We're well into the 21st century but extraordinary archaeological finds spanning thousands of years continue to be unearthed across the British Isles. Some are discovered by amateur detectorists trying out their new toys, others by trained professionals following educated hunches or building on previous discoveries. Meanwhile, some are revealed by the ravages of global warming – by floods and heat waves and other climate anomalies. These are the most interesting, impressive and surprising archaeological discoveries made in Britain in the last decade.
On 4 February 2013, the director of the University of Leicester's Archaeological Services, Richard Buckley, announced the news the UK had been waiting for – a recently discovered skeleton of a male, aged 30 to 34 with scoliosis and multiple battle injuries, was in fact the remains of King Richard III. The story of a medieval king, and a protagonist in a Shakespeare play no less, being found buried under an unassuming parking lot had captured the imagination of the world, and extensive radiocarbon and DNS analysis had finally confirmed his identity. "We can say that, beyond reasonable doubt, it is Richard III," Buckley declared.
In November 2013, amateur detectorist Laurence Egerton discovered one of the largest Roman coin hoards in UK history near Seaton Down in Devon. The massive hoard consisted of 22,888 Roman coins, dating from between 260 and 348 AD, which were mostly low-value copper alloy currency called nummi. The entire collection was only worth the equivalent of a few gold solidi, argued Vincent Drost, a British Museum numismatist researching the coins, but nevertheless offered an incredible insight on coin use in Britannia in the mid-fourth century. The stash was probably an individual’s private savings, a commercial transaction or a soldier’s wages.
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In September 2014, after a comprehensive four-year survey of the landscape around Stonehenge, researchers announced that they'd found signs of at least 17 previously unknown Neolithic chapels in the area. Using non-invasive techniques like ground-penetrating radar, they were able to confirm that Stonehenge was part of a much more complex spiritual landscape, with processional and ritual activities going on all around. "This radically changes our view of Stonehenge," said Vincent Gaffney, head of the Stonehenge Hidden Landscapes Project at Birmingham University. "In the past we had this idea that Stonehenge was standing in splendid isolation, but it wasn't."
In 2014, Historic England and Cotswold Archaeology began excavating 'The London', a 17th-century warship that was sunk in 1665 by an accidental explosion off the coast of Southend-on-Sea. It was part of the fleet that brought Charles II back from the Netherlands in 1660 to claim the English crown, and proved to be a treasure trove of nautical artifacts. Divers retrieved musket balls, ingots and navigational tools, as well as an extremely rare wooden gun carriage. Personal items were found too, such as this incredibly well-preserved pair of leather shoes.
In 2015, archaeologists from the University of Leicester's Archaeological Services made a remarkable discovery – an Iron Age shield made from bark, found on a dig in a meadow next to the M1 motorway near Endersby. The 2,300-year-old shield was painted black, measured 26 by 15 inches (670 by 370mm) and showed signs of battle damage by spears and edged weapons. Dubbed ‘The Enderby Shield’, experts say it's probably the first bark shield ever found in the Northern Hemisphere, and gives an unparalleled insight into prehistoric technology.
Archaeologists always suspected there was something special lurking beneath the Must Farm quarry in Cambridgeshire, but it wasn’t until a full-scale excavation in 2015 that they realized just how special it would be: a remarkably intact Bronze Age settlement that had lain untouched for over 3,000 years. A catastrophic fire meant that the inhabitants had fled leaving everything behind, offering the Cambridge Archaeological Unit amazingly detailed insights into British Bronze Age life, from the dwellings they lived in (roundhouses with turf roofs and wicker floors) to the food they ate (pike, red deer and wild boar). The settlement has been described as 'Britain's Pompeii'.
Waterlogged and conserved in peat, the Mesolithic site of Star Carr in North Yorkshire was first discovered by archaeologist Grahame Clark in 1949. It's served up an array of extraordinarily well-preserved finds over the years, but none as exciting or important as this uniquely engraved shale pendant uncovered in 2015. The plectrum-shaped artifact dates back to around 9,000 BC and is easily the oldest example of Mesolithic art in Britain. Archaeologists speculate that the line etchings represent a tree, a map, a leaf or, perhaps, tally marks.
In November 2016, archaeologists from the University of Sheffield made a gruesome discovery: a mass grave of plague victims in the grounds of a 14th-century monastery hospital in Lincolnshire. There were 48 skeletons all told, including 27 children, all victims of the Black Death pandemic that swept across Europe between 1347 and 1351. Dr Hugh Willmott, an archaeologist on the dig, said that finding such a site in rural Lincolnshire was "thus far unique" and "sheds light on the real difficulties faced by a small community ill-prepared to face such a devastating threat".
The razor-toothed jaw of the world’s largest Jurassic pterosaur fossil was found embedded in rock on the Isle of Skye’s limestone coast in 2017. It was quickly given the Gaelic name Dearc sgiathanach (pronounced jark ski-an-ach) and declared by experts to be "the best British skeleton found since the days of [fossil hunter] Mary Anning in the early 1800s". The winged reptile had an estimated wingspan of more than eight feet (2.5m), and subsequent studies by PhD student Natalia Jagielska revealed that the creature is a completely new species to science.
In 2017 a study by the University of Southampton on human bones excavated from a deserted medieval village in North Yorkshire revealed a dark practice: the mutilation and burning of corpses to stop them rising from the grave. Knife marks were found on 137 bones, 10 bodies were found decapitated and dismembered, and there was evidence that body parts were burned and bones deliberately broken after death. "It shows us a dark side of medieval beliefs," said Simon Mays, human skeletal biologist at Historic England. "And a graphic reminder of how different the medieval view of the world was from our own."
The Shropshire Bulla, or Shropshire Sun Pendant as it is sometimes known, was discovered in a field in Shropshire by a detectorist in May 2018. The D-shaped hollow object dates from the late Bronze Age and is created from pieces of gold sheet metal, decorated with intricately carved geometric designs. The British Museum described it as "one of the most significant pieces of Bronze Age gold metalwork" ever discovered in Britain, and happily handed over $310,000 to add it to their collection.
Aerial photos taken during the summer heat wave of 2018 produced evidence of "millennia of human activity" previously unknown to archaeologists. The intensely dry weather scorched crops revealing the outlines of scores of hidden sites across the UK, including ancient farms and burial mounds and neolithic cursus monuments laid out more than 5,000 years ago. The outline of a long-demolished Tudor hall was spotted and there was particular excitement over four Iron Age square barrows at Pocklington in the Yorkshire Wolds. "It has been fascinating to see so many traces of our past graphically revealed," said Duncan Wilson, the chief executive of Historic England.
We often think of graffiti as a uniquely modern phenomenon, but in February 2019 archaeologists from Newcastle University found inscriptions carved into the remains of a quarry at Gelt Woods near Hadrian's Wall that date back to Roman times. Known as ‘the Written Rock of Gelt’, it is believed the inscriptions were made by soldiers repairing Hadrian's Wall in AD 207. They include a caricature of their commanding officer and that perennial graffiti classic, a phallus. Experts say the graffiti proves that the Romans were rebuilding their frontier in the early third century.
At first glance, the discovery of a tiny rabbit bone at Fishbourne Roman Palace in Sussex may not seem like an earth-shattering archaeological breakthrough. But when genetic testing of the 1.6 inch (4cm) piece of tibia in 2019 confirmed that it dated from the first century AD, well, that’s a different story. It confirmed that rabbits had been introduced to the UK from France or Spain a thousand years earlier than previously thought – probably as an exotic pet, since scientific analysis suggested it had been kept in confinement with no signs of butchery.
The COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020 indirectly led to the discovery of a rare Roman mosaic depicting scenes from Homer’s Iliad. Jim Irvine used his allotted hour of outdoor exercise to wander around land owned by his father in Rutland. He spotted pieces of pottery and clay tiles on the ground, got in touch with a local museum and soon a team of archaeologists from the University of Leicester were uncovering the mosaic in a large villa complex owned by a wealthy individual. The mosaic measures 36 feet (11m) by 23 feet (7m), and depicts part of the story of Achilles.
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In June 2020 archaeologists from UCL’s Institute of Archaeology announced the discovery of what they believed to be the remains of the Red Lion – an early Elizabethan playhouse built around 1567. The Red Lion was a purpose-built playhouse in the yard of a farmhouse just east of Aldgate, and was famous for staging the young William Shakespeare’s plays in the 1590s. Stephen White, who directed the excavation, said it was "a privilege to be able to add to our understanding of this exciting period of history".
There aren’t many four-year-old girls who can say they discovered a 220-million-year-old footprint, but Lily Wilder can. She was playing on Bendricks Beach near Barry in south Wales with her father in January 2021 when she noticed an unusual imprint on a rock. Her dad photographed it and sent it off to experts, who identified it as the footprint of an unidentified herbivorous dinosaur. The fossil was extracted from the site and taken to National Museum Cardiff, where curators described it as "the best specimen ever found" on a beach.
When Anglian Water drained a lagoon at Rutland Water Nature Reserve in February 2021, they unwittingly uncovered one of the UK’s greatest fossil finds: the largest and most complete skeleton of an ichthyosaur ever found in the UK. Also known as a 'sea dragon', its massive skeleton measures around 33 feet (10m) in length and is thought to date back 180 million years. It's not the first ichthyosaur to be found in the UK – in the 1970s two much smaller and incomplete skeletons were uncovered – but it is by far the best-preserved.
In April 2022 archaeologists from the Museum of London Archaeology uncovered a "once-in-a-lifetime" find. "When the first glints of gold started to emerge from the soil we knew this was something significant," said Levente-Bence Balazs, the site supervisor. "But we didn't realize quite how special it was going to be." The find? A grand medieval necklace adorned with Roman coins, gold, garnets and semi-precious stones, unearthed on a proposed housing development in Harpole, Northamptonshire where it had lain for 1,300 years. It was likely a burial item, draped around the neck of an abbess or even a minor royal.
This extraordinary three-dimensional fossil of a Pachycormus, an extinct genus of ray-finned fish, was found on a farm in the Cotswolds. It was part of a horde of more than 180 fossils estimated to be around 183 million years old, and containing everything from ichthyosaur skeletons to insects and ancient squid. It was the Pachycormus that most captured the imagination of archaeologists though – it was so well preserved that researchers could make out its scales and an eyeball.
In May 2023, builders constructing a new residential housing development near Salisbury in Wiltshire uncovered the remains of a large barrow cemetery dating back to the Bronze Age. The barrows had been leveled by centuries of cultivation and so remain only as ditches, but the experts from Cotswold Archaeology uncovered 10 burials and three un-urned cremations that had survived. The oval shape of one barrow suggested it could have been Neolithic. Saxon remains were also found, as well as remnants of Roman pottery. Excavations continue, with archaeologists excited by what they may find at this truly unique site.
Boudicca may be the most famous warrior woman in early British history but it seems she wasn’t the first. In July 2023, new DNA analysis revealed that the remains of an Iron Age warrior found in an Iron Age burial pit in the Isles of Scilly in 1999 were actually those of a woman. The find had initially puzzled archaeologists, as 2,000 years ago men were buried with weapons and women with mirrors. This warrior had been buried with both, the first example of such a practice in Western Europe and an indication Iron Age women were more active in combat than previously thought.
Now read on for the most incredible discoveries found so far this year