Whittlesey: "A settlement in the east of England burned down in a fire 3000 years ago, falling into a muddy waterway that preserved everything inside the houses including tools, fabric, cooking pots and more."

Amazingly preserved Bronze Age village reveals life in ancient England
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2423158-amazingly-preserved-bronze-age-village-reveals-life-in-ancient-england/ 
 

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Evidence from an archaeological site in Ethiopia suggests ancient humans adapted their diet during a dry spell after the Toba volcano eruption 74,000 years ago

Ancient campsite may show how humans survived volcanic super-eruption
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2423281-ancient-campsite-may-show-how-humans-survived-volcanic-super-eruption/ 

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Whittlesey: "A settlement in the east of England burned down in a fire 3000 years ago, falling into a muddy waterway that preserved everything inside the houses including tools, fabric, cooking pots and more."

Amazingly preserved Bronze Age village reveals life in ancient England
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2423158-amazingly-preserved-bronze-age-village-reveals-life-in-ancient-england/ 
 

Grauniad: "Settlement on stilts dropped into River Nene after a fire nearly 3,000 years ago and was preserved in silt."
Bronze age objects from ‘Pompeii of the Fens’ to go on display
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/20/bronze-age-objects-from-pompeii-of-the-fens-must-farm-cambridgeshire 

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Grauniad: "Settlement on stilts dropped into River Nene after a fire nearly 3,000 years ago and was preserved in silt."
Bronze age objects from ‘Pompeii of the Fens’ to go on display
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/20/bronze-age-objects-from-pompeii-of-the-fens-must-farm-cambridgeshire 

 Interesting . I have been fishing in this Sutherland Loch a few times and for years never knew what they meant by "no fishing off the Crannog"😁
https://historylinksdornoch.wordpress.com/2014/03/21/the-loch-migdale-crannog/ 
 

There was a more recent fire on a reconstructed crannog not so long ago.
https://www.scotsman.com/news/national/cause-of-crannog-centre-fire-on-loch-tay-may-never-be-known-3340943 
 

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"April 1 2024 marks the 725th anniversary of King Edward I granting royal charters to two settlements in the north of England: Kingston upon Hull and Ravenser Odd.
The first, of course, is better known as Hull, the city on the banks of the Humber estuary that today handles a quarter of UK seaborne trade.
Few will have heard of the second, though. Despite its relative importance in 1299, today, Ravenser Odd has been largely forgotten – because it disappeared, swallowed by the North Sea."

Ravenser Odd: the medieval city Yorkshire lost to the sea
https://theconversation.com/ravenser-odd-the-medieval-city-yorkshire-lost-to-the-sea-224410 

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"Isotopic analysis of horse teeth from a medieval burial site suggest that the animals were imported to England from Scandinavia or the Alps, perhaps for use in battle or jousting."

Medieval horses buried in London had far-flung origins
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2423824-medieval-horses-buried-in-london-had-far-flung-origins/ 

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Similar isotopic analysis on fallow deer skeletons at Fishbourne Roman Palace show that the Romans imported them from Europe:
They were released to wander around, "like in a safari park", palace curator Rob Symmons said. "They didn't seem to have been used for food." 
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-sussex-28951148 

They went  extinct in Britain and our present fallow deer are descendants of ones which have been shown to have been imported from Anatolia for hunting. 
Several centuries later, deer originating from the Anatolian population were then reintroduced around 1000 AD, just before the Norman Conquest, and it was this population that, in turn, was exported around the British Empire. This practice was referenced in the 17th century Dutch hunting manuscript, Jacht-Bedryff, for example, which states that Maurice of Nassau, later the Prince of Orange, acquired 100 fallow deer from England to stock The Hague Forest. 

https://news.exeter.ac.uk/faculty-of-humanities-arts-and-social-sciences/genetic-analysis-and-archaeological-insight-combine-to-reveal-the-ancient-origins-of-the-fallow-deer/ 
 

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"Italian canoes capable of transporting people and goods have been dated to the Neolithic period, suggesting there was a bustling trade across the Mediterranean Sea."

Ancient canoes hint at bustling trade in Mediterranean 7000 years ago
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2423345-ancient-canoes-hint-at-bustling-trade-in-mediterranean-7000-years-ago/ 

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Partly to keep this thread from becoming an archaeological item in itself, this is an interesting story I've been immersed in for months.
The murex sea snails were brought to near local extinction by overharvesting.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjje132jvygo 


 

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Good idea to boost this thread - especially when it relates to climate. Here is a BBC piece today on the article in Nature:
"A research team from the University of North Carolina Wilmington has discovered that the pyramids are likely to have been built along a long-lost, ancient branch of the River Nile - which is now hidden under desert and farmland."

Scientists may have solved mystery behind Egypt's pyramids
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c99zwkzzrxvo 
 

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Interesting Roger and adding to the Egyptian connection I was on the coast yesterday evening.
I saw one of the gods of the sea who used to live on an island off the Nile delta. He may also have been the Greek equivalent of the Phoenician sea-god Melkart. And I’m sure you know what he discovered when he was taking his dog for a walk on the beach with the mermaid Tyros.
Today, he is one of the most important ‘facts on the water’ in our western civilization.
And to add some synchronicity to the evening, I even saw a seal watching me. Don’t often see them there. Make of that what you will.

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Interesting Roger and adding to the Egyptian connection I was on the coast yesterday evening.
I saw one of the gods of the sea who used to live on an island off the Nile delta. He may also have been the Greek equivalent of the Phoenician sea-god Melkart. And I’m sure you know what he discovered when he was taking his dog for a walk on the beach with the mermaid Tyros.
Today, he is one of the most important ‘facts on the water’ in our western civilization.
And to add some synchronicity to the evening, I even saw a seal watching me. Don’t often see them there. Make of that what you will.

Are even the gods required to carry small black plastic bags these days?

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Interesting Roger and adding to the Egyptian connection I was on the coast yesterday evening.
I saw one of the gods of the sea who used to live on an island off the Nile delta. He may also have been the Greek equivalent of the Phoenician sea-god Melkart. And I’m sure you know what he discovered when he was taking his dog for a walk on the beach with the mermaid Tyros.
Today, he is one of the most important ‘facts on the water’ in our western civilization.
And to add some synchronicity to the evening, I even saw a seal watching me. Don’t often see them there. Make of that what you will.

I'm about to go to Boston for a seal/birdwatching cruise. Fog here is lifting slowly.

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Are even the gods required to carry small black plastic bags these days?

His engines yesterday evening were in need of a service because the fumes/particulates hung over the bay in an inversion and were quite unpleasant.

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I'm about to go to Boston for a seal/birdwatching cruise. Fog here is lifting slowly.

That should be interesting. Many more seals in the Wash than here. Oh, and look out for some treasure a king dropped many years ago whilst taking a short cut. You never know what you might find. But there again it might on hidden on what is now reclaimed land.

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That should be interesting. Many more seals in the Wash than here. Oh, and look out for some treasure a king dropped many years ago whilst taking a short cut. You never know what you might find. But there again it might on hidden on what is now reclaimed land.

I counted 100 common seals going up the Welland and 80 on returning to The Wash. Good numbers of avocet and oystercatchers. Many little egrets. See my note in the Daily Thread!!!!! No lost crown found!

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I counted 100 common seals going up the Welland and 80 on returning to The Wash. Good numbers of avocet and oystercatchers. Many little egrets. See my note in the Daily Thread!!!!! No lost crown found!

That's not a bad count. We tend to count seals in the ones in Dorset.
Egrets are quite common here and I sometimes see them rock pooling. Kingfishers are a winter visitor, when they presumably hunt for small blennies or whatever.
There is an old village abandoned when the plague arrived through Weymouth (when there was a large pandemic) that I've never really explored.
Glow worms in a field to the east are on my watch list this summer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Ringstead 

 

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I counted 100 common seals going up the Welland and 80 on returning to The Wash. Good numbers of avocet and oystercatchers. Many little egrets. See my note in the Daily Thread!!!!! No lost crown found!

"Boston, Boston, Boston!
Thou hast nought to boast on
But a grand sluice and a high steeple,
And a proud, conceited ignorant people,
And a coast which souls get lost on."
 

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Interesting that little egrets were considered a rarity until 1989 and only bred in the UK for the first time in 1996.
https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/little-egret 

My personal record from about 10 years ago is of seeing 12 of them at once in a field off Chichester Harbour

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