A sapphire ring found in North Yorkshire has sparked a meeting of experts to determine exactly when it was made.
The ring has baffled archaeologists because it is unlike any other according to the Yorkshire Museum.
The intricate ring, presumably made by a highly skilled craftsman, is on show at the Museum in York.
Natalie McCaul, from the museum, said the meeting may “shed new light on the ring” and “reveal some of its secrets”.
The museum said the ring’s style and material made it hard to date but it could have been made any time during the seventh to 11th centuries. Read more.
Yorkshire’s oldest campsite could have been unearthed in a national park.
But this was no holiday destination. The site that is being investigated by archaeologists in North Yorkshire could provide rare evidence of a nomadic lifestyle dating backing more than 7,000 years.
They are investigating a possible Mesolithic campsite in the North York Moors National Park. Fieldwork has been carried out at a number of sites across north east Yorkshire and attention is now focused on a site at Goldsborough, near Whitby.
In the autumn more than 450 flint fragments were discovered, some of which are tools about 7,000 years old. Many are burnt, indicating the presence of camp fires or hearths.
Archaeologists say it is very rare to find evidence of Mesolithic people and this discovery is the culmination of a major project that has been searching for traces of them in north east Yorkshire. Read more.
Doubt still remains as to whether the remains of a body found beneath a Leicester car park are those of the Plantagenet king Richard III, but debate is already beginning as to whether the last Yorkist monarch should be brought ‘home’.
Mitochondrial DNA tests are about to be carried out on the skeleton, unearthed by a team from Leicester University and the Richard III Society. If the remains prove to be those of the long lost monarch, the next question will be: what to do with them?
Twitterers are already suggesting that the body should be given a State funeral. But where?
Two major organisations which have exhaustively researched and promoted the ‘true’ name and history of Richard, which they assert is at odds with the traditional Shakespearean ‘evil hunchback’ depiction, are expecting much debate at their forthcoming conferences. Read more.
ARCHAEOLOGISTS have secured more than £1 million in funding to delve deeper into the history of Britain’s earliest surviving house discovered in North Yorkshire, writes Daniel Birch.
A team of archaeologists from the universities of York and Manchester helped unearth the house at Star Carr, a Stone Age site, near Scarborough, in 2010.
The wooden house, which is 3.5 metres wide, predates the house previously thought to be Britain’s oldest house in Howick, Northumberland, by at least 500 years.
The Star Carr structure dates back to 9,000 BC when hunter-gatherers lived in Britain and the research team unearthed the circular building next to an ancient lake at the site. Read more.
Humanity’s long attachment to Yorkshire has notched up another piece of early evidence with the discovery of the first 7th-century house to be recorded in the Dales national park.
Volunteer archaeologists dug down into an outcrop of stones on the flanks of Ingleborough fell, one of the Three Peaks famous for walks and marathon runs, where settlements were thought to exist but none had been excavated owing to shortages of time, expertise and funds.
The team revealed two chamber rooms with charcoal remains and pieces of chert, a hard flint knapped in ancient times to make tools.
Carbon-dating of the charcoal has placed the use of the building at between AD660 and AD780, when Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were consolidating in northern England.
The dig adds to a growing list of discoveries, from a Roman amphitheatre at Aldborough to exquisitely carved golden rings near Leeds, which are changing the history of the north of England. Read more.
The flanks of Ingleborough in the Yorkshire Dales National Park have given up one of their secrets to a team of amateur archaeologists.
Members of the Ingleborough Archaeology Group spent weeks investigating a remote site on the side of one of the National Park’s famous Three Peaks to the west of Selside in Upper Ribblesdale.
And their work has resulted in the discovery of the first 7th century building to be positively identified in the National Park – and one of the first in the north of England.
Excavation supervisor Dr David Johnson said: “We uncovered a small, rectangular, partly stone-built building with two rooms and in it we found 16 pieces of charcoal impressed into the compacted soil floor.
“Two of these were sent for radiocarbon dating and returned identical dates – between AD660 and 780, which puts the end of the site’s use firmly within the Anglo-Saxon period. Read more.
THE work of academics at a Yorkshire university to broaden the scope of archaeology has been honoured by an award from the Queen.
The Department of Archaeology at York University has been given a Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education.
Introduced following the 40th Anniversary of the Queen’s reign in 1992, the prizes rank alongside the Queen’s Awards for Industry. They are given biennially for “work of exceptional quality and of broad benefit either nationally or internationally”.
The accolade was announced at St James’s Palace yesterday, and it is the fifth to be conferred on the university in 15 years.
The Department of Archaeology has built on its reputation as the UK’s leading centre for research into medieval relics. It has acquired international standing international standing in the study of prehistoric and later historical archaeology, archaeological computing, bioarchaeology, architectural conservation, heritage management and landscape research.
As one of the most diverse in the UK, the Department of Archaeology at York is among the largest undergraduate recruiters in the discipline. (source)
An appeal has been launched to raise £60,000 to ensure two gold bracelets, thought to be the first gold Iron Age jewellery to be found in the north of England, can stay in Yorkshire.
They were found by two metal detector enthusiasts in a stream near Towton, North Yorkshire, in 2010 and 2011.
Before these finds, the furthest north that such jewellery had been found in England was in Newark, Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire Museum said.
They are on display at the York museum.
The first of the bracelets, known as torcs, dated between 100 BC and 70 BC, was found in May 2010 by metal detector enthusiasts Andrew Green and Shaun Scott.
The torc was later declared to be treasure by the North Yorkshire coroner. Read more.
