Iron Age Discoveries & Heritage

[ramonmercado]

Exactly. I take it they didnt find any potential battle injuries on the skeleton.

Well the original article said "The buried skeleton was poorly preserved and the DNA within had deteriorated, so to determine the sex, scientists turned to the individual's teeth." so probably couldn't tell if there were injuries

 

[hunck]

Archeologists discover 2,000-year-old child’s shoe with laces intact​

A shoe belonging to a child and dating back more than 2,000 years has been unearthed in Austria with its laces still intact.

The design of the leather shoe, whose size roughly corresponds to EU 30 (US 12), suggests it was likely made in the 2nd century BC, according to the German Mining Museum Bochum-Leibniz Research Museum for Geo-resources.

The shoe was excavated by archeologists in the western village of Dürrnberg, where rock salt mining took place from as early as the Iron Age, it said in a recent press release.

The salt, which is particularly good at preserving organic remains, is thought to have kept the shoe in extremely good condition.

“Our research activities at Dürrnberg have been providing us with valuable finds for decades in order to scientifically explore the earliest mining activities. The condition of the shoe found is outstanding,” Professor Thomas Stoellner, head of the Research Department at the German Mining Museum, said in the press release.

Archeologists discovered the shoe among other organic remains, including a fragment of a wooden shovel blade, as well as remains of fur with lacing that might have come from a fur hood.

The remnants of the shoe’s lacing found preserved were likely made of flax or linen, according to the release.

Finding a child’s shoe is “always something special,” because it shows that children were present underground, the museum said.

 

[ramonmercado]

Buried before the rise of Rome

Iron Age necropolis that predates Rome unearthed near Naples
​

The excavations have recovered weapons, necklaces, bracelets and worked bones.

The archaeological team has unearthed 88 "pit tombs" at the site. There are also two large burial mounds that they think cover tombs of the elites of the ancient society. (Image credit: Italy Ministry of Culture/Terna)

An ancient necropolis discovered near Naples, Italy was used to bury the dead about 2,800 years ago, around the time the city of Rome was founded about 100 miles (161 kilometers) to the northwest.

The discovery gives researchers a rare insight into the Iron Age cultures that existed before the Roman domination of the region. The astonishing finds near the town of Amorosi, about 30 miles (48 km) northeast of Naples, include 88 burials in "pit tombs" of both men and women.

The men were typically buried with weapons, whereas the women were often buried with bronze ornaments, including bracelets, pendants, brooches — called "fibulae," and pieces of amber and worked bone, according to a translated statement from the Italian Ministry of Culture. ...

https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/iron-age-necropolis-that-predates-rome-unearthed-near-naples

 

[ramonmercado]

Interesting finds at the site of a fearsome fire.

A devastating fire 2,200 years ago preserved a moment of life and war in Iron Age Spain, down to a single gold earring​

The gold earring found by the scientists, photographed against a dark background, in front of the jar it was found in. Credit: Marco Ansaloni

A ruined building in the middle of the Pyrenees records a tragedy for the people who lived there—a devastating fire that burned a settlement to the ground, destroying almost everything except a hidden gold earring. Now archaeologists' excavation of Building G, in the strategically placed Iron Age site of Tossal de Baltarga, reveals a way of life derailed by violence: potentially, a forgotten episode of the war between Carthage and Rome.

"The destruction was dated around the end of the third century BCE, the moment where the Pyrenees were involved in the Second Punic War and the passage of Hannibal's troops," said Dr. Oriol Olesti Vila of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, lead author of an article in Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology.
"It is likely that the violent destruction of the site was connected to this war. The general fire points to anthropic destruction, intentional and very effective—not only Building G, but all the buildings of the site, were destroyed. In Building D we found a complete dog, burned…."

Buried treasure​

Tossal de Baltarga was a hillfort of the Cerretani community, who had a major settlement at nearby Castellot de Bolvir. It seems to have lacked defensive walls, but commanded an excellent view over the river and critical travel routes. Its sudden destruction preserved organic remains, which allowed archaeologists to paint a detailed picture of the life that its occupants lived until it was set alight.

"These valleys were an important territory economically and strategically," said Olesti Vila. "We know that Hannibal passed the Pyrenees fighting against the local tribes, likely the Cerretani. Not many archaeological remains of this expedition are preserved. Tossal de Baltarga is likely one of the best examples."

Building G as it might have looked before the fire, interpreted by Francesc Riart, illustrator. Credit: Reconstruction by Francesc Riart, illustrator. Shared by kind permission of the authors.

Building G had two floors. The fire burned so fiercely that the roof, support beams, and wooden upper floor fell in, but some of the valuables survived the fall: The archaeologists found an iron pickaxe and a gold earring, concealed in a little pot. ...

https://phys.org/news/2024-05-devastating-years-moment-life-war.html

 

[ramonmercado]

Stabbed and buried disrespectfully.

Human sacrifice evidence in Iron Age bones, say Bournemouth researchers​

Bournemouth University
The skeleton of a woman in her late 20s were found face down on top of carefully arranged animal bones

An Iron Age woman whose remains were found in a pit may have been killed as a human sacrifice, researchers say.

A team from Bournemouth University said bones found in Winterborne Kingston, Dorset, in 2010 revealed the woman in her late 20s was stabbed in the neck. Her spine also showed evidence of hard labour, her ribs were broken and isotopes in her teeth suggested she grew up more than 20 miles away.

Researchers said it was "rare physical evidence" of human sacrifice.

Bournemouth University
The bones revealed the woman was fatally stabbed in the neck

Dr Martin Smith, associate professor in forensic and biological anthropology, said: "In the other burials we have found, the deceased people appear to have been carefully positioned in the pit and treated with respect, but this poor woman hasn't.

"The young woman was found lying face down on top of a strange, deliberately constructed, crescent shaped arrangement of animal bone at the bottom of a pit, so it looks like she was killed as part of an offering."

Researchers from the university have been excavating the area at Winterborne Kingston for 15 years.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-dorset-69039183

 

[ramonmercado]

Chariot of Fire.

Part of an "exceptionally rare" Iron Age wooden axle from a chariot or cart has been found in a waterlogged pit.

The fragment was uncovered in 2021 at Eastbridge, Suffolk, ahead of tree planting for the Sizewell C nuclear power station project.
Recent analysis revealed the hazel wood axle was made between 400BC and 100BC.

Archaeologist Chris Fern said it joins a handful of finds "from British later prehistory, such as the axle found at Flag Fen, Peterborough".

IMAGE SOURCE, COTSWOLD ARCHAEOLOGY Image caption, It was discovered in a waterlogged pit, along with charred boards which might also have been part of the chariot or cart

The dig unearthed two Iron Age pits, which experts believe were most likely used as watering holes for livestock.

As they were waterlogged, they provided "ideal preservation conditions for wood", said Mr Fern, a Cotswold Archaeology post-excavation manager.

The base of the axle had been broken, burned and reused and was found with charred boards, which might also have come from the same chariot.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-suffolk-64401388

Not Iron Age but the coins were also found at the future Sizewell site. I wonder if they glow in the daek?

A hoard of coins dating back to the 11th century has been found at the site of a future nuclear power station.

Oxford Cotswold Archaeology discovered a cloth package containing 321 silver coins in mint condition during excavations at Sizewell C on the Suffolk coast. The team believed the bundle of coins could have been the savings pot of a local figure, fearing regime changes following the coronation of Edward the Confessor in 1042.

Archaeologist Andrew Pegg said he was shaking when he found the coins.

Oxford Cotswold Archaeology
The bundle was unearthed during excavations at the Sizewell C power station site

"I was shaking when I first unearthed it, seeing a single coin edge peeking at me," he recalled. "A perfect archaeological time capsule. The information we are learning from it is stunning and I'm so proud to have added to the history of my own little part of Suffolk."

Mr Pegg referred to the collection as "the pasty" due to the coins being wrapped in a cloth bundle which was barely bigger than a Cornish pasty.

The discovery will be feature on the new season of Digging for Britain on BBC 2 and iPlayer at 20:00 GMT.

The coins date between 1036 and 1044 during the reigns of Harold I, Harthacnut and Edward the Confessor.

A large number of them were minted in London, but others were struck at locations including Thetford and Norwich in Norfolk, as well as more locally in Ipswich and further away in Lincoln and Stamford in Lincolnshire.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9wl9re5j1qo

 

[maximus otter]

Iron Age Spoon May Have Predicted the Future

PATRICK, ISLE OF MAN––An unusual divination spoon was found by metal detectorists at a site along the west coast of the Isle of Man.

Dating to between 400 and 100 B.C., the bowl of the bronze, strawberry-shaped utensil is engraved with two perpendicular lines that form a cross. Details about how exactly the peculiar spoon may have been used remain unknown, but experts theorize that it played an important part in Iron Age rituals to predict the future. “The spoons are usually found in pairs and it has been suggested that liquid of some form would have been poured into the spoon which has the cross, and whatever quarter it landed in would tell something about the future.”

Twenty-eight similar artifacts have been found across Britain, Ireland, and France, but this is the first of its kind ever discovered on the Isle of Man.

https://archaeology.org/news/2025/02/21/iron-age-spoon-may-have-predicted-the-future/

maximus otter

 

[ramonmercado]

Finds in Tamil Nadu may prove tobe the earliest evidence of the extracting, smelting, forging and shaping of iron.

For over 20 years, archaeologists in India's southern state of Tamil Nadu have been unearthing clues to the region's ancient past.

Their digs have uncovered early scripts that rewrite literacy timelines, mapped maritime trade routes connecting India to the world and revealed advanced urban settlements - reinforcing the state's role as a cradle of early civilisation and global commerce.

Now they've also uncovered something even older - evidence of what could be the earliest making and use of iron. Present-day Turkey is one of the earliest known regions where iron was mined, extracted and forged on a significant scale around the 13th Century BC.

Archaeologists have discovered iron objects at six sites in Tamil Nadu, dating back to 2,953–3,345 BCE, or between 5,000 to 5,400 years old. This suggests that the process of extracting, smelting, forging and shaping iron to create tools, weapons and other objects may have developed independently in the Indian subcontinent.

"The discovery is of such a great importance that it will take some more time before its implications sink in," says Dilip Kumar Chakrabarti, a professor of South Asian archaeology at Cambridge University.

Department of Archaeology/Tamil Nadu
A host of iron objects dating back to more than 5,000 years have been found in Tamil Nadu

The latest findings from Adichchanallur, Sivagalai, Mayiladumparai, Kilnamandi, Mangadu and Thelunganur sites have made local headlines such as "Did the Iron Age Begin in Tamil Nadu?" The age marks a period when societies began using and producing iron widely, making tools, weapons and infrastructure.

Parth R Chauhan, a professor of archaeology at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (ISSER), urges caution before drawing broad conclusions. He believes that iron technology likely emerged "independently in multiple regions".

Also, the "earliest evidence remains uncertain because many regions of the world have not been properly researched or archaeological evidence is known but has not been dated properly".

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62e36jm4jro

 

[ramonmercado]

Groundbreaking find unearthed.

Archaeologists have helped uncover one of the "largest and most important" Iron Age finds in the UK.

The Melsonby Hoard was discovered in a field near Melsonby, North Yorkshire, by metal detectorist Peter Heads and excavated with the help of Durham University.

It includes more than 800 items, including two cauldrons or vessels, horse harness, bridle bits, ceremonial spears and 28 iron tyres, believed to have been buried about 2,000 years ago.

Historians believe the "unprecedented" find could lead to a "major re-evaluation" of the wealth and status of the elite living in northern Britain at the time.

Durham University
The site was discovered in December 2021 by metal detectorist Peter Heads

After the initial discovery was reported to the authorities in December 2021, the site was excavated in 2022, with the support of the British Museum and a £120,000 grant from Historic England.

Early analysis of the hoard, released on Tuesday, suggests a lot of the items had been purposefully burnt or broken before being buried as a show of power and wealth.

Tom Moore, head of the department of archaeology at Durham University, said the size and scale of the find was "exceptional for Britain and probably even Europe".

He said the hoard showed there was more wealth in the north of England at the time than previously thought.

"Whoever originally owned the material in this hoard was probably a part of a network of elites across Britain, into Europe and even the Roman world," he said. "The destruction of so many high-status objects, evident in this hoard, is also of a scale rarely seen in Iron Age Britain and demonstrates that the elites of northern Britain were just as powerful as their southern counterparts."

It is thought the objects may have been burnt on a funerary pyre before being buried, though no human remains were found. ...

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd9241dq40qo

 

[Kondoru]

Wow.

 

[Frideswide]

Wow.

makes you wonder about the rest of the carts, chariots or whatever. Wood I guess, and so nit worth the burying?

One fast way to get to the metal is ti burn the wood, as far as you can. So... burn sites?

 

[Steven]

Could the stuff have been burned and broken in order to stop an approaching enemy using it all?

 

[Frideswide]

Could the stuff have been burned and broken in order to stop an approaching enemy using it all?

Yes... but you'd need days/weeks to prepare and to actually do it. so a siege sort of thing? Trying to keep things from an enemy, almost out of spite, even if you'd die?

Or maybe if you were having to leave an area and expected to come back.

But destroying vehicles is major stuff.

I wonder if the tyres had been used. If they hadn;t I'm going for spoils from a robbery at a smithy for that part of the hoard.

 

[Steven]

I wonder if the tyres had been used

You mean they're not onion rings?!?!?

 

[catseye]

I wonder if they'd heard the Romans were coming and decided to take to the hills, a bit of the old 'scorched earth'...?

 

[Kondoru]

28 tyres.

So, (at least) 14 vehicles.

Thats some big motor pool.

 

[Frideswide]

I wonder... It's not in the right place for Arras Culture as it's North Yorkshire not East Yorkshire.

Arras Culture is interesting as it's different to its neighbours but very like continental parallels. Here's the wikipedia link

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arras_culture

Lots of cart and even chariot burials and that's a big part of why something is seen as Arras rather than something else.

So I'm flying a wee kite here: is this horde something to do with Arras? Maybe supplying that culture or raiding from it.

If anyone wants to know more then this is a good book

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Arras-Culture-Eastern-Yorkshire-Archaeological-ebook/dp/B082FHTRGB

 

[maximus otter]

Could the stuff have been burned and broken in order to stop an approaching enemy using it all?

Why wouldn’t they load the weapons into the carts and just relocate?

Metal implements back then were rare and expensive, not something to take out of use on a whim.

maximus otter

 

[Mercy Chaney]

Why wouldn’t they load the weapons into the carts and just relocate?

Metal implements back then were rare and expensive, not something to take out of use on a whim.

maximus otter

Ritual?????

I was talking to someone (builder of replica chariots) a couple of evenings ago who had been invited up to examine the finds but he decided Durham was too far from Taunton. He will reconsider if and when he is asked up to York. When asked why he thought they might have buried the things he just shrugged.

I believe most chariot finds are associated with burial. We have spokes and an unfinished wheel hub in our local museum (Glastonbury Lake Village). People wonder what use people living in wetlands beside a river would have for a chariot (bits of a wheel don't make a chariot, but...). Who knows?

Iron-age wheels are remarkably sophisticated in construction.

 

[eziofan]

I wonder... It's not in the right place for Arras Culture as it's North Yorkshire not East Yorkshire.

Arras Culture is interesting as it's different to its neighbours but very like continental parallels. Here's the wikipedia link

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arras_culture

Lots of cart and even chariot burials and that's a big part of why something is seen as Arras rather than something else.

So I'm flying a wee kite here: is this horde something to do with Arras? Maybe supplying that culture or raiding from it.

If anyone wants to know more then this is a good book

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Arras-Culture-Eastern-Yorkshire-Archaeological-ebook/dp/B082FHTRGB

View attachment 88363

I know Peter Halkon! I have worked on his dig at Brough. I was giving a talk to the Council for British Archaeology (Yorkshire) a couple of weeks ago and Peter was there.

 

[Frideswide]

I know Peter Halkon! I have worked on his dig at Brough. I was giving a talk to the Council for British Archaeology (Yorkshire) a couple of weeks ago and Peter was there.

woooohoo! that's a fun link

Can I take it you agree that he's well worth listening to? In general I mean, not just about wheeled vehicle burials.

 

[eziofan]

woooohoo! that's a fun link

Can I take it you agree that he's well worth listening to? In general I mean, not just about wheeled vehicle burials.

Yes, he is a font of info about the Iron Age and beyond. His pet project is finding and mapping the pre Roman roads across the Wolds. Peter was the finder of the Hasholme Logboat which is now in Hull Museum.

 

[Frideswide]

Peter was the finder of the Hasholme Logboat which is now in Hull Museum.

I didn't know that! I've never seen it but we do go on holiday to England so maybe one day

 

[eziofan]

woooohoo! that's a fun link

Can I take it you agree that he's well worth listening to? In general I mean, not just about wheeled vehicle burials.

To complete the fun link, Peter lives next door to an old golfing friend of mine. Until recently, both were unaware that they both knew me!

 

[Frideswide]

To complete the fun link, Peter lives next door to an old golfing friend of mine. Until recently, both were unaware that they both knew me!

perfect!!!!!!!!! I love this sort of thing.

 

[eziofan]

perfect!!!!!!!!! I love this sort of thing.

OK, this gets really spooky. You will not believe this but I have just been sent this picture of Peter Halkon (wearing a very fetching replica Celtic cape and brooch) taken LAST NIGHT! at the unveiling of the Pocklington Shield (google it!). The world moves in mysterious ways!

 

[Frideswide]

I have just been sent this picture of Peter Halkon (wearing a very fetching replica Celtic cape and brooch) taken LAST NIGHT! at the unveiling of the Pocklington Shield

we are within the ambit of the cosmic joker

 

[catseye]

Yorkshire is such a massive county. I drive through Wetwang (stop it) regularly and they're doing more building work not a million miles from where the chariot burial was found in 2001 so I wonder if anything is going to turn up there?

 

[eziofan]

we are within the ambit of the cosmic joker

Getting silly now! This picture of Peter Halkon came up just an hour ago on the Archaeology in Britain facebook page!

 

[eziofan]

Yorkshire is such a massive county. I drive through Wetwang (stop it) regularly and they're doing more building work not a million miles from where the chariot burial was found in 2001 so I wonder if anything is going to turn up there?

I know Alison Spencer from the Fridaythorpe, Wetwang and Fimber Archaeology group. Will be giving a talk there sometime this year.