be reused to produce the perfectly accurate souvenirs of the site that will be available exclusively to the Callanish Blackhouse Tearoom.
Alastair Carty, who carried out the survey, said: "A laser scan provides full 3D dimensions similar to existing surveying techniques but far, far more accurate. It also builds a dense 3D model that could be used to create virtual astronomical events. Stewart and Emma Mitchell hope to offer a video or DVD that can add information about the stones through a fully interactive 3D model."
Sources: Archaeoptics Press release, The Hebridean (20 July 2005)
http://minotaur.archaeoptics.co.ukhttp://www.thehebridean.net/servlet/ContentServer?pagen...07&cid=1120740612956Prehistoric artefacts unhearthed at Culzean Castle
Archaeologists working at Culzean Castle (South Ayrshire, Scotland)for The National Trust for Scotland have found traces of a 2000 year old wall and possible prehistoric artefacts including burnt bone and animal teeth. The finds were made during an archaeological excavation before the construction of new terraces in front of the Old Stables Café. The work is being undertaken by a small group of volunteers, supervised by the Trust's West Region Archaeologist, Derek Alexander.
"The wall is made of large rounded granite boulders with courses of small sandstone slabs in between. The boulders must have been brought to the site and are unlike any thing else on the cliff top," said Mr Alexander. The exact date of the wall is unknown but the drystone construction (without mortar) and the discovery of a large piece of flaked flint might suggest occupation back in prehistory, over 2000 years ago. Other finds from the site so far include burnt bone, animal teeth, coarse stone tools, and charcoal. It is hoped that the charcoal will be able to provide a radiocarbon date. Alexander says "it is perhaps not surprising that we have started to find traces of early settlement on the site, as before the construction of the terraced gardens on the south-east side the castle, the ridge would have formed an ideal, naturally defended site".
These new finds are an addition to an ever-increasing wealth of archaeological remains around the castle at Culzean. Recent work has recorded 8th-9th century AD human burials in the caves below the castle, while fieldwalking in some of the surrounding arable fields also found three Neolithic stone axes.
Source: The National Trust for Scotland press release (20 July 2005)
Pre-Incas kept detailed records
A sophisticated arrangement of knots and strings, found on the site of the oldest city in the Americas, indicates ancient Peruvians were skilled at conveying detailed information much earlier than once thought.
Archaeologists say the string arrangement, known as a quipu or khipu, indicates ancient Americans were expert communicators thousands of years earlier. Until now the oldest known quipus, often associated with the Incas, dated from about 650 CE. But Dr Ruth Shady, an archeologist leading investigations into the Peruvian coastal city of Caral, says quipus were among a treasure trove of articles discovered at the site, which is about 5000 years old. "This is the oldest quipu and it shows us that this society ... also had a system of 'writing' [which] would continue down the ages until the Inca empire and would last some 4500 years," Shady says.
The quipu with its well-preserved, brown cotton strings wound around thin sticks, was found with a series of offerings including mysterious fibre balls of different sizes wrapped in 'nets' and pristine reed baskets. "We are sure it corresponds to the period of Caral because it was found in a public building," Shady says. "It was an offering placed on a stairway when they decided to bury this and put down a floor to build another structure on top."
Pyramid-shaped public buildings were being built at Caral, a planned coastal city 180 kilometres north of Lima, at the same time that the Saqqara pyramid, the oldest in Egypt, was going up. Shady says no equivalent of the Rosetta Stone, which deciphered the hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt, have yet been found to fully unlock the language of the quipus.
Caral's arid location at an altitude of 3500 meters has helped to preserve its treasures, like piles of raw cotton, still uncombed and containing seeds, though turned a dirty brown by the ages, and a ball of cotton thread.
Sources: ABC.net.au, Reuters (20 July 2005)
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1418372.htmMeeting to decide quarrying by henges
Controversial plans to extend a quarry near the neolithic
Thoprnborough henges (North Yorkshire, England) have been discussed by county councillors for the first time. Tarmac Limited wants to extend Nosterfield Quarry, near Ripon, to a site at nearby Ladybridge Farm. Campaigners said quarrying the land would disturb important archaeological remains, but Tarmac said the landscape could be conserved while sand and gravel extraction is extended.
North Yorkshire County Council decided that a separate meeting should be held to consider the plans, which have attracted 750 letters of objection and two petitions with 8,000 signatures. It will take place at 1pm on Tuesday, September 20. A venue has yet to be fixed. Councillors will carry out a site visit on August 4. They also decided that English Heritage will also be given the chance to have its say. However, objectors trying to save the ritual landscape of the Thornborough Henges have been awarded only six minutes to speak in defence of the Neolithic landscape at the main planning meeting.
George Chaplin, chairman of campaign group TimeWatch, said: "We have six minutes to plead the case for a site that was virtually unknown just three years ago; if we fail it will all be quarried in four years. It will also have an extremely detrimental impact on Thornborough's tourism potential. Earlier this year, more than 1,500 people gathered at the Thornborough Free Festival to show support for the TimeWatch campaign."
A Tarmac spokesman said: "We believe that the landscape can accommodate conservation of Thornborough henges and continuation of sand and gravel extraction."
Sources: Timewatch.org Press release (19 July 2005), This is the North East (20 July 2005)
http://www.thisisthenortheast.co.uk/the_north_east/news/NEWS24.htmlArchaeology survey of Goss Moor
The British Highways Agency has highlighted a new road in Cornwall.
Ginny Clarke, Highways Agency Director for Safety, Strategy and Research, said: "The quality and rarity of these finds illustrate the importance of the care taken while developing and preparing for major road scheme. We are working to improve our assessment of the impact of our work on the landscape. We are also looking to enhance our work to predict the location of possible remains so we can determine the best approach to be taken."
The Highways Agency is supporting the Council for British
Archaeology's week as part of its commitment to protect the country's cultural heritage. The new road in Cornwall, which is expected to take two years to complete, will skirt the northern edge of Goss Moor, connecting two dualled sections between Bodmin and Indian Queens.
Sources: BBC News, Wired.gov (19 July 2005)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/4696775.stmhttp://www.wired-gov.net/WGArticle.aspx?WCI=htmArticleV...ARTCL%5FPKEY%3D32904Ancient brew based on 9,000-year-old Chinese recipe
Dogfish Head Brewery in Delaware (USA) has brewed another ancient beer, this time replicating one made in China about 9,000 years ago. The recent brew is to be sold as Chateau Jiahu, was served only in the brewery's restaurant-pub and special dinners but a larger batch may be brewed in the fall and eventually go into regular production.
The recipe for Chateau Jiahu included rice, honey, and grape and hawthorn fruits. Dogfish Head founder Sam Calagione started with a formula from archaeologists who derived it from the residues of pottery jars found in the late Stone Age village of Jiahu in northern China.
"We can't prove that an alcoholic beverage was definitely
produced in the jars - the alcohol is gone - but it's not that
difficult to infer," said Patrick McGovern, an archaeochemist at the University of Pennsylvania's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Philadelphia.
Mike Gerhart, distillery manager at Dogfish Head's brewery in Milton, Delaware, led the Chateau Jiahu project. It presented particular challenges, including how the ancients began fermentation of the rice. The brewers could use a mold cake traditionally used in Chinese rice wines, or they could chew and spit the rice into a bowl and let the saliva enzymes go to work - a rustic East Asian technique.
Gerhart said the final product is hard to describe. "It wasn't a beer, it wasn't a mead, and it wasn't a wine or a cider. It was somewhere between all of them, in this gray area," he said.
Sources: Ananova, Realbeer.com (19 July 2005)
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1467778.html?menu=news.quirkieshttp://www.realbeer.com/news/articles/news-002633.phpUnusual Iron Age steles discovered in Iran
Over 500 stone steles bearing images of faces of men and women with no mouths were recently discovered at Shahr Yeri in Ardebil Province (Iran). Alireza Hojabri Nuri, the director of the team of archaeologists working at the site, added that the steles are arranged one after another in the form of a wall and date back to the Iron Age.
"The discovered steles enjoy unique characteristics, and the remains of earthenware and rare stones on the stone platforms beneath the steles indicate that the place used to be a temple where the inhabitants made offerings. The temple floor was made of stone, although no sign of its ceiling has been found yet. The steles vary in height from 35 centimeters to 230 centimeters. It seems that the temple was very important in the time before the Urartians invaded the region, but then the temple lost its prominence," he explained.
The steles are made of tuff, which is not heavy and are covered with many details such as weapons, he added. The weapons on the steles are extremely varied and are similar to those found in the graves of Iron Age I in Shahr Yeri, Mr Nuri said. All the details of each face are engraved on the steles except for the mouth, which seems to have a religious meaning, he added.
According to a theory, the steles were made by the inhabitants and were placed in the temple as offerings to their gods, but another theory says that the steles were their gods themselves, he explained, adding that both theories state that a face with no mouth means
silence.
Source: Mehr News (19 July 2005)
http://www.mehrnews.ir/en/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=208421Ancient stone-coffin tombs discovered in Sichuan
Archaeologists discovered more than 20 ancient tombs with stone
coffins dating back nearly 2,800 years ago in southwestern China's Sichuan province. The discovery of stone coffins, first of its kind in the region, proved other ethnic groups also lived in the area before as Tibetan seldom use stone coffins for burial, said Chen Zujun, an expert from the provincial archaeological research institute. "Traditionally, Tibetan choose water burial, inhumation, cremation, or open-sky burial and the coffins they used are usually made of wood instead of stone," said Chen. In addition, Tibetan in Garze usually use a special rope made of cowhide to bind the bodies into the shape of a fetus and seal the body's eyes, nose, and mouth with butter, said Chen.
The coffins were about 1.8 meters long and one to 1.5 meters wide and the coffin cover is made up of three to five pieces of stone slate. "They are quite similar to the stone coffins of the ancient Qiang people, a nomadic tribe used to live in the current northwestern part of China more than 3,000 years ago, which werealso found the valleys of the Yalong River, Minjiang River and Jinsha River in Sichuan," said Chen. "The coffin owners may be from a branch of the tribe, which moved from the north," he said, adding they also found 140 articles of cultural relics, including stoneware, bronze wares and potteries, which proved the tombs made up a cemetery of a tribe relying on handicraft industry.
Source: China View (19 July 2005)
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-07/19/content_3240877.htm8,000-year-old relics found in Mississippi
Archeologists have uncovered relics dating back thousands of years near the Mississippi 63 bypass construction project (USA). A total of three sites were excavated to reveal a wide variety of arrowheads, pottery pieces and other finds dating back to 6000 BCE.
Historical Society President James Dunnam recalled hearing of people finding arrowheads and pottery on their property for many years and spoke of many stories he has heard in the area. Dunnam said the archaeologist kept the project quiet until recently, but it dates back to 1998 when archaeologists working for the Mississippi Department of Transportation first scouted out the area where the bypass is now being constructed. Many of the artifacts are on display at the county courthouse.
Source: Associated Press, The Clarion-Ledger (18 July 2005)
http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=...EWS01/507180346/1002Bronze Age treasure to return home in Wales
A priceless 4,000-year-old gold cape is to return to north-east Wales for the first time since it was discovered there in 1833. The Bronze Age Mold Cape, the largest gold object found in Wales, will be exhibited in Wrexham in September. Culture Minister Alun Pugh said it will be at the centre of a three-month show.
The cape, widely regarded as one of the finest pieces of Bronze Age craftsmanship, has been painstakingly restored by the British Museum. It was uncovered by workmen quarrying stone in a field called Bryn Yr Ellyllon, not far from what is now Mold Rugby Club's ground in 1833. It was inside a Bronze Age burial mound together with the remains of a skeleton and some amber beads.
The Mold Cape is a unique treasure and one of the finest
examples of Bronze Age gold work in existence. Made from a very high quality of gold, the cape weighs one kilogram and historians believe it was possibly worn as a garment for religious ceremonies by someone in authority. Campaigners have long fought to see the artefact back in north Wales.
The Mold Cape will form the centrepiece of Re-creations:
Visualising our Past. The exhibition runs from 26 September until 17 December and looks at how the past can be reconstructed from material evidence - either physically, as in the case of the cape, or through artists' impressions. The event has been backed by a grant from the Welsh Assembly Government's 'Sharing Treasure' scheme, which helps local museums take exhibits on loan.
Mr Pugh said he was "very proud" that the assembly government has been able to help bring the cape back to the area it was found. "I am sure there will be no shortage of visitors eager to see this fascinating piece of Wales' prehistoric past," said Mr Pugh.
Source: BBC News (14 July 2005)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_east/4682865.stmAncient irrigation system discovered in UAE
Discovered entirely by accident, an ancient underground water channel system known as a "Falaj" has been unearthed beneath the courtyard of a house in Al Ain, near the Hili Archeological Park. The system may very well have been built 3,000 years ago.
Al Ain, an Oasis that dominates the route between Abu Dhabi and Oman is the home of the Hili Archeological Park, where students from all over the world gather to study archeology and is the site of the Hili Tombs, hundred's of bee-hive shaped, clay tombs dating back to the late 4th and early 3rd millenium.
A Falaj system would have been the major source of bringing water to these arid zones from distant lands. It was a highly engineered procedure of tapping underground water by way of man-made, subterranean channels to the villages and farming districts where it would be used for irrigating as well as domestic purposes.
The people of this ancient time who initiated the planning of the Aflaj (plural for Falaj in Arabic) were highly skilled in engineering, water exploration and digging and maintenance.
In 1985, the first Falaj built in the United Arab Emerates was discovered and excavated in Al Ain. The genius of this design bares evidence by the fact that many such Aflaj are still in use in Al Ain as well as other parts of the world today!
And there have been ongoing discoveries of Aflaj. The ancient water systems have been found in Hili, Bida'a Bin Saod, Al Gabeeb and Al Madam, as well as Al Ain, and one discovered in Thugaiban, all within the UAE.
Imagine the beauty of a cool, thriving Oasis within the desert with free-flowing water that where once it's inhabitants and travelers had to pay for their water. Paradise lost is now again found.
Source: Gulf News (19 July 2005)
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