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Journal article
A Boyne to Brodgar research framework
Note: this research framework, created by Alison Sheridan (National Museums Scotland) and Gabriel Cooney (University College Dublin), forms part of an article, ‘The Boyne to Brodgar initiative: understanding – and preserving, presenting and raising awareness of – Neolithic monuments and the people who built and used them in Ireland, Scotland...Sheridan, J A ; Cooney, Gabriel
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Journal article
Gold in Prehistoric Scotland
Dr Alison Sheridan introduces a new joint project to explore what we know - and what we have yet to discover - about early gold us in Britain.Sheridan, J A
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Journal article
Ancient genomes indicate population replacement in Early Neolithic Britain
The roles of migration, admixture and acculturation in the European transition to farming have been debated for over 100 years. Genome-wide ancient DNA studies indicate predominantly Aegean ancestry for continental Neolithic farmers, but also variable admixture with local Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. Neolithic cultures first appear in Britain circa 4000 bc, a millennium after...Brace, Selina ; Diekmann, Yoan ; Booth, Thomas J ; Faltyskova, Zuzana ; Rohland, Nadin …
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Journal article
The jet bead. In: Gibson, A. Survey and sampling at the Castle Dykes Iron Age ‘henge’, Wensleydale, North Yorkshire
Survey and sampling at the classic single-entranced henge monument at Castle Dykes, in North Yorkshire, has revealed traces of circular timber structures, interpreted as later prehistoric roundhouses, in the immediate vicinity and within the henge. Coring of the waterlogged silts of the internal ditch has produced considerable environmental data: plant,...Sheridan, J A
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Journal article
Survey and sampling at the Castle Dykes Iron Age ‘henge’, Wensleydale, North Yorkshire
Survey and sampling at the classic single-entranced henge monument at Castle Dykes, in North Yorkshire, has revealed traces of circular timber structures, interpreted as later prehistoric roundhouses, in the immediate vicinity and within the henge. Coring of the waterlogged silts of the internal ditch has produced considerable environmental data: plant,...Gibson, Alex ; Neubauer, Wolfgang ; Flöry, Sebastian ; Schneidhofer, Petra ; Allen, Mike …
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Journal article
The Spearhead of the Pennon …
In 1999, the late Professor Charles Thomas donated a Middle Bronze Age spearhead to the National Museum collection. This spearhead came with a label indicating that it was part of the pennant taken into the Battle of Flodden by Robert Chisholme in 1513. This paper investigates the likelihood that such...Knight, Matthew G ; Sheridan, J A
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Book chapter
Appendix 2. The post-1500 BC individuals
Nineteen individuals within the BPP database either produced radiocarbon dates that were later than the 2500-1500 BC core period, or else were attributed a post-1500 BC date on the basis of their find context and their unusual isotopic ratios. They range in date from the Middle Bronze Age to the...Jay, Mandy ; Montgomery, Janet ; Pearson, Mike Parker ; Sheridan, J A
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Conference paper (published)
Constructing narratives of Britain’s (and the whole of Europe’s) prehistoric past: navigating through a sea of data and the choppy waters of contested discourses…and at a time of political madness
Trying to understand the past by constructing ‘big picture’ and more detailed narratives is what we, as archaeologists, do in our own varied ways; it’s what we have always tried to do, and it is something that has featured in a major way in this lecturer’s own career as a...Sheridan, J A
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Conference paper (published)
Mobility and migration among the Beaker people of Britain
The Beaker People Project, recently published in 2019, is a multi-isotope study, combined with human osteology, dental microwear analysis and radiocarbon-dating, carried out on 334 burials of the Beaker period and Early Bronze Age (c.2500-1500 cal BC) in Britain, to explore patterns of mobility, migration, diet and health. Its results...Pearson, Mike Parker ; Sheridan, J A ; Evans, Jane ; Jay, Mandy ; Richards, Mike …
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Conference paper (published)
Creating a research framework and strategy for early gold in Britain's auriferous regions
This presentation outlines a current AHRC-funded initiative that has created an international network of those involved in the study of gold, to create a Research Framework and Strategy relating to gold use in Britain's auriferous regions, 2450-800 BC. This deals with issues of locating and characterising the source areas; of...Sheridan, J A
Bronze, sourcing, goldworking, Chalcolithic, and Gold
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Book chapter
Disc-rings made from Alpine rocks, in the social imagination of Neolithic communities
In France, disc-rings of Alpine jades and of serpentinite circulated over very long distances, as far as the Channel Islands and the coast of Brittany. The authors present a typochronological study for each rock type, along with distribution maps and a general social interpretation. Two origins are identified, of which...Pétrequin, P ; Cassen, S ; Errera, M ; Pailler, Yves ; Pétrequin, A-M …
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Book chapter
Fifty shades of green: the irresistible attraction, use and significance of jadeitite and other green Alpine rock types in Neolithic Europe
This chapter summarizes the results of two major international projects JADE and JADE 2. These examined the exploitation, circulation, use and significance of artefacts made from jadeite and other green rocks from the Western Alps in Neolithic Europe. The most-widely travelled of all the prehistoric materials, these Alpine jades seem...Sheridan, J A ; Pétrequin, Pierre ; Pétrequin, A-M ; Cassen, S ; Errera, M …
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Lecture
DNA analysis of ancient individuals found in Scotland
Dr Ange Boyle, University of Edinburgh, presents a short lecture on “DNA analysis of ancient individuals found in Scotland: part of the third great revolution in archaeology” on behalf of Dr Alison Sheridan, National Museums Scotland, and Dr Lisa Brown, Historic Environment Scotland, at the Archaeological Research in Progress (ARP...Sheridan, J A ; Brown, Lisa
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Book chapter
Introduction
In Great Britain the researches of craniologists have demonstrated that the appearance of bronzeand of the beaker types of ceramic coincides with the advent of a new race characterized by a brachycephalic skull distinctly different from the dolichocephalic head of the earlier neolithic inhabitants...it is therefore necessary to direct our...Pearson, Mike Parker ; Jay, Mandy ; Sheridan, J A
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Book chapter
The Beaker People: project individuals, their funerary practices and their grave goods
This chapter introduces the individuals in the BPP Database, focusing on those dating to the Project's core period of 2500-1500 BC (rather than those found to date earlier or later: see Appendices 1 and 2 for thes), and especially those belonging to the Beaker period, from the 25th century to...Pearson, Mike Parker ; Needham, Stuart ; Sheridan, J A ; Gibson, Alex
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Book chapter
Tangled up in blue: the role of riebeckite felsite in Neolithic Shetland
The social processes involved in acquiring flint and stone in the Neolithic began to be considered over thirty years ago, promoting a more dynamic view of past extraction processes. Whether by quarrying, mining or surface retrieval, the geographic source locations of raw materials and their resultant archaeological sites have been...Cooney, Gabriel ; Megarry, William ; Markham, Mik ; Gilhooly, Bernard ; O’Neill, Brendan …
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Conference paper (published)
The creative reinterpretation of axeheads: the use of jadeitite and other Alpine rocks
Axeheads made of jadeitite and of other Alpine rocks (notably omphacitites and fine-grained eclogites) provide a classic example of an artefact type that acquired a symbolic meaning over and above its original functional meaning as a tool for felling trees and working wood. Axes were a necessary tool for farming...Sheridan, J A
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Book chapter
Rings and axeheads of Alpine jades: imports to and exports from the Gulf of Morbihan during the 5th millennium and the beginning of the 4th millennium
During the 5th millennium BC, the gulf of Morbihan played a major role in the circulation of socially-valued goods, especially those made from Alpine jades (jadeitite, omphacitite, eclogite, some serpentinites and, more rarely, nephrite), in the form of disc-rings and polished axeheads. This contribution begins with a review of the...Pétrequin, P ; Pétrequin, A-M ; Cinquetti, Mauro ; Errera, M ; Valcarce, Ramón Fábregas …
Alps, paragonite, jade, disc-ring, polished axehead, and Neolithic
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Book
The Beaker people: isotopes, mobility and diet in prehistoric Britain
The Beaker People: Isotopes, Mobility and Diet in Prehistoric Britain presents the results of a major project that sought to address a century-old question about the people who were buried with Beakers a – the distinctive pottery of Continental origin that was current, predominantly in equally distinctive burials, in Britain...Pearson, Mike Parker ; Sheridan, J A ; Jay, Mandy ; Chamberlain, A ; Richards, M P …
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Book chapter
Appendix 1. The pre-2500 BC individuals
Some 17 individuals sampled for the BPP can be assigned to the Neolithic period, either on the basis of radiocarbon dating (n=12) or because of their contextual associations (n=5). In some cases (such as Liffs Low, Derbyshire) the selection had been deliberate: they were known to be Neolithic when they...Jay, Mandy ; Montgomery, Janet ; Pearson, Mike Parker ; Sheridan, J A
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Book chapter
Grooved Ware in Orkney
While the pottery from 'cooking holes' at Lion Point, Clackton, in Essex was the first assemblage to be named as 'Grooved ware' by Stuart Piggot in his influential 1936 publication that launched the idea of a type of pottery (Piggott 1936, 191), it is actually at the other end of...Sheridan, J A
Orkney, Grooved Ware, Ireland, British and Irish Neolithic, and pottery
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Book chapter
Grooved Ware in Britain and Ireland, 2023: retrospect and prospect
The contributions to the volume have demonstrated just how far our understanding of Grooved Ware in Britain and Ireland has moved on in the 24 years since Ros Cleal and Ann MacSween published their Grooved Ware in Britain and Ireland volume in 1999.Sheridan, J A
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Book chapter
'Items that are likely to date to the Late Iron Age/Romano-British period' In: Boughey, Keith, A Tale of Two Collectors: The Lithic Collections of Geoffrey Taylor and David Heys (with particular reference to the county of Yorkshire)
The book begins with brief biographies of the two collectors and outlines the areas in which they collected, principally the North York Moors, and their method of working, before attempting to set their work into its wider prehistoric context. It then explains how the over 18,000 worked pieces in the...Hunter, Fraser ; Sheridan, J A
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Lecture
Street House in the Context of Early Neolithic Britain
A conference will be held in the autumn of 2024 to present the evidence for the Early Neolithic salt production site at Street House, near Loftus. The site was discovered in 2014 during a programme of excavations. It is the only currently known salt ‘factory’ in Britain and the earliest...Sheridan, J A
archaeological excavations, salt production, Street House, saltern, and Early Neolithic Britain
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Lecture
The Neolithic Pottery from Street House
A conference will be held in the autumn of 2024 to present the evidence for the Early Neolithic salt production site at Street House, near Loftus. The site was discovered in 2014 during a programme of excavations. It is the only currently known salt ‘factory’ in Britain and the earliest...Sheridan, J A
Neolithic Pottery, Early Neolithic Britain, Analysis, archaeological excavations, and Street House
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Lecture
Burning down the house: exploring the phenomenon of Early Neolithic ‘halls’ and their destruction
Honours the achievements of Professor Ian Ralston, Emeritus Abercromby Professor of Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh.Sheridan, J A
halls, Scotland, Early Neolithic buildings, destruction, and Britain and Ireland
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Book
Heaven and hell - and other worlds of the dead
What happens after we die? -- from Egyptian mummies to guardians of ancient tombs; Mexican 'Days of the Dead' skeletons to Mercedez-Benz coffins; Peruvian mummy bundles to Viking boat burials -- this book explores beliefs & practices from around the world & across time. More...It highlights the wealth & diversity...Sheridan, J A
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Journal article
Three cists and a possible Roman road at Barbush quarry, Dunblane
Over the past 50 years a number of archaeological discoveries have been made at Barbush Quarry, Dunblane including a coin hoard, Neolithic pottery and several prehistoric funerary features. During the supervised removal of spoil heaps at the quarry a concentration of archaeological features was identified and later excavated. The features...Holden, T ; Sheridan, J A
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Journal article
The National Museums Scotland ‘Dating cremated bones project’
Results from the ‘Dating Cremated Bones Project’ The second year of what is hoped to be a three-year project has continued to provide interesting new dates from prehistoric Scottish cremated human bone (see DES 2001, 129 for results from year 1). Sampling continued to focus on material with ‘interesting’ artefactual...Sheridan, J A
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Journal article
Investigating jet and jet-like artefacts from prehistoric Scotland: the National Museums of Scotland project
The black spacer plate necklaces and bracelets of the Early Bronze Age (Figure 1) are among the most technically accomplished prestige items of this period in Britain and Ireland. There has been much debate over the years as to whether these artefacts and other prehistoric black jewellery and dress accessories...Sheridan, J A ; Davis, M ; Clark, Iain ; Redvers-Jones, Hal
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Journal article
The radiocarbon dating programmes of The National Museums of Scotland
Since 1991, the Archaeology Department of the National Museums of Scotland (NMS) has been undertaking programmes of AMS radiocarbon dating of organic items in its collections, particularly wetland finds. This work was initially stimulated by the success of Caroline Earwood’s research on dating bog butter containers and other wooden vessels...Sheridan, J A
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Journal article
An Early Bronze Age 'dagger grave' from Rameldry Farm, near Kingskettle, Fife
In February 2000, ploughing disturbed the capstone of a cist, located on the side of a prominent knowe at Rameldry Farm, near Kingskettle in central Fife. Excavation by Headland Archaeology Ltd on behalf of Historic Scotland revealed a short cist which contained the crouched inhumation of a man aged 40-50,...Baker, L ; Sheridan, J A ; Cowie, Trevor
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Journal article
The excavation of a bronze age cemetery at Seafield West, near Inverness, Highland
Excavations in 1996 in advance of a major commercial development at Seafield West revealed a Bronze Age cemetery. Inside a ring-ditch were two adjacent graves with wooden coffins, one a boatshaped hollowed tree-trunk, the other plank-built. Both had probably contained crouched inhumation burials. Grave goods in the former included a...Cressey, M ; Sheridan, J A
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Journal article
Supernatural power dressing
Jewellery from Bronze Age graves is normally interpreted as a symbol of status. Howevr, materials like jet, amber, faience and tin were also worn as talismans, writes Alison Sheridan When archaeologists found the 4,300-year-old burial of an archer and metalworker at Amesbury in Wiltshire last year, they knew at once...Sheridan, J A ; Shortland, A
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Journal article
Review of R.Cleal and A.MacSween (eds.), Grooved ware in Britain and Ireland
This collection of fourteen papers (plus Introduction and Gazetteer) arose from a Neolithic Studies Group seminar that took place on a memorably eventful and frosty day in February 1994. As one of the speakers and subsequent contributors to the volume, my comments are those of an active participant in the...Sheridan, J A
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Book chapter
“…beads which have given rise to so much dogmatism, controversy and rash speculation”: faience in Early Bronze Age Britain and Ireland
This volume represents the publication of a highly successful conference held in 2003 to celebrate the contribution to Neolithic and Early Bronze Age studies of one of archaeology's finest synthesisers, Professor Stuart Piggott. The title is a reference to his famous work, Ancient Europe from the beginnings of agriculture to...Sheridan, J A ; Shortland, A
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Book chapter
Going round in circles? Understanding the Irish grooved ware 'complex' in its wider context
A truly multi-disciplinary book allowing the reader to gain insights into an exceptionally diverse set of topics such as hunting, burial, sword-production and rock art, from the Mesolithic to the Middle Ages.Sheridan, J A
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Book chapter
Scottish food vessel chronology revisited
Sheridan, J A
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Journal article
Croft Moraig and the chronology of stone circles
The Perthshire stone circle of Croft Moraig was excavated 40 years ago and is usually taken to illustrate the classic sequence at such monuments in Britain. A timber setting, accompanied by a shallow ditch, was replaced by two successive stone settings. The pottery associated with the earliest construction was dated...Bradley, R ; Sheridan, J A
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Journal article
Review of M.Parker Pearson, N.Sharples, and J.Symonds, South Uist: archaeology and history of a Hebridean island
Two outstanding books have recently been published about the archaeology and history of the Outer Hebrides. Andrew Fleming’s St Kilda and the Wider World is one; Parker Pearson et al's is the other. South Uist presents the results of a major interdisciplinary and collaborative research project undertaken principally by the...Sheridan, J A
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Journal article
Pifalls and other traps...why it's worth looking at museum artefacts again
Re-examination of old finds can lead to significant gains in understanding past practices. Some of the recent work undertaken by the National Museums of Scotland is showcased here. Recent work on the Loch Glashan codex satchel (p18) persuades us that, archaeologically speaking, silk purses can be made out of sows’...Sheridan, J A
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Journal article
Radiocarbon dating results from the Beaker People Project: Scottish samples.
The Beaker People Project is a major interdisciplinary five-year research programme, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and led by one of the authors (Mike Parker Pearson of Sheffield University). It aims to investigate patterns of diet, mobility and health in British Beaker-associated skeletons (and in contemporaneous non-Beaker...Sheridan, J A ; Parker Pearson, Mike ; Jay, Mandy ; Richards, Mike ; Curtis, Neil
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Journal article
The re-dating of some Scottish specimens by the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit (ORAU)
The purpose of this note is to alert readers to the fact that some AMS dates determined by ORAU on Scottish material between 2000 and 2002 have had to be deleted and re-determined, because of a problem in the ultrafiltration system used to pretreat bone samples during that period (see...Sheridan, J A ; Higham, Tom
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Journal article
Review of G.Warren, Mesolithic lives in Scotland
This slim but attractively-presented volume sets out to present an account of the lives of Scotland’s earliest inhabitants that is accessible to undergraduates and to those with a general interest in archaeology. Much effort is spent in explaining complicated processes (such as sea-level change) and in demystifying specialist terminology (principally...Sheridan, J A
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Journal article
The Exloo necklace: new light on an old find
This article presents the results of recent international collaborative research into the Early Bronze Age composite necklace from Exloo, examining its circumstances and location of discovery, the history of its curation and study, its likely date, the provenance of its constituent elements, and its broader significance. The other Dutch Bronze...Haveman, E ; Sheridan, J A
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Journal article
Radiocarbon dating results from the Beakers and Bodies Project
The Beakers and Bodies Project is a two-year project based in Marischal Museum, University of Aberdeen, funded by the Leverhulme Trust. It is assessing the beaker-related evidence from North-East Scotland (between the Moray Firth and the Firth of Tay), including the dating and stable isotope analyses of some 40 human...Curtis, Neil ; Wilkin, Neil ; Hutchison, Meg ; Jay, Mandy ; Sheridan, J A …
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Journal article
The age of Stonehenge
Stonehenge is the icon of British prehistory, and continues to inspire ingenious investigations and interpretations. A current campaign of research, being waged by probably the strongest archaeological team ever assembled, is focused not just on the monument, but on its landscape, its hinterland and the monuments within it. The campaign...Parker Pearson, M ; Cleal, R ; Marshall, P ; Needham, S P ; Pollard, J …
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Journal article
Beaker vessel
This report provides an account of the excavations of a cropmark enclosure and other prehistoric remains at Dryburn Bridge, near Innerwick in East Lothian. The excavations were directed over two seasons in 1978 and 1979 by Jon Triscott and David Pollock, and were funded by the Ancient Monuments Branch, Scottish...Sheridan, J A
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Journal article
Bronze Age pottery. In P R J Duffy, Excavations at Dunure Road, Ayrshire: a Bronze Age cist cemetery and standing stone, 94-100
In March 2005, excavations were undertaken by Glasgow University Archaeological Research Division (GUARD) at the Craig Tara Holiday Park, Dunure Road, Ayr in advance of proposed development. Two main archaeological sites were examined. The first, a flat cist cemetery covered by an earthen mound, comprised 23 separate burial features of...Sheridan, J A
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Journal article
Review of: I.A.G.Shepherd and G.J.Barclay (eds.). Scotland in ancient Europe
This volume presents the proceedings of a conference held in Edinburgh in March 2003 - one of a series of Society of Antiquaries of Scotland conferences reviewing Scotland’s past within its broader context. The previous, and first, was held in 1999 and was published by the Society in 2004 as...Sheridan, J A
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Journal article
Review of I Armit, Scotland’s Hidden History
This is an updated version of Ian Armit’s popular guide to Scottish archaeological sites, first published (in paperback and hardback) in 1998. As Armit explains, the revisions have been necessitated by new discoveries and advances in our understanding of Scottish prehistory and early history to around AD 1000, with the...Sheridan, J A
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Journal article
Green treasures from the magic mountains
A few prehistoric jade axeheads were found in Britain over a century ago. The number grew as the years passed: but where they had come from remained a mystery. Alison Sheridan describes new work by Pierre Pétrequin, Michel Errera and Yvan Pailler that looks finally to have cracked the problemSheridan, J A
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