Social Networks for Archaeology

The power and importance of social networks are growing all the time, not least in the field of archaeology.

I thought that it would be useful to compile a list of these sites for archaeology. The list as it stands at the moment can be found here….

Obviously, this list is very incomplete at the moment, so if you know of any archaeological social network site that should be added, please give details on the form here…

Anglo-Saxon Stafford. Archaeological Investigations 1954-2004. Field Reports Online

In July AD 913 Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, founded Stafford as part of a campaign for the recovery of England from the Danes. She was the commander of the left flank in the northward advance, while her brother Edward the Elder led the pincer movement on the right flank. Wessex had already been won, thanks to the persistence and ingenuity of their father, Alfred the Great.

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TV Preview: Saxon Gold: Finding the Hoard C4, 9pm

A REPEAT of the programme previously shown on National Geographic, Saxon Gold: Finding The Hoard recounts what happened when amateur metal detecting enthusiast Terry Herbert uncovered the largest Anglo Saxon treasure hoard ever found in Britain. Just below the surface of a field belonging to farmer Fred Johnson near Lichfield, he unearthed more than 200 pieces of jewelled gold and silver treasure, buried, lost and forgotten for a millennium. Archaeologists later excavated a further 1,400 items. The rest, as they say, is history.

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Staffordshire Hoard location revealed

The secret location where the multi-million pound Staffordshire Hoard was unearthed is to be revealed for the first time in a television documentary this week.

Newspapers and broadcasters have largely abided by archaeologists' requests not to publish the exact position of the field where metal detectorist Terry Herbert found the exquisite Anglo-Saxon collection in July last year, fearing the site could be targeted by thieves.

But a new Channel 4 documentary includes footage of the field where the hoard was discovered, and even pinpoints the location of the main archaeological trench within the plot of land.

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Staffordshire and Tamworth and announce £100,000 Hoard contribution

Staffordshire County Council and Tamworth Borough Council officially announced a £100,000 contribution to the Staffordshire Hoard Fund today.

Having successfully raised the £3.3m needed to acquire the Hoard, a further £1.7m is needed to ensure that vital conservation and research work can take place on the 1600 items that make up the treasure. It will also ensure it is appropriately displayed and interpreted for all to enjoy.

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Second dig on Staffordshire Hoard site to learn more about the treasure

A SECOND dig at the site of the Staffordshire Hoard has finished as archaeologists try to learn more about the Anglo Saxon treasure.

The dig, led by Staffordshire County Council’s principal archaeologist Steve Dean, was an attempt to find out why the Hoard was left in a field for an amateur metal enthusiast to discover centuries later.

Five trenches and ten test pits were dug to find clues about the landscape at the time the £3.3 million treasure was buried.

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Lichfield Cathedral to be part of Staffordshire Hoard’s Mercian Trail

Lichfield Cathedral will be part of a new Mercian Trail, being created as part of plans to showcase the magnificent Staffordshire Hoard on Anglo Saxon gold treasures.

And as part of the celebrations to mark the announcement that the Art Fund has saved the largest archaeological Anglo-Saxon find ever unearthed for the nation; the Cathedral has been chosen for an exclusive advance preview of a National Geographic film about the Hoard’s discovery.

The film Saxon Gold: Finding the Hoard will be shown on Friday night at 7.30pm.

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Team digs for clues at Staffordshire Hoard site

EXPERTS have spent the week digging up the Hammerwich field where the Staffordshire Hoard was found. But the archeologists say there is definitely no more gold on the site.

They have been examining the land off Barracks Lane, pictured below, in an attempt to find out more about its history.

Staffordshire's county archaeologist Stephen Dean said: "Last July we were very much looking to recover material, but we knew we needed to come back.

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Staffordshire Hoard saved for the nation

The collection - the largest ever find of Anglo-Saxon gold - was unearthed on Staffordshire farmland by a metal detector enthusiast last year and later valued at £3.3 million.

Today the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF), the Government's fund of last resort for heritage items at risk, pledged £1,285,000.

The grant, added to the amount already raised during a nationwide fundraising drive, means that the hoard can now be purchased and displayed permanently in the UK.

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Anglo-Saxon Staffordshire hoard saved by £1.3m heritage grant

The Staffordshire hoard of Anglo-Saxon treasure found last year will receive a £1.3m Heritage Memorial Fund grant to allow it to remain in Midlands museums

A grant of £1,285,000 from the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) will keep the glittering treasures of the Staffordshire hoard, the most spectacular heap of Anglo-Saxon gold ever found, in the region where an amateur metal detector found it last summer after it spent 1,300 years buried in a nondescript field.

The grant goes to Birmingham and Stoke-on-Trent museums, which will share the treasure, having raised the £3.3m necessary to pay Terry Herbert, who found the gold, and farmer Fred Johnson, the owner of the field where it was discovered.

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Staffordshire Hoard saved for the West Midlands

The Staffordshire Hoard is to remain in the West Midlands after the £3.3m purchase price was met.

The Anglo Saxon treasure was found in a field in Staffordshire by a metal-detecting enthusiast last July.

A grant of £1.285m from the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) has been added to the money raised by a campaign led by Stoke and Birmingham councils.

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Ridgeway Vikings exhibition attracts huge crowds

THOUSANDS gathered at an exhibition in Weymouth to see the archaeological treasures unearthed during building of the town’s Relief Road.

The Pavilion Ocean Room was transformed into an Aladdin’s Cave of ancient bones, Iron Age pottery, jewellery and other finds.

Crowds filled the hall keen to learn more about the discoveries, including the Viking remains found in a mass grave at the top of Ridgeway.

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Fresh dig at Staffordshire hoard treasure site

Another dig is to be held at the site of where the UK's largest haul of Anglo-Saxon treasure was discovered.

The original find of 1,500 gold and silver pieces was made by metal detectorist Terry Herbert in a farmer's field in Staffordshire in July 2009.

Experts say the new dig is not expected to turn up any more gold, but could reveal how the original items came to be there.

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Weymouth ridgeway skeletons 'Scandinavian Vikings'

Fifty-one decapitated skeletons found in a burial pit in Dorset were those of Scandinavian Vikings, scientists say.

Mystery has surrounded the identity of the group since they were discovered at Ridgeway Hill, near Weymouth, in June.

Analysis of teeth from 10 of the men revealed they had grown up in countries with a colder climate than Britain's.

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Illegal metal detecting crackdown

Archaeologists are to team up with police in a bid to crack down on illegal metal detecting in Norfolk.

Norfolk has the highest number of recovered artefacts in the country declared treasure and a successful long-established working relationship with legitimate metal- detecting enthusiasts.

There were 109 cases of items found in Norfolk being declared treasure in 2008-09. Recent finds include a hoard of 24 Henry III short-cross pennies in Breckland, and an early Saxon gold spangle from south Norfolk.

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Previews of Staffordshire Hoard film to be shown in Stoke-on-Trent

Special preview screenings of a National Geographic film about the Staffordshire Hoard are to take place at The Potteries Museum in Stoke-on-Trent

Saxon Gold – Finding the Hoard is narrated by Bernard Hill of Titanic and Lord of the Rings fame, and two screenings will take place on March 26 at 3pm and 6pm.

Richard Belfield, the film’s executive producer, will be at the museum’s Forum Theatre to give an introduction.

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51 Headless Vikings in English Execution Pit Confirmed

Naked, beheaded, and tangled, the bodies of 51 young males found in the United Kingdom have been identified as brutally slain Vikings, archaeologists announced Friday.

The decapitated skeletons—their heads stacked neatly to the side—were uncovered in June 2009 in a thousand-year-old execution pit near the southern seaside town of Weymouth (United Kingdom map).

Already radio-carbon dating results released in July had shown the men lived between A.D. 910 and 1030, a period when the English fought—and often lost—battles against Viking invaders. (Related: "Viking Weapon-Recycling Site Found in England?")

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Teeth tests show victims from mass war grave in Weymouth pit could have been Swedish

"Painstaking" analysis of teeth from ten of the executed corpses found in a mass grave on the Weymouth Olympic Relief Road last summer has revealed the slaughtered remains may have belonged to Vikings from Scandinavia and the Polar regions.

Isotope tests showed the men had grown up in a cold, non-chalk climate with a predominantly protein-based diet, nodding to research collected on bodies from Swedish and Arctic Circle sites.

Strontium and oxygen samples were used to determine the local geology and climate of their native countries, supported by carbon and nitrogen investigations reflecting their likely eating patterns.

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Weymouth Relief Road archaeology day school

Spaces are still available on the Weymouth Relief Road archaeology day school this Saturday, 20 March.

Tickets cost £12, and the day includes presentations by Oxford Archaeology, Wessex Archaeology and Dorset County Museum, as well as having access to the exhibition.

To book a space call Dorset County Council senior archaeologist Claire Pinder on 01305 224921, you will then be able to pick your ticket up on the door.

Limited space – over 200 tickets sold so far!

If you don’t book, you can’t come in!

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Saxon object mystery for Canterbury experts

A Saxon object which was uncovered in an archaeological dig in Kent cannot be identified by experts.

The circular silver, bronze and wooden disk was found in a Saxon burial ground at The Meads, Sittingbourne, in 2008.

Despite using microscopes, X-rays and reading articles about burial grounds, the Canterbury Archaeological Trust (CAT) has been unable to identify it.

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