Resources

Listoghil, the central monument and focal point of the Carrowmore passage tomb complex close to Sligo in north-west Ireland, has been ruined, excavated and eventually partially restored. However, the chamber is preserved in its original position. I examine the hypothesis that Listoghil was deliberately aligned to mark seasonal transitions equivalent to astronomical cross-quarter days. The methods include a horizon survey, the isolation of directional features in the monument, and computer modelling of the monument and skyscape. Folklore and legends around seasonal transits, locally, in Ireland, and in many and varied (and independently arising) contexts at temperate latitudes of the world, are seen as information sources complementary to data gathering and observation.

This article disseminates the results of a programme of detailed archaeological survey and archive research on one of Europe's most important surviving late-medieval Guild Chapels - that of the Holy Cross Guild, Stratford-upon-Avon (Warwickshire). Today the building is part of Stratford-upon-Avon's tourist trail, located directly opposite William Shakespeare's home, 'New Place', and visited by thousands of tourists every year. However, its archaeological and historical significance has been overlooked owing to the extensive restoration of the building in the 19th and 20th centuries. This destroyed evidence for an internationally significant scheme of wall paintings within the Chapel, paid for by the London Mayor and Stratford-upon-Avon merchant, Hugh Clopton, an important member of the Holy Cross Guild and the original builder of 'New Place'. The paintings also have an important connection with Stratford-upon-Avon's most famous son, William Shakespeare, whose father may have been involved in their destruction and removal during the 16th century.Research by a team of historical archaeologists and digital heritage specialists at the Department of Archaeology, University of York, has revealed the significance of the Guild Chapel through the creation of a digital model and textual paradata, which form the focus of this article. The project is ground-breaking in that it moves beyond the traditional use of digital models as virtual reconstructions of past buildings to use the model itself as a research tool through which the user can explore and validate the evidence for the scheme directly. This is achieved through the creation of a palimpsest of antiquarian drawings of the paintings, made as they were revealed during restoration works in the 19th and 20th centuries, and set within their 3-dimensional architectural context. The model allows the user to compare and contrast differences in the recording methods, iconographies and interpretations of the scheme. It is supported by the 'paradata' that forms the core of the article text, and which provides an innovative model for the analysis of the antiquarian records of the scheme, and their contextual meaning. The project reveals the Guild Chapel at Stratford-upon-Avon to be one of the finest examples of mercantile and guild patronage of the period, shedding important light on the patronage of ecclesiastical art on the eve of the Reformation, and revealing important connections between provincial guild architecture of Warwickshire and internationally significant schemes in London and Paris. It also provides a ground-breaking model of the ways in which digital heritage technologies can be harnessed not only by historical archaeology, but within the arts and humanities more widely.

Reviewed by Nicole Beale and Jessica Ogden. This review is open access.

Reviewed by Michael Shanks and Christopher Witmore. This review is open access.

Since their declassification in 1995, CORONA satellite images collected by the United States military from 1960-1972 have proved to be an invaluable resource in the archaeology of the Near East. Because CORONA images pre-date the widespread construction of reservoirs, urban expansion, and agricultural intensification the region has undergone in recent decades, these high-resolution, stereo images preserve a picture of archaeological sites and landscapes that have often been destroyed or obscured by modern development. Despite its widely recognised value, the application of CORONA imagery in archaeological research has remained limited to a small group of specialists, largely because of the challenges involved in correcting spatial distortions produced by the satellites' unusual panoramic cameras. This article presents results of an effort to develop new methods of efficiently orthorectifying CORONA imagery and to use these methods to produce geographically corrected images across the Near East, now freely available through an online database. Following an overview of our methods, we present examples of how recent development has affected the archaeological record, new discoveries that analysis of our CORONA imagery database has already made possible, and emerging applications of CORONA including stereo analysis and DEM extraction.

The ADS and Framework Archaeology are pleased to announce the release of Heathrow Terminal 5 Excavation Archive, 2011. Framework Archaeology is a Joint Venture agreement between Oxford Archaeology (OA) and Wessex Archaeology (WA) to provide archaeological services to BAA. Between 1996 and 2000 they undertook extensive excavations of an important prehistoric and Roman landscape at Perry Oaks sludge works, Heathrow, Middlesex. Further archaeological work in advance of a fifth passenger terminal ('T5') at Heathrow Airport took place from 2002 onwards, and the results of those excavations will be integrated with the data contained in this archive.

The Department of Archaeology at York University, which hosts the ADS, 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, which rank alongside the Queen's Awards for Industry are awarded biennially for 'work of exceptional quality and of broad benefit either nationally or internationally'. This is the fifth to be conferred on the university in 15 years, only the second time it has been awarded to a whole Department.

The ADS, ASE, English Heritage and UCL are pleased to announce the release of Town and Country in Roman Essex: Settlement Hierarchies in Roman Essex datasets, This is a large scale regional study based on correspondence analysis of finds assemblages, including coins, pottery, registered finds, animal bone and vessel glass. Data was primarily gathered from existing published or archive sources and was collected from sites in Essex, south-east Cambridgeshire and London dating to the period c 50BC-AD250. The database includes linked tables on small finds, glass, pottery and coins, as well as for the following aspects of the animal bone assemblages: NSIP, MNI, tooth-wear, MNE and metrics for bone elements.

Do you use ADS data in your research? If so then the CAA Recycle award should be of interest.CAA believes that any vibrant discipline must continually return to its own roots and re-evaluate legacy data if it is to progress. Furthermore, in the field of Archaeology it provides a far less destructive means of researching the past, and maximizes the return on resources invested in fieldwork. Digital technologies have a particularly strong role to play in this regard, thanks to their ability to synthesize large volumes of information and because they often apply new techniques unavailable to the original investigators. To this end, CAA is commencing an annual CAA Recycle Award that seeks to recognize those who breathe new life into old data.

The ADS, The British Academy and Durham University are pleased to announce the release of Parts and Wholes: object categorisation and fragmentation in prehistoric context by J C Chapman and Bisserka Gaydarska, 2011. The 'Parts and Wholes' project is concerned with the relationship between complete objects and their fragments. The primary premise of the project can be concisely stated: deliberate object fragmentation was commonplace in the past, with widespread re-use of the ensuing fragments in an extended life 'after the break'. The project studied the artefact assemblages from Chalcolithic sites at Dolnoslav tell and the Durankulak and Varna cemeteries in Bulgaria.

The ADS, SeaZone Solutions and English Heritage are pleased to announce the release of the Hastings to Purbeck and Adjacent Waters archive by SeaZone Solutions Limited, Maritime Archaeology Ltd, 2011.The project resulted in a GIS-based characterisation of the project area, extending from Hastings, Kent, to Purbeck, Dorset, along the coast and seaward across adjacent waters to the Median Line with France.

The ADS, the University of Arkansas and Barry Kemp are pleased to announce the release of The Virtual Amarna Project. This archive resulted from the 3D digitisation of objects from the ancient Egyptian city of Amarna using a Konica Minolta Vivid 9i system. Data includes images, 3D PDF files, meshes (obj) and point clouds (ascii). This archive was undertaken in conjunction with an electronic publication through the LEAP II project and the corresponding article (Limp et al, 2011) can be found in Internet Archaeology 30.

The ADS, the University of Newcastle and English Heritage are pleased to announce the release of the Historic Seascape Characterisation: The Irish Sea (English sector) archive by Sam Turner, 2011. The project comprises a GIS-based historic seascape characterisation (HSC) of the English sector of the Irish Sea. HSC is guided by the same principles as Historic Landscape Characterisation, and is intended to inform coastal and marine management and planning, with particular reference to the role of English Heritage and its statutory responsibilities.

The ADS, Worcestershire Historic Environment, English Heritage and the Royal Archaeological Institute are pleased to announce the release of the Midlands purple and Cistercian-type wares in the west Midlands in the 15th-16th centuries by Susan M Wright, Derek Hurst, 2011. This project aimed to develop understanding of a major ceramics industry, its products being some of the commonest wares on late medieval to post-medieval (transitional) sites though it is an industry whose origins, dating and distribution are not sufficiently well understood.

This searchable on-line database of fieldwork summaries has just been updated to include data from fieldwork carried out in 2009. Individual database records link through to unpublished reports in our on-line library of grey literature reports where appropriate. Updates to the Post-Medieval Fieldwork in Britain and Northern Ireland database will follow shortly.

Three new archives from excavations in Southampton have been added to this collection. The excavations were carried out in 2008 and 2009 by Thames Valley Archaeological Services and Southern Archaeological Services Ltd and cover sites at 20-26 College Street, Woolston Riverside and The 'Coach House' on Bevois Valley Road. Files available for download include reports, photographs and CAD diagrams.

These two resources from the Vernacular Architecture Group have been updated with new data and revisions. Some interface changes have also been implemented in order to make the searchable databases easier to use.

The latter half of the nineteenth century witnessed the establishment of prehistoric archaeology as a scientific discipline in Italy, as well as the founding of the Italian nation state. Evolutionism, positivism, and a sense of national identity informed prehistoric research and the activities of individuals, such as Strobel, Pigorini, and Chierici, who are regarded today as the founding fathers of Italian prehistory. It is in this dynamic cultural and political climate that the civic museums of Reggio Emilia, Modena, and Bologna were created, both as a response to intense local archaeological activity and in reaction to the centralizing structure of the newly formed kingdom of Italy. These civic museums were among the first museums of prehistory in Italy and the products of the cultural and political climate of late nineteenth-century Europe. This article explores the circumstances surrounding the foundation of these museums and considers how the work of the first prehistorians and the museums’ own histories, as civic and cultural institutions, continues to affect their role and management in the present.

The case study presents completely different interpretations of the same archaeological evidence. Reasons for that are not only the state of knowledge and the possibilities of research, but also the impact of changes in the socio-political climate and varying theoretical traditions. The examples are taken from the Late La Tène settlement Basel-Gasfabrik, which has been excavated for almost 100 years. The study focuses on a number of more or less complete human skeletons from sunken features inside the settlement. This phenomenon prompted the archaeologists to find explanations for this apparent exception to the ancient rule of burying the dead outside the settlements. The interpretations of this ‘abnormal’ burial practice range from victims of war to burials of the members of the élite. The discussion continues on the basis of the synopsis of all verifiable options of dealing with the dead and includes evidence from similar sites elsewhere.