Topic description and stories

View of the city of York in England including walls and cathedral

Road radar to reveal York's Roman secrets

01 Mar 2022

The biggest investigation ever undertaken into Eboracum, the Roman city buried beneath York, is set to begin this summer. Ground penetrating radar...

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Evidence of a Roman crucifixion found in Cambridgeshire

08 Dec 2021

The finding in the village of Fenstanton is the only known example of a Roman crucifixion anywhere in the British Isles, and perhaps the best...

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Site of the Toba supereruption

Early humans were sheltered from worst effects of volcanic supereruption

05 Jul 2021

A massive volcanic eruption in Indonesia about 74,000 years ago likely caused severe climate disruption in many areas of the globe, but early human...

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Fashion for pointy shoes unleashed a plague of bunions in medieval Britain

11 Jun 2021

Researchers analysing skeletal remains in Cambridge find a dramatic increase in ‘hallux valgus’ around the time that pointed shoes became de rigueur...

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Cancer rates in medieval Britain were around ten times higher than previously thought, study suggests

30 Apr 2021

CT scanning used to uncover remnants of malignancy hidden inside medieval bones provides new insight into cancer prevalence in a pre-industrial world.

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Inequality in medieval Cambridge was ‘recorded on the bones’ of its residents

26 Jan 2021

Life in medieval Cambridge was toughest for the ordinary workers, according to a study of the “skeletal trauma” found on remains from three different...

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The city rises: Cambridge archaeologists reveal an entire Roman city without digging

09 Jun 2020

For the first time, a team of archaeologists has succeeded in mapping a complete Roman city, Falerii Novi in Italy, using advanced ground penetrating...

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Cambridge researchers awarded European Research Council funding

01 Apr 2020

Four researchers at the University of Cambridge have won advanced grants from the European Research Council (ERC), Europe’s premier research funding...

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Shanidar Z: what did Neanderthals do with their dead?

18 Feb 2020

Archaeologists have unearthed a Neanderthal skeleton in a famous cave in Iraqi Kurdistan.

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Over-hunting walruses contributed to the collapse of Norse Greenland

06 Jan 2020

Medieval Greenlanders may have chased dwindling walrus herds ever farther north in an effort to maintain their economy, when the value of walrus...

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Microscopic egg of a fish tapeworm and Must Farm excavation site

Ancient faeces reveal how ‘marsh diet’ left Bronze Age Fen folk infected with parasites

16 Aug 2019

Coprolites from the Must Farm archaeological excavation in East Anglia shows the prehistoric inhabitants were infected by parasitic worms that can be...

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The two 31,000-year-old milk teeth found at the Yana Rhinoceros Horn Site in Russia which led to the discovery of a new group of ancient Siberians

DNA from 31,000-year-old milk teeth leads to discovery of new group of ancient Siberians

05 Jun 2019

Two children’s milk teeth buried deep in a remote archaeological site in north eastern Siberia have revealed a previously unknown group of people...

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