Discoveries like excavations of prehistoric civilizations, shipwrecks with long-lost treasures, forgotten cities, and ancient tombs and temples, paint a vivid picture of archaeology and human history. Yet understanding how cultures evolved is often a more laborious process focused on prosaic finds; pottery shards, tools, implements, skeletal remains, art, inscriptions, pollen or soil samples, among other …[Read More]
archaeology
When nature isn’t “natural”: Reflections on World Wetlands Day
In 1821, peat cutters discovered a body similar to a mummy, pinned down by two wooden stakes deep in the mud. The body’s face still held red hair and a beard, their teeth were well preserved, and a hoop of willow was wrapped around their throat. But this wasn’t the dry, hot climate of Egypt …[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Using geophysical techniques to unlock the secrets of the past
Unravelling the secrets of past civilisations is tricky at the best of times. More so if many of the records which hold clues about how communities lived, built their homes and temples, as well as how they fed themselves, were destroyed by subsequent invaders. In these instances, as Felix Rodriguez Cardozo explains in today’s post, …[Read More]
Great walls of fire – Vitrification and thermal engineering in the British Iron Age
It’s long been recognised the peoples of European prehistory occasionally, and quite deliberately, melted the rocks from which their hilltop enclosures were made. But why did they do it? In today’s blog post Fabian Wadsworth and Rebecca Hearne explore this question. Burning questions Throughout the European Bronze and Iron Ages (spanning 2600 years from 3200 …[Read More]
Imaggeo on Mondays: Tombstones Mountains
This week’s Imaggeo image is brought to you by one of our network bloggers, Matt Herod. Of the image, Matt said ” this particular one is one of my all time favourites. I have even blown it up and hung it on my wall at home,” and we couldn’t agree more; this Canadian landscape is …[Read More]