What kind of things might you find in a prehistoric grave, and what could they reveal about the past?

Prehistory is intensely interesting to me because the only way that we can approach it is through archaeology. You are left to piece together the story through traces left in the ground – the material objects of ancient cultures, remnants of constructions and buildings, and the remains of our own ancestors.

There’s an often forensic process that goes on when you’re trying to reconstruct what life was like in the prehistoric era, and burial sites represent a treasure trove of information. Graves such as that of the [early Bronze Age] Amesbury Archer or the “Red Lady of Paviland” [actually a young man who died 33-34,000 years ago] are absolutely stuffed with cultural artefacts. They essentially act as time capsules – little microcosms of the culture of the time.

As well as the objects we find in graves, we’re able to extract ever more information from the bones themselves. For me, as a biological anthropologist, it’s been astonishing how the science around this has developed over the past 20 to 30 years.

What kind of information can we glean from bones?

If I’m presented with a skeleton, I can tell quite a lot just by looking at the bones with the naked eye. I have a background as a medical doctor and before I started learning the business of osteoarchaeology, I would have thought: “It’s just a skeleton. How much can you really tell? You can’t ask it about symptoms, you can’t do blood tests.” But I was astonished at how much you could work out. First, bone responds to disease. Some infections, such as syphilis and tuberculosis, affect bone in very distinctive ways. Osteoarthritis is also easy to identify from tiny holes on the surface of a joint.

Next you can look at teeth. People suffered from dental disease in the past, just as we do today, but most prehistoric people actually had much better teeth than ours because they didn’t have such a starchy, sugary diet. They didn’t brush their teeth as fastidiously as we do, but their teeth are nevertheless usually in surprisingly good condition.

Employing radiography techniques, such as using X-rays, allows us to uncover more clues – hidden features of the bones. And with a micro CT [computed tomography] scanner we’re able to slice up the bones virtually, allowing us to analyse them without incurring any damage.

Then there are chemical techniques that allow us to analyse the ratios of different elements in bones and teeth. Our bodies are built from what we consume, so we are essentially made out of our surroundings. That means that the signatures of the landscapes in which we grew up are written into our bodies – particularly into teeth, because tooth enamel is laid down in childhood.

For instance, your body is constantly incorporating different stable isotopes of oxygen and strontium in various ratios. We can analyse isotopes in ancient human remains, and see how these elemental ratios match those found in the geology of places in Britain or farther afield. This can be really useful for telling where somebody grew up, for instance, or where they spent the last decade of their life.

Finally, we can extract DNA from ancient bones and sequence it. That technology has come on in leaps and bounds in recent years.

Alice Roberts is the author of Ancestors: A Prehistory of Britain in Seven Burials (Simon & Schuster, 2021)

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What can we learn about ancient bodies from DNA studies?

The human genome was fully sequenced in 2003. Since then we’ve developed the ability to extract DNA from very ancient bones, and to work out how to combine separate fragments of DNA into a complete genome. By doing that, we’re able to look for rare variants that might give us clues indicating when particular groups of people moved in or out of Britain. Sometimes we’re able to reconstruct more detailed information about individuals, too. One of the prehistoric skeletons I discuss in the book is known as Cheddar Man, who was discovered in Somerset in 1903, and lived around 10,000 years ago. By analysing his genome, geneticists have revealed that he probably had an unusual combination of dark skin and bright blue eyes. Being able to work that out from just a skeleton is utterly extraordinary.

DNA can also reveal information about kinship and relationships between individuals. That’s been quite profound when it comes to looking at the communal burials found inside Neolithic chamber tombs, for instance. One theory about these chamber tombs is that they were intended to anonymise the dead, and therefore contain people from across the whole community. Another theory is that they effectively acted as family vaults – and some recent genetic analyses provide hints that this may indeed have been the case. For example, it’s been revealed that two bodies buried together in a Neolithic monument at Primrose Grange in County Sligo, Ireland are those of a father and his daughter.

Elsewhere in Ireland, DNA analysis of a man buried at Newgrange Stone Age tomb in the Boyne valley has revealed that he was the son of an incestuous union between either a parent and a child or two siblings. So we’re finding out some quite extraordinary details, some of which may not even have been public knowledge at the time of those people’s deaths.

Does genetic science have the potential to settle some major archaeological debates?

Genetic science is not a panacea. It’s not as though DNA technology somehow supersedes archaeology – in fact, it could actually leave us with more questions than answers. But it does provide important strands of new evidence with the potential to answer some big questions, especially about mobility and migration. We should view it more as a tool for archaeologists to use – one that will hopefully help us see the picture more clearly.

Genetics can certainly be disruptive. In fact, it’s probably as disruptive as radiocarbon dating was when that emerged, from the late 1940s – suddenly, archaeologists were able to pin absolute dates on organic material. I think you can see a similar effect playing out with DNA analysis at the moment.

There have been some instances of geneticists treading on archaeologists’ toes. There’s been a perception by some archaeologists that geneticists have waded into long-standing archaeological debates and simply said: “You’ve been arguing about this for ages. Well, now we’ve got the answer.” Not surprisingly, archaeologists have responded: “Hang on a minute – first you need to learn a bit about archaeology and the kinds of questions we’re asking.”

But we’ve got to capitalise on the power of genetics to help us solve archaeological conundrums. In the book, I talk about a cutting-edge new project called 1,000 Ancient British Genomes, led by Swedish geneticist Pontus Skoglund of the Francis Crick Institute. This is a brilliant example of the power of collaboration between geneticists and archaeologists. Skoglund is engaging with archaeologists up and down the UK, asking them to identify questions that genetics might be able to help solve.

Your book is as much about the development of archaeological thinking as about the discoveries themselves. Which archaeologists most intrigue you?

One of the people I became quite obsessed with is Augustus Pitt-Rivers (1827–1900). He’s best known as a collector, but he also came up with some really interesting ideas about how cultures change and evolve over time, and how these transitions happened. Pitt-Rivers was very influenced by 19th-century evolutionary theory and biology, and wondered how these ideas could apply to culture. He also started to think about whether the origins of new cultures might be linked to the movement of people.

For instance, Bronze Age people in Britain obviously had a different culture from the Neolithic people who preceded them. But where did they pick up this culture from? Pitt-Rivers suggested that there had effectively been a population replacement – that Bronze Age culture was actually brought in by a whole load of new people. He tried to back up this theory by measuring skulls, arguing that there were detectable differences between the shapes of Neolithic and Bronze Age skulls. He was trying to use the study of skulls in a similar way to how we would now use DNA studies.

What’s astonishing is that DNA evidence now emerging suggests that Pitt-Rivers may have been right – that a lot of people may have arrived in Britain during the Bronze Age, largely replacing Neolithic populations. Those earlier people didn’t completely disappear, but there was a really profound turnover of population. It’s really interesting to think about the contact between these two groups, and about the ways in which their different cultures may have merged.

How did the preconceptions of archaeologists in the past influence their understanding of the discoveries they made?

Archaeology is a very introspective, self-aware discipline, which I think is extremely useful. We’ve long been aware that every archaeologist always has ideas from their own time in the back of their mind whenever they approach a set of observations.

That can impact ideas about gender, for example. Take Iron Age chariot burials: not all of them contain men – we know that some, such as the site at Wetwang in East Yorkshire, definitely contain women. I think that in the past antiquarians would have very quickly jumped to a conclusion that the body was male, based on the style of the burial or perhaps artefacts that were buried with the body. This is similar to what Reverend William Buckland (1784–1856) did when he discovered the oldest skeleton yet found in Britain, on the Gower peninsula in south Wales, which he called the “Red Lady of Paviland”. The remains are clearly male, but Buckland didn’t think it could possibly be a man because the individual was buried with what looked to him like ivory jewellery. As a 19th-century antiquarian, he couldn’t stomach the idea that a man might be buried with jewellery.

And these ideas still persist. When we find an Iron Age burial with a sword, there’s often an assumption that it’s a man. Or if a mirror is excavated from a burial, there’s an assumption that the remains are that of a woman. In the book, I talk about the need to avoid seeing discoveries through our own current cultural lens – to accept that there may have been many more diverse identities in the past than perhaps we understand today, for example. We think that our society and culture is normal in the way that it defines two genders, but perhaps in the past there was a much more diverse approach to identity. Certainly, if you find an Iron Age burial with both a sword and a mirror (and one such site has been excavated), that might be telling us something quite interesting about ancient identities.

I think that new scientific technologies encourage us to move away from our current preconceptions – to look at the evidence in isolation to begin with and then to build up a bigger picture.

One of the burials you discuss is that of the Amesbury Archer, found in Wiltshire and dating to around 2,300 BC. What does his grave tell us about the early Bronze Age?

It’s a stunning discovery – the most richly furnished Copper Age burial yet found in Britain. This man was buried with almost 100 objects in his timber-lined grave, so he was certainly high status or special in some way. All sorts of things were buried with him: lots of flints and arrowheads, and stone items that we presume are wrist guards for archery – hence his name – as well as copper knives and five bell-shaped beakers. There were also gold ornaments, thought to be hair wraps or possibly earrings – the oldest gold found in Britain.

Because the Amesbury Archer was found only about three miles from Stonehenge, some have suggested that he may have had a link with that site. That may be true, but we’ll never be able to prove it. You can also speculate about who he was – his position in that society: are we looking at some kind of Bronze Age shaman or magician? And, connected with that idea, what did people think of those who first developed the ability to extract metal out of stone? It must have been amazing to see a completely new material being produced.

What I find particularly interesting about the Amesbury Archer is that analysis of the stable isotopes in his remains shows that he wasn’t a local – in fact, he grew up in or near the Alps. Graves such as his show just how far these connections stretched, and the distances that people were travelling. There’s this popular idea that in the ancient past people never travelled farther than the next village, but now we have evidence of some, such as the Amesbury Archer, travelling hundreds of miles in a lifetime.

Another of the discoveries you discuss is the Pocklington chariot burial in East Yorkshire. Why was that such an exciting find?

That burial, found in 2017, is absolutely spectacular. I was lucky enough to visit it with the team that discovered it. We don’t see many Iron Age burials across most of Britain, but in Yorkshire several very characteristic chariot burials have been found. These belonged to the Arras culture, which had connections to the near continent and possibly brought this very distinctive funerary style with them.

That Pocklington grave contains the body of a man buried within a chariot. In other similar burials, the chariots tend to have been dismantled before being put in the grave – flatpacked, essentially. This one, though, was standing up and intact, with the man placed inside in a crouching position.

Along with the grave, there’s evidence of a funeral feast. You get the impression that this funeral was a great spectacle, intended to show off the status of the deceased individual but also that of the surviving family. There are animal bones in the grave, including a rack of ribs, so it looks as if dishes from the feast were being shared with the deceased individual.

The other utterly extraordinary thing is that two pony skeletons were found standing up in the grave. That was just unbelievable. We spent quite a long time scratching our heads, wondering how on earth they got those ponies in there upright. Did they winch dead animals into the grave and then somehow support them, maybe piling up the soil underneath to hold them in a standing position? Or were the ponies led into the grave and then killed? I don’t know if we’ll ever quite get to the bottom of how it was achieved, but obviously it was extremely important to the design of the grave to have the chariot looking as though it was ready to depart, taking the dead man off, possibly to the afterlife. That is, of course, if they believed in the afterlife – we don’t know!

Do you think we learn anything about ourselves by looking at prehistoric Britain?

I think that exploring prehistory shows us just how multicultural Britain has always been. What we’ve seen is that many different groups of people have crossed the North Sea and the Channel in both directions over time, and that those cultures all enriched the others.

Although I write a lot about the power of genetics, I don’t think we should be trying to trace direct genetic links between us and people in the ancient past because, once you get back into prehistory, these connections aren’t terribly meaningful. You don’t need to have a direct genetic link with the Red Lady of Paviland or the Amesbury Archer to think about what the lives of these individuals might have been like. I’m aiming for an egalitarian approach to ancestry in the landscape. The “ancestors” I look at in the book belong to everybody.

Alice Roberts is the author of Ancestors: A Prehistory of Britain in Seven Burials (Simon & Schuster, 2021). Buy it now on Amazon, Waterstones or Bookshop.org

This article was first published in the July 2021 issue of BBC History Magazine

In the latest of our series tackling the big questions on major historical topics, experts Ron Hutton and Ad Putter respond to listener queries and popular search enquiries about King Arthur and the legendary tales surrounding him and his court.

• The real King Arthur: why are we so obsessed with trying to solve the mystery?
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As the Portable Antiquities Scheme records it’s 1.5 millionth find, we speak to Michael Lewis, who is head of the scheme, about some of the most remarkable archaeological discoveries in its history, and how metal detectorists are contributing to our understanding of Britain’s past.

• Read more about the 10 greatest discoveries made by the British public

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Compiled by Michael Lewis

We know very little about the people who occupied the south-east corner of the British Isles 3,500 years ago. Yet a little light was shone onto this distant world on 4 November 2001, when metal-detectorist Cliff Bradshaw started scanning the fields of Ringlemere Farm, near Sandwich in Kent.

What Bradshaw found nestled beneath the surface that day is one of the oldest treasures ever discovered in Britain. It was a Bronze Age gold vessel dated to 1700–1500 BC, and such was its age and rarity (it is one of only two gold Bronze Age cups found in England) that it was acquired by the British Museum.

The Ringlemere Cup was originally 11cm high with corrugated sides. I say ‘originally’ because, when Bradshaw discovered the vessel, it was severely misshapen – presumably after being hit by a farmer’s plough. Had Bradshaw not chanced across the object, it might have been lost forever.

So what was the cup used for – and by whom? We can only guess. But a clue is provided by the fact that it has a rounded base. This means that the vessel could not stand alone, suggesting it might have had a ritual use – perhaps it was held or passed around, a bit like a modern-day communion vessel. Maybe it was made to carry an alcoholic or herbed drink as part of a ceremony – although that is, of course, firmly in the realms of speculation!

What we are more confident of is that the cup was deposited (perhaps ritually) within a barrow in a prehistoric complex that dates back to c2300 BC, but with activity on the site going back even further in time. We also know that the Ringlemere Cup is one of six stylistically similar Bronze Age vessels that have been discovered across Europe – suggesting that, even at this distant point in history, ideas and skills were transmitted across the continent.

Yet it is unlikely that the cup itself was created on the continent. Archaeologists believe that this cup was probably made locally, maybe fairly close to its findspot – all of which means that the metalworking expertise required to create a high-status object like this almost certainly resided in Bronze Age Britain.

Michael Lewis, Head, PAS & Treasure, British Museum

Listen: As the Portable Antiquities Scheme records its 1.5 millionth find, we spoke to Michael Lewis, who is head of the scheme, about some of the most remarkable archaeological discoveries in its history, on an episode of the HistoryExtra podcast:

‘Grots’. It’s not the most glamorous of words. But to historians of Roman Britain, it’s a thing of beauty.

‘Grots’ is a term sometimes used to refer to the worn and corroded base-metal Roman coins discovered across England and Wales in their thousands. Every Roman emperor (not to mention almost all usurpers) issued their own coinage. This makes Roman coins a uniquely valuable source of information for the evolution of Roman Britain from Claudius’s invasion in AD 43 through to the collapse of the province more than three centuries later.

What is perhaps most remarkable is the sheer number that have been identified. By 2005, the Portable Antiquities Scheme had recorded just over 34,000 Roman coins. In the intervening 15 years, the numbers have grown to 320,000 – the largest dataset of its kind worldwide.

• Myth-making and belonging: the coins of the Roman provinces

But it is where these coins have been discovered – every bit as much as their volume – that has done most to shape our understanding of the province of Britannia. In short, the regions that have yielded the highest numbers don’t necessarily correspond with those that traditionally come to mind when we think about ‘Roman Britain’.

Take what is known as the Valentinianic period (AD 364–378). These 14 years in the second half of the fourth century have yielded high concentrations of coinage in the rural landscapes of the South West (notably Wiltshire), East Anglia and Yorkshire. That is perhaps surprising in itself. But, when combined with other forms of evidence, it has helped cast Roman Britain in a whole new light.

The fourth century sees a growth of the rural landscape, villa construction, the fortification or reinforcement of rural settlements like Mildenhall in Wiltshire, and the appearance of other objects such as Late Roman military belt fittings. Meanwhile, literary sources highlight the importance of grain ships plying their trade between Britain and the Rhine.

This suggests that the rural Roman landscape may have been an important grain bowl in the late fourth century for the Roman armies on the Rhine, a conclusion almost unreachable prior to the PAS – and had it not been for the many ‘grotty’ Roman coins recorded.

Andrew Brown, assistant finds adviser and treasure curator, British Museum

Back in 2003, a metal-detectorist called Brian Malin was scouring farmland near Chalgrove, not far from Oxford, when he discovered a jar containing 4,957 Roman coins dating to between AD 251 and 279. The Chalgrove (II) hoard, as it’s known, was a significant find but, seemingly, nothing out of the ordinary – after all, more than 600 hoards are known to have been discovered in Britain from this period.

But then the coins were taken to the British Museum to be conserved and identified – and everything changed. For staring out from one of the coins was an individual that no one expected to see. He was a Roman emperor named Domitianus – and, until then, many historians didn’t even believe he existed.

This wasn’t the first time that Domitianus had appeared on archaeologists’ radars. An identical coin, rediscovered in 2003, was found in a hoard in France in 1900, yet some scholars rejected it as a hoax because there was no supporting evidence for Domitianus. We now have that evidence, and it has enabled us to paint a partial picture of this little-known emperor.

Domitianus was, it seems, a very short-lived emperor of the Gallic empire, a breakaway state that existed north of the Alps between AD 260 and 274. A general of the same name was involved in a failed revolt in Milan in AD 268, but it is unclear if this is the same individual.

What we do know is that Domitianus became emperor in Gaul for a few days or weeks in AD 271. It was, it appears, the shortest of reigns – but time enough, at least, to mint a few coins!

Sam Moorhead, national finds adviser, British Museum

For 300 years after its inception in AD 122, Hadrian’s Wall was the most monumental element of a grid of garrisons and roads that formed Roman Britain’s northern frontier. This mighty piece of Roman engineering would have made quite an impression on the many soldiers from across the empire who travelled north to man it. We know this from the letters and diary entries they wrote recording their experiences. We also know it from the works of art they commissioned as souvenirs of their time on the empire’s edge – the most striking surviving example of which is surely the Staffordshire Moorlands Pan.

Discovered by detectorists at Ilam in the Peak District in June 2003, this artefact is one of a group of enamel-decorated pans that were crafted to celebrate the wall’s existence. Around its rim are inscriptions naming the four forts on the western end of Hadrian’s Wall – Bowness-on-Solway, Drumburgh, Stanwix and Castlesteads – each of which is placed, we’re told, “on the line of the Wall of Aelius”. The pan even name-checks its likely owner, one Draco. To the veterans who took such items home – of which Draco was perhaps one – the sequence of garrison names recalled a route endlessly marched from the Solway flatlands west of Carlisle to the Pennine hills.

Beneath the text are swirling polychrome enamel circles, a decorative technique originating in northern Europe but favoured by military consumers. Not even the loss of the pan’s handle and base can detract from its beauty. And you can see it for yourself at one of the three museums at which it is on rotational display: Tullie House Museum (Carlisle), the Potteries Museum (Stoke-on-Trent) and the British Museum.

Sally Worrell, national finds adviser, UCL

Some finds add a few brushstrokes to our understanding of a historical period. Others, like the Staffordshire Hoard, change the picture completely.

• Take a closer look at the Staffordshire Hoard…

Detectorist Terry Herbert’s discovery of 4,600 fragments of seventh-century war-gear and other objects in a field near the village of Hammerwich in 2009 was the find of a lifetime. But it was a lot more than that. It turned the early Anglo-Saxon period, swathes of which have long been shrouded in obscurity, into a topic of genuine public interest. Suddenly – thanks to exquisite pieces such as a possible representation of a Jewish priest’s crown, and the Staffordshire helmet, pieced together from hundreds of precious fragments – the world saw the craftsmanship and sheer exuberance of Anglo-Saxon art.

The Staffordshire Hoard – parts of which are on display at the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery and the Potteries Museum, Stoke-on-Trent – raised many questions, of course. Was it buried as loot, or hidden for security? Could it have been a ritual offering? Why is feminine jewellery – the gold object most commonly recorded by the Portable Antiquities Scheme among seventh-century finds – entirely absent?

Attempting to get to the bottom of these puzzles will only increase our fascination with this remarkable find, and the period in English history that produced it.

Kevin Leahy, national finds adviser, PAS

The late ninth century was a time of great tumult in Britain. In England, the Viking ‘Great Army’ conquered the kingdoms of Northumbria and East Anglia, and seized control of much of Mercia. Then, in the mid-870s, it turned its sights on Wessex. Even the soon-to-be great King Alfred was forced into hiding on the Somerset Levels.

But, in 878, Alfred emerged from Athelney, defeating the Vikings at the battle of Edington. The Viking leader, Guthrum, sued for peace with Alfred and agreed to leave Wessex. After spending the winter of 878/79 in Cirencester, the Vikings headed to East Anglia to settle, probably taking a route along the Icknield Way in southern Oxfordshire. It was here, near to the small town of Watlington, that detectorist James Mather made a discovery that sheds light on this moment in history.

The find, known as the Watlington Hoard, is made up of Viking silver jewellery and ingots, plus 203 silver coins. It is the first large Viking hoard from the Upper Thames Valley, made even more significant by the presence of the coins. These consist mainly of rare pennies of Alfred the Great (reigned 871–99) and Ceolwulf II of Mercia (874–c79), produced using the same design for both kings.

Two-hundred of the pennies belong to two joint designs: the Cross-and-Lozenge (of which there are 187) and the Two Emperors (of which there are 13). Depicting two rulers below an angel, it is the latter design, copying a late Roman gold coin, that has attracted the most attention. But both types essentially suggest the same thing: a recognition of the benefits of economic cooperation.

Wessex and Mercia had issued coins using shared designs since the 860s, an alliance that the coins show continued under Alfred and Ceolwulf, even if historical documents said otherwise.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (written in Wessex from the 890s) described Ceolwulf as “a foolish king’s thegn”, a puppet of the Vikings. Historians now see him differently, accepting him as the king of the Mercians, with the coinage an important part of his rehabilitation. The coins indicate that Alfred and Ceolwulf’s pennies were probably struck in large numbers, too, so this was no fleeting alliance.

This is not the only way in which the coins are important: differences in inscriptions, the style of the coin design and the names of moneyers reveal a great deal about the chronology of the coin production and the mints where they were struck, probably at Canterbury, London and Winchester, with another in Mercia.

The Watlington Hoard (now on display at the Ashmolean Museum) may bring to light new knowledge about Alfred and Ceolwulf, but the chances are it was buried by a member of the Viking Great Army as it made that journey to East Anglia. In fact, the hoard may have been part of the peace deal struck between Alfred’s Wessex and Guthrum’s Vikings following the great clash at Edington.

John Naylor, national finds adviser, Ashmolean Museum

The Norman Conquest is one of the most famous examples of regime change in medieval Europe. But how great was the rupture that followed William the Conqueror’s victory at Hastings? Following the discovery of 2,581 silver pennies and halfpennies in Somerset last year, we are now in a better position to answer this much-debated question.

Buried in the chaotic early years of William’s reign, the Chew Valley Hoard is the largest ever recovered from this period in English history. Its contents, divided between Harold II’s only issue and the first coin-type of William’s reign, increase the number of coins available for study hugely, doubling those for Harold and increasing by five times those for William.

The size of the find is key to our understanding of the transition from Anglo-Saxon to Norman rule. With such a large sample size we’ll be able to compare England’s coinage each side of the Conquest – where it was minted, the names of the moneyers who produced them, the numbers of dies used – and explore exactly how radical change was after 1066.

• Everything you wanted to know about the Norman conquest, with Marc Morris

As well as opening a window on the late 1060s, the Chew Valley Hoard also threw up some surprises – including two coins using the obverse (heads) of one of Harold II’s coins and the reverse (tails) of one of William’s. Using coin dies from different issues (known as ‘muling’) is a rare find in this period, and might reflect a paucity of new dies or an attempt to (illegally) cut costs when William’s issue was introduced, by reusing an old die. Another coin reuses a die of Edward the Confessor, with one of William’s dies.

These oddities aside, the Chew Valley hoard provides a remarkable glimpse into a turbulent moment which had long-reaching effects on England’s state and society.

John Naylor

Incredibly, much of the Vale of York Hoard fits into its little silver-gilt cup. Yet this is a treasure that punches way above its weight. That’s because, contained within its gold and silver arm-rings, jewellery, ingots, coins and the cup itself is the story of the Vikings’ elaborate and wide-ranging trade links – all embellished with a good bit of thieving.

The hoard contained treasures from across the known world. The cup was probably looted from a church in Carolingian France, much of its jewellery came from Ireland – and, as for its 600 or more Anglo-Saxon, Carolingian and Islamic silver coins, they were minted as far afield as Afghanistan.

The hoard was found by father and son David and Andrew Whelan near Harrogate in 2007. What the Whelans found was, historians believe, buried not long after 927, when King Æthelstan seized the kingdom of Northumbria, forming the first united English kingdom. This dating may give us a clue as to why the hoard was buried in the first place. Was it deposited here by Vikings for safe-keeping as the English drove them from the kingdom?

Kevin Leahy

In 2016, Tony Thira was mudlarking along the Thames foreshore when he chanced upon a medieval badge, seemingly of St Thomas (Becket) of Canterbury. On the face of it, there was nothing particularly extraordinary about his find: pilgrim badges are not excessively rare discoveries, and the Portable Antiquities Scheme has recorded many souvenirs associated with St Thomas. But the pristine condition in which this fragile badge emerged from the Thames mud – where it had lain for perhaps 700 years – marked it out as special.

The badge, which probably dates to the 14th or 15th century, appears to depict Becket’s murder in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170. It’s believed that four knights struck the blows that sent Becket to his grave, though the badge has room for just one – and, if you look closely, you can see the hand of God descending over the archbishop at the point of his martyrdom.

The killing of such a high-ranking ecclesiastic in his own cathedral, on the apparent orders of King Henry II, shocked all of Christendom – it was, in many ways, the 9/11 of its day. As Geoffrey Chaucer recounts in his Canterbury Tales, pilgrimage to holy places became a phenomenon in the Middle Ages, with people of all backgrounds travelling sometimes great distances. Soon the cult of Becket was drawing hundreds of pilgrims to the spot where he died

• Read more about the cult of Thomas Becket

Pilgrim badges are a testament to this practice. They were not only proof of pilgrimage, but people believed that they turned into a kind of lucky charm once they’d touched holy relics. Illustrations show people wearing badges on caps, but they might have been worn anywhere. Some were fixed to books, others hung up around the home. The basic principle was that if you touched the badge its spiritual qualities would be passed on to you too.

Michael Lewis

Richard III has been associated with the emblem of a boar for centuries – and not always in a way the Yorkist king would have enjoyed. In his play of 1593, Richard III, William Shakespeare has the Earl of Richmond declare the king a “wretched, bloody, and usurping boar, That spoiled your summer fields and fruitful vines.” It was a description that helped secure Richard’s place in infamy.

Shakespeare may have applied more than a little artistic licence when describing Richard’s life, but there’s no denying that this animal was indeed the king’s emblem. It is known that, in 1483, boar badges were made for Richard’s coronation and also the investiture of his son, Edward, as Prince of Wales.

A number of boar-shaped objects, as well as items with the boar-motif, have over the years been recorded with the Portable Antiquities Scheme. None, however, are more significant – or evocative – than a silver-gilt livery badge in the form of a boar found at the site of the battle of Bosworth, where Richard so famously lost his life.

Although broken, the badge (which is now on display in the Bosworth Battlefield Heritage Centre) must have been lost on the spot by a member of the king’s personal household. It was discovered during a metal-detecting survey to better place the location of the battle – and (along with other evidence as part of the 2005–09 survey) it has moved the epicentre of the battle about 3km from where previously thought, and led to a reassessment of the course of the clash. Indeed, some people now think that the badge identifies the actual spot where King Richard perished, but that might be reading too much into it!

With thanks to Gareth Williams, Neil Wilkin and Richard Abdy. Michael Lewis will be discussing Britain’s greatest archaeological finds on our podcast. To listen, go to historyextra.com/podcast

Find out more about the Portable Antiquities Scheme, and the Code of Practice for Responsible Metal-detecting

You can also catch up with the BBC Four comedy series Detectorists, starring Mackenzie Crook and Toby Jones, on BBC iPlayer. 

This article was first published in the August 2020 edition of BBC History Magazine

Royal incest is always going to grab the headlines. And so it proved last week when a fascinating study was published in Nature revealing the results of a project, whose first author is Dr Lara Cassidy at Trinity College Dublin, sampling human bone remains from Neolithic Irish sites.

The most eye-catching of several interesting results came from analysis of an adult male, whose cranial remains were found inside the famous 5,000-year-old Newgrange passage grave in Brú na Bóinne, the world heritage site in Ireland’s Boyne valley. His genome indicated that he was “the offspring of a first-order incestuous union” (born to parents who were either siblings, or parent and offspring). The bones of this individual were found in what is assumed to be a prestigious position in the inner chamber of the Newgrange monument.

Dr Cassidy and her co-authors observed that sibling-to-sibling incest has been recorded among elites in other societies (including the Inca Empire and ancient Egypt), and that “this behaviour co-occurs with the deification of political leaders and is typically limited to ruling families”. Thus the headline of the story in the Daily Mail began “Ireland’s ancient kings married their sisters and fathered inbred children to maintain dynastic bloodlines”.

Medieval mythology

That is a pretty newsworthy story in itself, but in addition, Dr Cassidy and her team also noted that:

“The Brú na Bóinne passage tombs appear in medieval mythology that relates their construction to magical manipulations of the solar cycle by a tribe of gods, which has led to unresolved speculation about the durability of oral traditions across millennia. Although such longevity seems unlikely, our results strongly resonate with mythology that was first recorded in the 11th century, in which a builder-king restarts the daily solar cycle by copulating with his sister. Fertae Chuile, a Middle Irish placename for the Dowth passage tomb (which neighbours Newgrange), is based on this lore, and can be translated as ‘Hill of Sin’ or ‘Hill of Incest’.”

I’ve been in touch with Dr Cassidy, and she additionally notes:

“As we are clear in our paper, it is always going to be controversial when you suggest oral longevity across millennia. However, it is not unprecedented. Some Indo-European fairytales are estimated to be 2,500-6,000 years old. Aboriginal Australians have stories of exploding mountains concerning volcanoes that haven’t erupted for thousands of years. Importantly, there was already a prior discussion of this myth in this context and it is entirely reasonable for us to add our result to this. Note we make no strong conclusion in this regard.”

Stories to explain places

Nonetheless, that apparent piece of documentary corroboration from medieval mythology drew some criticism on social media from Dr Elizabeth Boyle, Head of the Department of Early Irish at Maynooth University. The story in question here is found in the Metrical Dindshenchas, a compilation of stories that dates to the 11th century AD concerned with the origins of place-names in the Irish landscape. Composed by learned scholars within a Christian context, these stories look back to pre-Christian times to explain how places got their names. I called Dr Boyle to find out about her reservations about the usefulness of this source to the argument in the paper.

“This is the story of the placename Dowth, one of the three Neolithic monuments in Brú na Bóinne [along with Newgrange and Knowth]. In Old Irish, the place-name Dowth is dubad, which would literally mean ‘darkness’. The story says that the king of Ireland at that time is called Bresal. In his reign Ireland is struck down by a cattle murrain [disease], and the cattle die. So everyone gathers at the court of the king and they decide that they are going to build a tower to heaven, like the Tower of Babel [the Old Testament origin story in the Book of Genesis]. Presumably the aim is to ask God to stop killing the cattle. They decide that they will spend the length of one day building this tower up to heaven. And they start building. The king’s sister is a sorceress. And she’s going to create some magic in order to stop the sun from moving so that the day will last long enough for them to build the tower.

“The story says that she goes off somewhere to do her magic. And her brother follows her. He has sex with her, and because she’s now committed incest, her magic fails. And the place where they’re building falls into darkness. And so it is called dubad. Further, we’re told that wherever they went to go and have sex with each other, that place gets called Fertae Chuile, the burial mound of sin or the burial mound of violation or incest. And that’s what they’re seizing on in the article, that wherever the brother and sister have sex in the narrative is called the burial mound or the mound of sin or incest. But, as I say, it explicitly says in the story that they are trying to build a new Tower of Babel. They’re trying to build a tower to heaven. And so that even in itself is enough to say that this isn’t a story that goes back to the Neolithic period because it’s borrowing directly from the Bible. And in any case, it’s not clear where this place, Fertae Chuile, is located, because wherever they’re having sex, it’s not in Dowth itself, because that is where the tower was.”

So, given that the story in question here appears to be derived from Biblical stories, it’s unlikely, in the view of Dr Boyle, to correlate with any sort of cultural practices that may or may not have been ongoing in the Neolithic, several millennia previously. Whatever fascinating cultural practices are implied by the scientific analysis, an early medieval literary source, composed within a Christian milieu, does not add weight to the argument. The problem is compounded by the actual language used in the source in question.

“The key thing that wound me up about the article is that the people who built Newgrange and built those nearby monuments were not Celtic-speaking people. The Celtic language and Celtic-speaking peoples were only introduced into Ireland probably in the early Iron Age, maybe around 500 BC, so thousands of years after Newgrange was built,” notes Dr Boyle. “Almost all of the place names in Ireland in the Old and Middle Irish periods are clearly identifiable as Irish place names. Every place name in Ireland had therefore been renamed since the Neolithic period in the Celtic-speaking period because the place names are all in a different language: they are all in Irish. There were no Celtic-speakers on the island of Ireland when Newgrange was being built. I think it’s improbable enough to have something like a folk memory that lasts for four thousand years, but it would also have to last across a language change, the introduction of a new culture into Ireland, and this very clear renaming of the Irish landscape, because all of these place names in the Dindshenchas are Irish place names and not whatever language preceded Irish in Ireland.”

A fuzzy, vague Celtic past

So, if the Dindshenchas do not provide a viable witness to Neolithic practices, why do they get employed here? “For me, it’s flagging up a problem with perceptions of Irish history, where everything prior to the arrival of the Normans in the 12th century is often seen as some fuzzy, vague Celtic past where it’s all the same,” comments Dr Boyle. “And it doesn’t matter if it was something built in 4000 BC or something written in AD 1100, it’s all perceived as being kind of the same.

She continues:

“But there is so much radical social transformation continually underway in Ireland. There are technological developments. There are language shifts and language changes. There is conversion to Christianity. There is introduction of literacy. A lot has changed in that period. This misconception reflects, I think, a wider perception that Ireland doesn’t really have any ‘history’ until the English turn up and everything else before that is just some vague, ahistorical, stuff about druids and warriors.”

This isn’t to say that the people alive in the 11th century AD weren’t interested in these prehistoric monuments, as shown by the very documentary sources that we’re talking about here. “In medieval Ireland there is a very complex awareness of landscape as a whole, both manmade features on the landscape and the natural landscape in general. And this is reflected in the Metrical Dindshenchas,” suggests Dr Boyle.

“This is a genre of learned literature, but it’s a very dynamic tradition and you can see them creating new stories for places that are interacting with the landscape. They know that these monuments are incredibly old. They don’t have any connection with the Neolithic culture that built them. But they know that this is something the construction of which could be projected into their prehistory. Oftentimes they’re not projecting it that far into prehistory. To take an example of one Neolithic tomb at Knocknarea, the story around it is that it’s the tomb of a queen, Maeve (Medb), who is depicted in literature as having lived maybe only about a thousand years before they are writing, when actually the tombs themselves are about 5,000 years old. So they’re projecting them back into a past, but not a past that’s as old as the monuments actually are.”

Whose afraid of the prehistoric past?

We ran a feature on this site on Anglo-Saxon fear of prehistoric barrows and I’ve blogged previously about early medieval attitudes to prehistory. Thinking about all this did remind me of the work of Professor Sarah Semple at the University of Durham, who has done much work on changing perceptions of the prehistoric in early medieval society before and after the conversion to Christianity.

For example, in a paper in the journal World Archaeology in 1998, Professor Semple noted that:

“The late Anglo-Saxon attitude to prehistoric barrows was one of superstitious wariness; emotions also connected with boundaries. Both places were portrayed as the haunt of monsters, spirits and evil creatures in the eighth century and after. The poetic sources are the product of a Christian world and represent a Christian perception of the landscape. The root of this perception may be the remembrance of early Anglo- Saxon pagan activity which took place at barrows.”

Now, of course, I wanted to check in with Dr Cassidy to get her take on Dr Boyle’s thoughts. She replied as follows:

“I need to stress that the mythology did not feed into our conclusions on the political form of these societies. That was based on the son of a first degree union interred within one of the most prestigious burial structures known for prehistoric Europe, the long distance patterns of relatedness with other passage tomb sites, the diet and the material culture of passage tomb cemeteries, which shows high investment in public ritual and monumentalism.

“It is well accepted that biblical narratives and local pagan mythology were woven together in works like the Dindshenchas. Untangling the two is a complex task. I would avoid speaking in certainties about it and we were sure not to in the paper. Unfortunately, we can’t control the tabloids.”

The Celtic question

With regards to the question of language, Dr Cassidy has this to say:

“Our team is very aware that Ireland has undergone radical transformation since the Neolithic. In fact, in 2016 we were the first to demonstrate a transformative population migration to the island in the Early Bronze Age (~2,200 BC). Another result in that paper challenged the outdated paradigm that Dr Boyle repeats ‘Iron Age Celtic-speaking people arrived in Ireland 500 BC’. There has never been any substantial archaeological evidence for this transition and there is also no current genetic evidence.

“In fact, we see very strong genetic continuity between the modern Irish people and the Early Bronze Age population. This feeds into a growing body of work called “Celtic from the West”  (a set of volumes by Barry Cunliffe and John T. Koch), which argues that precursors to Celtic arose in the Late Bronze Age across Atlantic sea networks from an Indo-European substratum [this is a topic explored by Professor Barry Cunliffe on this site]. Indo-European languages are now widely believed to have been introduced to western Europe by the continent-wide migrations in the Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age. although a small contingent argue that they were already there in the Neolithic. I would advocate the former, but the debate is not fully closed. Either way, it is very probable that some form of Celtic Language was in Ireland long before the Iron Age imaginings of romanticists in the late 19th and early 20th century.

“The next phase of our research will actually be focussed on the Neolithic to Bronze Age transition in Ireland and how these two different peoples consolidated with one another over time with respect to their genes and cultures. For example, we see continued use of older megalithic sites and the construction of a new megalithic tomb type (wedge tombs) for many centuries after the end of the Neolithic. There is potential at this interface for the exchange of folklore.”

The question of how far back you can project values or attitudes from early medieval documentary sources onto prehistoric societies is no doubt one that will continue to drive debate. Dr Boyle has one last comment, for now, on the question of language: “I reject the idea that the Celtic language arriving in Ireland c500-c.100 BC is ‘outdated’. Rather, it represents the best accepted consensus of the situation on the part of experts in the history of the Irish language and the ‘Celtic from the West’ model is at best a fringe opinion.”

Linking literature and science

Finally, although Dr Boyle did note on Twitter that “if a medievalist had cast their eye over the paper pre-publication, this unfortunate methodological error could have been avoided”, she did conclude to me by saying “I’m not blaming the scientists. Science-wise, it’s a really good paper. It’s a really important paper telling us all sorts of things about the Neolithic period. I just don’t think 11th-century Irish literature tells us anything about the prehistoric period.”

Just adding my Facebook response to *that* Nature paper here for anyone who is interested. A bit fuller than my bad-tempered tweet which has unexpectedly gained a bit of traction! pic.twitter.com/pGYZVjBHfV

— Elizabeth Boyle (@thecelticist) June 19, 2020

So, clearly this conversation has some way to run. I’ll leave the last word on it for now to Dr Cassidy:

“Overall, my take home would be that the question of oral and linguistic continuity in Ireland is very much an open one. It will require an interdisciplinary effort to address. In that spirit, it would have been remiss of us not to highlight a potential new piece of evidence in the paper, especially given the previous speculation regards Brú na Bóinne itself. We did not start the debate and I do not believe it is anywhere near finished! It’s an exciting time to be in the field. Dr. Boyle’s point about a ‘fuzzy Celtic past’ is very apt, with ancient genomes we are hoping to do some defuzzing!”

David Musgrove is content director at HistoryExtra. He tweets @DJMusgrove. If you’ve got any subjects you’d like him to try to defuzz in this blog, drop him a tweet to tell him what he should cover. Read the latest in his medieval matters blog series here

Cornwall has a colourful history of smuggling, piracy and mining, and though much of the landscape has been left unspoilt, there are many remnants of its industrial past. This dramatic coastline was the inspiration for Winston Graham’s Poldark novels, set in 18th-century Cornwall and which have since been made into a BBC TV series.

The Tin Coast – part of the Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage site – still retains glimpses of Cornwall’s tin and copper mining heritage. Running from St Just to Pendeen, along the west coast, Botallack is considered one of the best preserved examples of a Cornish tin mine.

Early records suggest there was tin mining in the area from at least the 1500s, but evidence of Cornish tin trading dates back thousands of years.

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Archaeological evidence indicates that tin may have been mined here as long ago as the Roman era or even Bronze Age. By the 19th century, there were more than 2,000 tin mines in the county. Botallack, near St Just, is a former submarine mine, meaning its tunnels stretch out under the sea, in this case for around half a mile. Miners mostly relied on hammers, chisels and gunpowder to get the ore out of the ground. It’s believed that during the mine’s lifetime, 14,500 tonnes of tin and 20,000 tonnes of copper were produced at Botallack, as well as 1,500 tones of arsenic.

This poisonous element – a by-product of tin and copper mining – was used in paint until the end of the 19th century, and in weed killers until the 1940s. Mining was already a dangerous occupation, but this added hazard meant that miners had to ensure that any exposed skin was covered in clay, and that they covered their mouth and nose with rags.

Conditions in the mines were extreme – temperatures would soar quickly and ventilation was poor. The only light was from candles, which were often blown out by draughts. !e ladders used to descend down the shafts could also be precarious as one wrong step or broken rung could equal a devastating fall. !ose working above ground – often women – escaped the terrors below, but were still exposed to the harsh elements of the Atlantic coast.

The ruins at Botallack include the engine houses of the Crowns mine as well as the remnants of Wheal Owles mine, where tragedy struck in 1893. In January of that year, it was closed permanently after the shaft flooded, killing 19 men and a young boy.

The count house at Botallack was used as an office for the purser – the person in charge of accounts and financial matters – and managerial staff at the mine. It was also where the miners collected their wages. The house was grand in its design, compared to others in the area – this was intended to instil faith in the mine in the minds of the shareholders. The count house workshop now serves tea and cake for visitors to the Cornish coast, but it was once a stable for the mine horses and the carpenter’s workshop.

A pumping engine was built at the base of the cliffs in the early 1800s, but this was later replaced by the engine houses that can still be seen today. Known as the Crowns Pumping Engine Houses, they perch precariously on the cliffside. Their dramatic location makes them a popular photograph opportunity and has seen them become television stars.

In the current BBC series Poldark, the ruins around Botallack play a starring role as Wheal Leisure, the mine that Ross Poldark resurrects on his return to England. Botallack was also used during the filming of the original 1970s series. Botallack mine closed in 1895 due to a decrease in tin and copper prices. Many other mines across Cornwall had already closed by this time.

3 more historical sites in Cornwall

For avid Poldark fans, the nearby Levant Mine is another series filming location – it was the Tressiders Rolling Mill.

Perched on the edge of the cliffs is an intriguing Bronze Age tomb where pottery and bones have been found.

Across the water from Penzance lies the tidal island and castle of St Michael’s Mount – legendary home of the giant from the fairy-tale Jack the Giant Killer.

This article was first published in the September 2019 issue of BBC History Revealed

Gold plaque of a mounted Scythian, c400–350 BC

This tiny plaque (main picture) was sewn onto clothing as a decorative element; originally rectangular, it was later trimmed to emphasise the outline of the warrior. It is in Greek style but shows a Scythian man with long hair, beard, moustache, trousers, soft shoes and a belted jacket adorned with tiny circles – an attempt to show decorative elements similar to this plaque itself. It was unearthed from the Kul-Oba kurgan (Scythian burial mound) in eastern Crimea, first excavated in 1830, in which a Scythian king was buried with his wife or concubine, a slave and a glittering hoard of gold ornaments.

Gold plaque showing Scythians drinking, 400–380 BC

This tiny plaque was one of a large number sewn along the seams of trousers worn by a Scythian chief buried in the Solokha kurgan on the Dnieper river, in what’s now eastern Ukraine. It depicts two kneeling Scythian men sharing a drinking horn, the contents of which would undoubtedly have been wine. The Black Sea Scythians imported large quantities of wine from the Greeks. Like most other artefacts in this article, this plaque is part of the vast  collection in the State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg.

Headgear crest, late fourth/early third century BC

This finely carved piece was found in a coffin in a burial mound in the Pazyryk valley in the Altai Mountains. It formed part of the buried man’s headgear, which would have consisted of a felt cap decorated with pieces of leather showing animal combat scenes and topped with this wooden crest. Visible damage can be made out; this is ancient, and corresponds to fatal wounds on the man’s head, implying that he was wearing this headgear during his final hours.

Woman’s leather shoe, late fourth/early third century BC

This heavily decorated shoe must have been a prized possession of the woman interred in a burial mound at Pazyryk. It’s made from red leather embellished with gold and tin, and the sole is ornamented with tiny beads and pyrite crystals stitched into the leather. The effect must have been particularly striking when the woman sat cross-legged on the floor of her tent.

Gold belt plaque, fourth or third century BC

This expertly worked piece depicts a man’s corpse, his head cradled by a seated female figure wearing a tall headdress that appears to be interwoven with the branches of the tree above. Alongside the tree sits another figure tending a pair of horses, while a quiver hangs above the dead body. Many of the items depicted are identical to actual excavated objects. This plaque is one of the most famous gold items from the Siberian collection acquired by Peter the Great from around 1715, most of them taken from ancient burial mounds in western Siberia and the Altai mountains over the preceding years.

Wood and leather shield, fifth or fourth century BC

This well-preserved shield, also found in the Pazyryk valley, was made by threading wooden sticks through slits in dark leather, and painting parts of them red. Such shields, mainly used by horsemen, had to be light and reasonably small. When found in burials, they are usually strapped to the saddles of horses interred with a dead owner. Despite their apparent fragility, experiments show that such shields would have been highly effective at stopping arrows. The Scythians were expert archers, and developed a powerful new type of bow with layered wood and sinew.

Bag for cheese, late fourth/early third century BC

Lumps of cheese were found in two of the burial mounds excavated at Pazyryk. Scientific analysis has not determined the source of the milk but it could have been from sheep, goat, cow, yak or a combination; cheese-making was a traditional practice among the pastoral nomads of the Altai and surrounding regions. This leather bag, which contained cheese (pictured below) when discovered, was decorated on the outside with an overlapping coloured fur pattern.

Painted plaster death mask, late third/early fourth century AD

This mask, excavated in the Minusinsk region, southern Siberia and painted in imitation of facial tattoos, probably intended to preserve the dead woman’s looks into the afterlife. The mask belongs to a post-Scythian culture that developed in the Minusinsk basin and which had close connections with northern China.

Horse headgear, late fourth/early third century BC

This spectacular object was made to be worn by one of the personal horses buried with its owner in a burial mound at Pazyryk. It is sewn from felt and leather, and topped with a ram’s head with a detachable bird standing between its horns. The peak of the mask is decorated with seven fish made of gold foil. These were symbolic rather than everyday items, made for the afterlife. Horses were commonly sacrificed by Scythians and buried with high-status individuals.

Gold lion-griffin ornament, fifth/fourth century BC

This object was found in the 1870s at a site on the present Tajik/Afghan border; at the time this piece was created, the area was part of the eastern Achaemenid Persian empire. The ornament depicts a mythical beast with a horned lion’s head and wings, a pair of long prongs sprouting from its back. Its style is similar to that of Scythian objects found in southern Siberia, and it was probably worn at the base of a tall headdress.

St John Simpson is senior curator responsible for the British Museum’s pre-Islamic collections from Iran and Arabia

This article first appeared in issue 6 of BBC World Histories magazine

For most Europeans in the early 17th century, the idea of smoking tobacco was a strange novelty. And what’s more, King James VI and I hated it. He called it “lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, neerest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomelesse”.

To King James, tobacco was a newly-discovered crop from the Americas, but the ancient Mayans and Aztecs of Mexico had long since smoked it in pipes or rolled up in cigars, puffing on it, as Winston Churchill did, over a good meal with friends.

But other types of smoking are even older. In the Bronze Age – as far back as 5,000 years ago – we know the inhalation of burned plants was used in magic, ritual and medicine in such places as India, Mesopotamia and Egypt, while some archaeologists think Stone Age shamans probably inhaled hallucinogenic opiates to commune with the gods.

It was likely that such drug-taking was often more religious than recreational, so not really the equivalent of a 20-a-day cigarette habit, but it’s believed that every human society in history has known smoking of some sort.

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This article was taken from BBC History Revealed magazine

For over 4,000 years we have relied on the duodecimal mathematics of the Bronze Age Babylonians, who built the first great cities in what is now Iraq. They saw the number 12 as much more important than 10 because it is divisible by 2, 3, 4 and 6, making it particularly versatile in mathematical calculations.

What’s more, the lunisolar calendar, based on observations of both the Sun and the Moon, used 12 lunar phases per year (with a 13th ‘leap’ month added every two or three years).

So 12 was the numerical cornerstone of the Universe. Early civilisations, including Egypt, divided both sunlit day and night into 12 parts – in total, 24 hours in a day.

Answered by one of our Q&A experts, historian and author Greg Jenner.

This article was taken from BBC History Revealed magazine

A 4,000-year-old Bronze Age skeleton found buried with a rare dagger is thought to have been an early tribal ruler who died in combat.

Analysis of Racton Man’s teeth, bones and dagger, carried out by the London Institute of Archaeology, has revealed he was six foot tall, aged 45 when he died, and could have been brought up in southern Britain. Researchers have concluded he died more than 4,000 years ago, sometime in the period 2300-2150 BC.

‘Racton Man’ – nicknamed after the discovery of his skeleton in the hamlet of Racton, near Chichester, West Sussex in 1989 – was found buried with an extremely rare and valuable dagger. This is thought to be one of the earliest bronze artefacts in the UK, and is one of only seven ornate rivet studded daggers ever to have been discovered.

James Kenny, Chichester District Council’s archaeologist, described the results as “staggering”.

“The fact that this man had a bronze dagger would have been phenomenally rare then – let alone now,” he said.

“This would have been right at the start of the introduction of this type of technology and would have been one of the first bronze daggers in existence in this country.”

Racton Man – who researchers believe was probably a tribal leader from the very beginning of the Bronze Age – was found to be displaying signs of spinal degeneration, likely due to his age. Researchers also believe he suffered from a chronic sinus infection, as well as tooth decay.

Wounds found on his upper arm, sustained around the time of his death and which never healed, suggest he died in battle. Racton Man’s injuries are believed to be consistent with the arm being raised during fighting.

Although less certain, there is also evidence of a similar blow having struck the lower part of the right shoulder, under the armpit. A sharp force blow to this area of the body would have been consistent with a double strike – one to the head, blocked by the raised right arm, and a second deep into the armpit, presumably to sever the major blood vessels in this area.

Racton Man is now on display at The Novium museum in Chichester, which is run by Chichester District Council.

Cllr Myles Cullen, cabinet member for commercial services, said he was “fascinated” by the results.

“To think that we can discover such detail about a man who died more than 4,000 years ago, while learning more about the country’s history, is just incredible.

“We can’t wait to welcome people to the museum to find out more about this project and to see the Racton Man on display.”

Written by Gemma Davies