PCA

@pcaarchaeology

Commercial archaeological contractor with offices in Cambridge, Durham, London, Newark, Norwich, Warwick and Winchester.

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PCA@pcaarchaeology· 19h

For #FindsFriday a Victorian child’s shoe from a tannery pit in Darlington where tanning was a major industry. Its deep, foul-smelling pits were dangerous, and there are reports of children drowning in disused pits. We’ll never know who wore it, but it gives a glimpse of life alongside the industry.

PCA@pcaarchaeology· 7d

Following our aurochs discovery this week, Rita and Emily have now started taking a closer look at the remains, alongside a nice red deer antler from the same feature. There’s a lot to get through, we'll have more 🐂 news soon! #FindsFriday #archaeology #prehistory

PCA@pcaarchaeology· 9d

Our Cambridge team have found a remarkably well-preserved aurochs lying in peat beside an ancient watercourse, with much of the skeleton still articulated. Aurochs became extinct in Britain around 1300 BC. This one is now back at Finds for further investigation. 🐂

PCA@pcaarchaeology· 14d

What did people do for fun at Fulham Palace over 400 years ago? To celebrate the launch of our latest monograph, This Land of 50 Hides: Archaeological Investigations at Fulham Palace, here's one of the smallest but most intriguing finds from the excavations – a tiny antler teetotum, used in games.

PCA@pcaarchaeology· 29d

For #FindsFriday, a near-complete glazed red earthenware pot from Cringleford, Norfolk. It was found in a former clay quarry pit, with a kiln and pottery waste nearby. From digging the clay to firing the pots, we’re uncovering the whole process in one place! #FindsFriday #Archaeology #Norfolk

PCA@pcaarchaeology· Jul 15

What do London's earliest known turkey bones, a metre-long medieval pike and one of the capital's largest prehistoric flint assemblages have in common? They all feature in 'This land of 50 hides', our new book exploring more than 10,000 years of archaeology beneath Fulham Palace. bit.ly/4vBgsbU

PCA@pcaarchaeology· Jul 10

#FindsFriday 🪙 This Roman coin from the House of Constantine c.AD 347–8 depicts two winged Victories celebrating imperial victory. Alongside the Neolithic pits and Roman pottery we've already featured, it provides another snapshot into the thousands of years of human activity at Fordingbridge.

PCA@pcaarchaeology· Jun 26

This flint core dates to the end of the last Ice Age, around 12,000 years ago, when mobile hunter-gatherers travelled seasonally across the lost landscape of Doggerland, now submerged beneath the North Sea. #FindsFriday #Archaeology #Palaeolithic

PCA@pcaarchaeology· Jun 12

For #FindsFriday, a jug with painted decoration and a tall-necked beaker, both New Forest wares dating to the second half of the 4th century AD. They were found side by side within a disused grain dryer and may have been deliberately placed after the structure had gone out of use. #Archaeology

PCA@pcaarchaeology· Jun 11

A team from PCA Newark have recently rediscovered a hidden well within the gatehouse at Newark Castle. The well was first recorded in Archaeologia in 1782, where it was described as being 'still open'. Watch the timelapse and read more here: www.pre-construct.com/news/a-redis...

PCA@pcaarchaeology· Jun 8

🌊 World Oceans Day 🌊 New Romney, now inland, was one of England's most important medieval Cinque Ports. Explore our free interactive book The Sea and the Marsh to discover how storms and shifting coastlines reshaped the town's connection to the sea. www.pre-construct.com/product/the-...

PCA@pcaarchaeology· Jun 2

What do you find when you dig beneath one of the Tower of London's most historic buildings? Our excavation at the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula features in this week's episode of Inside the Tower of London. 📅 Wednesday 3 June 🕗 8pm 📺 Channel 5

PCA@pcaarchaeology· May 29

For #FindsFriday we're following a trail of tiny beads left behind in Victorian Islington. Hundreds were recovered at Ironmonger Row Baths alongside fasteners, pins & buttons made from glass, shell and bone, hinting at the presence of a seamstress in one of the terraced houses that once stood here.

PCA@pcaarchaeology· May 15

This delicately decorated bone object from a medieval settlement in Essex features a lion with tendrils emerging from its mouth, a motif paralleled in Romanesque sculpture. It may have been a dagger sheath chape, and reflects the transfer of ecclesiastical imagery to everyday objects. #FindsFriday

PCA@pcaarchaeology· May 1

For #FindsFriday, a tiny plaque from the City of London, with delicately incised letters: [A]EÞVL-, probably a part of a name. Below, a t suggests the presence of a second line. Although typically lead, this one has parallels in coffin plates of the 11th–12th centuries, which are often cross-shaped.

PCA@pcaarchaeology· Apr 10

For #FindsFriday a Roman enamelled stud from the site of a mausoleum that stood for 700 years overlooking the Medway marshes. Here, a woman in a lead-lined coffin, nearby Roman silverworking, and rare Anglo-Saxon finds point to a site that remained meaningful across changing worlds. #RomanBritain

PCA@pcaarchaeology· Apr 2

Construction of a new road revealed something already written into the landscape. An Iron Age enclosure and a Roman villa lay 1km apart, on slightly higher ground above the floodplain. Between them ran a route, a precursor of the modern bypass. The same route, reused and redefined across centuries.

Reconstruction of the Bedale enclosure overlaid on an aerial photo of the site during excavation.

Slot through the enclosure ditch, showing stones tumbled from the bank into the cut, with distinct fills visible above.

The heated room of the Aiskew Roman villa during excavation, with pilae stacks that once supported a much higher floor. An area of burning at top right marks the location of the furnace that heated the room.

PCA@pcaarchaeology· Mar 27

This canister was left in a ditch near a Roman temple in Southwark nearly 2,000 years ago. When it was opened, it was found to contain a white cream still holding the fingerprints of the last person to touch it. Closed and set aside, a moment caught, right down to the fingerprint. #FindsFriday

PCA@pcaarchaeology· Mar 20

This Neolithic end scraper came from a pit packed with artefacts in the New Forest. The pit is part of a wider cluster, probably representing seasonal activity. These deposits may mark the closing of individual episodes of activity at a site revisited over generations. #FindsFriday #FlintFriday

PCA@pcaarchaeology· Mar 13

Tomorrow is #InternationalPiDay celebrating π. Matching this Black-burnished ware triangular-rim bowl to a chart estimates its diameter. Roman pottery is full of circles, and therefore π! These were nicknamed pie dishes, though there’s no evidence Roman pies were baked in them. #FindsFriday

PCA@pcaarchaeology· Mar 6

These Celtic coins - plated copies of Ambiani staters struck from the same dies - ended up buried together centuries later in a Roman ditch in Hertfordshire. Recently another small group of plated staters turned up in a 1st-century ditch. A pattern emerging, or simply coincidence? #FindsFriday

PCA@pcaarchaeology· Feb 27

For #FindsFriday we have a #Roman jet/shale assemblage from a coastal site in NE England, close to natural jet deposits and shale outcrops. The presence of unfinished pieces and production errors suggests that people living nearby made them, profiting from a valuable local resource. Details below!

PCA@pcaarchaeology· Feb 20

A Late Roman graffito from Bishop’s Stortford has revealed a personal name, LOVERNICCA. It has been identified by Roger Tomlin as a Celtic woman’s name containing the name-element louerno, meaning fox. A small mark that bring a real life back into focus - Vixen of Bishop’s Stortford. #FindsFriday

PCA@pcaarchaeology· Feb 13

This deep red, heart-shaped handaxe may already have been ancient when it was swept into Ice Age deposits around half a million years ago. It was found in Suffolk, where finds of this age are rare outside river gravels, making this an exceptional discovery. #FindsFriday #Palaeolithic #Valentine

PCA@pcaarchaeology· Feb 6

For #FindsFriday we’re celebrating the Roman festival of Fornacalia, the Feast of Ovens, held each February. Baking hearths were honoured as the goddess Fornax to ensure good bread & large ovens in the City of London show how commercial baking fed Roman London, with an iron shovel found with them.

An iron bread shovel used to take bread in and out of the ovens.

Tile-built base of a large Roman bread oven, one of two constructed within a shared open room, indicating commercial-scale bread production rather than domestic use.

Detail of third-century mosaic from St-Romain-en-Gal showing a Roman bread oven in use.

PCA@pcaarchaeology· Feb 2

This mysterious object from Kent is a bifacially worked axehead or handaxe. It resembles a #Mesolithic transverse or tranchet axehead, however given it's heavily worn condition and the gravel from which it was recovered it may be a #Palaeolithic handaxe of an unusually elongate form. #archaeology

PCA@pcaarchaeology· Jan 16

Today’s #FindsFriday is the head of the Norfolk boar standard! Its fierce face was the first sign, on site, of the Iron Age hoard featured this week on Digging for Britain. www.pre-construct.com/news/the-nor... #IronAge #Archaeology #NorfolkCarnyx

Boar standards carved among the captured arms on the Arc de triomphe d’Orange, shown raised on poles above shields and armour as part of Roman representations of Gallic warfare.

Photograph: Arc antique d’Orange (detail) by EmDee, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution–ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Source: Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arc_antique_d%27Orange_-_02.jpg

PCA@pcaarchaeology· Jan 15

It was fantastic to see the Norfolk Carnyx and Iron Age hoard on Digging for Britain last night! Many thanks to the Digging for Britain team, and to our partners at Historic England, Norfolk Museums and National Museums Scotland. www.pre-construct.com/category/new...

PCA@pcaarchaeology· Jan 14

That moment. When the scale of what you’ve uncovered starts to sink in. The Norfolk Carnyx and hoard will feature on Digging for Britain tonight, showing how this remarkable discovery was made, from first sight in the trench to why it matters. 📺 Digging for Britain, BBC Two, tonight at 9pm

PCA@pcaarchaeology· Jan 12

You’ll be able to see more of the Norfolk Carnyx and Iron Age hoard on Digging for Britain on Wednesday. After a busy week of coverage, the programme offers a chance to step back from the headlines and explore why the hoard matters. 📺 Wednesday 14 Jan, BBC Two at 9pm #carnyx #Norfolk #IronAge