A new sequence of Holocene landscape change has been discovered through an investigation of sediment sequences, palaeosols, pollen and molluscan data discovered during the Stonehenge Riverside Project. The early post-glacial vegetational succession in the Avon valley at Durrington Walls was apparently slow and partial, with intermittent woodland modification and the opening-up of this landscape in the later Mesolithic and earlier Neolithic, though a strong element of pine lingered into the third millennium bc. There appears to have been a major hiatus around 2900 cal bc, coincident with the beginnings of demonstrable human activities at Durrington Walls, but slightly after activity started at Stonehenge. This was reflected in episodic increases in channel sedimentation and tree and shrub clearance, leading to a more open downland, with greater indications of anthropogenic activity, and an increasingly wet floodplain with sedges and alder along the river's edge. Nonetheless, a localized woodland cover remained in the vicinity of Durrington Walls throughout the third and second millennia bc, perhaps on the higher parts of the downs, while stable grassland, with rendzina soils, predominated on the downland slopes, and alder–hazel carr woodland and sedges continued to fringe the wet floodplain. This evidence is strongly indicative of a stable and managed landscape in Neolithic and Bronze Age times. It is not until c 800–500 cal bc that this landscape was completely cleared, except for the marshy-sedge fringe of the floodplain, and that colluvial sedimentation began in earnest associated with increased arable agriculture, a situation that continued through Roman and historic times.

First discovered by accident in 1884 – and thereafter informally investigated by workmen, nuns and clergy, for several decades – the archaeological site at the Sisters of Nazareth convent in central Nazareth has remained unpublished and largely unknown to scholarship. However, work by the Nazareth Archaeological Project in 2006–10 showed that this site offers a full and important stratified sequence from ancient Nazareth, including well-preserved Early Roman-period and later features. These include a partially rock-cut structure, here re-evaluated and interpreted on the basis of both earlier and newly recorded data as a first-century ad domestic building – perhaps a ‘courtyard house’ – the first surface-built domestic structure of this date from Nazareth to be published, and the best preserved. The site was subsequently used in the Roman period for burial, suggesting settlement contraction or settlement shift.

A review of the account of the discovery of the Ribchester hoard in 1796 leads to the conclusion that the figure forming a crest was a sphinx but that it was unlikely to have been attached to the helmet in the hoard. The hoard is therefore likely to have been composed of material for reuse.

The treasure of Roman Hacksilber from Traprain Law, a massive hill fort east of Edinburgh, has been interpreted since its publication in 1923 by Alexander Curle as an illustration of the last days of Roman Britain, and as having been broken up by Irish pirates or raiders in or about ad 405. The attribution resulted from an attempt to link historical or semi-historical sources, in particular about the Irish hero Niall of the Nine Hostages and St Patrick, with an archaeological discovery. Modern scholarship, however, has shown that Niall and St Patrick are to be dated to the middle or late fifth century, not to the late fourth and early fifth century, and so the argument that the Traprain Law treasure was connected with ‘Irish pirates’ fails.

This paper considers the historical, topographical, and morphological characteristics of burial sites in south-western Britain between ad 400 and 1000, looking for evidence of patterns of Christian development across the region. The study concludes that there is no one simple set of characteristics that exclusively identifies sites of this period. It demonstrates the very considerable complexity of the long, slow cultural shift that turned a pagan society into a Christian one, and it draws attention to the range of place names, morphologies, dedications and traditions that mark the surviving evidence.

The location of Argistillum in the Ravenna Cosmography has been obscure. This paper uses linguistic and historical analysis to suggest that it was the Roman fort at Caersws, in the cantref (district) of Arwystli, still with a name relatable to Argistillum.

The Aufret ring, acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1871, has long been considered an Anglo-Saxon artefact, its inscription counted as part of the Anglo-Saxon heritage. Because of the similarity between the names Aufret and Alfred, it became associated with this king and with a ‘lost’ ninth-century coin hoard allegedly found with the ring. On the continent, however, the ring sits comfortably in a well-attested corpus of Lombard seal rings of the seventh century. Thanks to some archive archaeology and the identification of a drawing of the ring in a publication of Ludovico Muratori, an eighteenth-century antiquary, the story of the ring can be traced from its retrieval amongst the ruins of a tomb in Bagnoregio in 1726, to its acquisition by an Italian collector, the Marquis Capponi, until his death in 1746. In 1857 the ring was presented to Edmund Waterton, FSA, who eventually sold it to the Victoria and Albert Museum. By tracing the historical background, and demolishing a few misattributions, this paper restores the Aufret ring to its Lombard context.

A frieze of mounted knights, over 15m long, dominates the nave of the church of All Saints, Claverley, Shropshire. It is part of an extensive mural scheme from the first quarter of the thirteenth century. For the first time the status of Claverley as a Royal Chapel is recognized and the royal and crusading character of the imagery is discussed. The emperors Constantine and Heraclius are identified as part of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross subject on the north wall, and the Holy Cross is suggested as the unifying theme, pre-dating the Florentine mural cycle by Agnolo Gaddi by some 170 years. Claverley is also shown to have the only medieval mural of Roland, hero of the Chanson de Roland, to survive in situ. The historical background of the early years of Henry iii is examined and the possible role of Ranulf de Blondeville, earl of Chester, in commissioning the frieze is considered.

An English princess of the mid-thirteenth century, dead by the age of three and a half, Katherine occupies only a footnote in the history of England. Yet the costly tomb monument at Westminster Abbey provided by her grieving father, Henry iii, was probably the earliest recorded memorial to a child known to have been set up in England. It may also have been part of Henry's response to the commemoration programme that his brother-in-law, Louis ix of France, had instigated. Nothing now apparently remains of Katherine's tomb to remind posterity of her brief existence, but its commissioning marked a step up in Henry's growing ambition to be seen as an innovator at the forefront of the artistic developments of his age, and the story surrounding its provision affords insights into the role of display and material culture in Henrician politics.

Archaeological and engineering work that took place in Westminster Hall in 2005–6 led to the discovery of further remains of the King's High Table, to add to those discovered in 1960. The Purbeck marble table stood at the south end of the hall from the thirteenth century to the seventeenth century and was the focus and symbol of English monarchy, serving particular roles in coronation feasts and in the development of the law courts. This paper suggests a reconstruction of the original table and its later extensions from the recovered fragments, and reviews the evidence for the construction, usage and destruction of the table in the context of the evolution of the hall and the palace, tracing its history through to its recent rediscovery and exhibition.

The presbytery vault at St Albans is one of only two thirteenth-century wooden vaults over a main span to survive in England. A programme of cleaning and conservation carried out between 1997 and 2002, coupled with an analysis of the source and date of the timber used in its construction, significantly advanced our understanding of both the late thirteenth-century presbytery campaign at St Albans and thirteenth-century timber vault construction generally. As the inevitable density and restricted circulation of the final report on that work has hindered its wider reception, the following paper offers a summary, drawing attention to two features that may have wider implications for an appreciation of vaulting in timber. The first is that, although the general form adopted at St Albans is one associated with masonry vaulting, the wooden boards used for the vault webbing required a junction between the wall and the ridge rib, meaning that shallow liernes were originally deployed to run parallel to the central ridge. It is difficult to see this as imitative of vaulting in stone; rather it is likely to be the result of carpenters developing their own solutions to the constraints imposed by timber. Secondly, the late medieval remodelling of the vault replaced these liernes with false tiercerons, and rather nicely illustrates the ease with which timber vaulting could be modified. The dendrochronology gives a date range of 1273–93, and a date of around 1285 is suggested for the primary build. The major late medieval alterations are here associated with the second abbacy of John of Wheathampstead (1452–65).

This paper reassesses the transformation of Winchester Cathedral nave in the second half of the fourteenth century from the Romanesque to its present form. It argues for a more complex and earlier development than traditionally accepted, with the rebuilding of the nave itself beginning in the early 1370s rather than in 1394. After the construction of the new porches Edington had planned to rebuild the nave completely, but by the time of his death even the west end was incomplete. His successor, Wykeham, adopted a more cautious and staged remodelling, starting with the creation of a new great arcade which he began in the 1370s and resumed in 1394. Subsequently, Wykeham began to complete the rebuilding with remodelled aisles, the clerestory and the vault. The implications of this proposed earlier dating are explored, including providing a major work in the 1370s for William Wynford, one of the most important architects of the period.

The majority of choir stalls in Italy lack misericords. Their unusual presence in Piedmont and the Valle d'Aosta most probably reflects their proximity to, and the influence of, northern Europe. This paper reveals that the rare instances of misericords elsewhere in Italy are connected to the Carthusian order. Rather than performing an artistic role, their presence is derived from the specific rubrics of Carthusian liturgy, which legislated in detail on the correct use of misericords. The Cistercians also regulated their use, but a similar correlation cannot be assessed because of the lack of surviving furniture. The Carthusian connection, meanwhile, suggests a purely liturgical function for the carved rests, expanding the study of misericords beyond stylistic and iconographic analyses.

A transcript survives of the oath sworn in 1465 by the lay sacristan of the collegiate church of St Mary at Warwick on the occasion of his taking office. His duties are spelled out in detail, and include the striking requirement that he spend each night in the sacristy for the better security of the treasures. This paper prints the oath and aims to place it in its institutional context. The medieval sacristy at Warwick survives and details of the oath illuminate details of the architecture. Similar first-floor vestries are known elsewhere, and the suggestion is made that some other churches might also have had inhabited sacristies.

This short note is intended as a response to the paper by Dr Hilary Turner published in Vol 88 of the Antiquaries Journal, entitled: ‘Tapestries once at Chastleton and their influence on the image of tapestries called Sheldon: a reassessment’. It seeks to give an alternative account to that given by Dr Turner of the role of the Sheldon family in establishing the tapestry-weaving workshops associated with their name during the reign of Elizabeth i.

The middle decades of the seventeenth century are seen as a period when antiquaries were obsessed with heraldry and genealogy and paid little attention to physical antiquities. Through an exploration of a circle of antiquaries associated in the 1650s with John Aubrey, this paper argues that interest in physical monuments was indeed sustained and developed during this period of transition from Camden's Britannia to Aubrey's Monumenta Britannia. It is suggested that Aubrey's association with the Royal Society, a body that played an important role in preserving and disseminating archaeological evidence, has privileged one particular influence on the early development of archaeological fieldwork at the expense of others explored here. Indeed, this period is marked by a growing interest in physical evidence that was a natural next step for antiquaries who found themselves reaching the boundaries of what literary sources could tell them about the monuments they observed in the landscape.

The publication by the Society between 1778 and 1788 of reduced black-and-white engravings of the celebrated wall paintings at Cowdray House, Sussex, was highly controversial at the time; now the engravings, one of which shows the sinking of the Mary Rose, serve as an important record of the sixteenth-century originals, lost to a fire of 1793. No contemporary colour copies of this particular wall painting were thought to have survived until the discovery in 2010 of a watercolour (since acquired by the British Library) depicting some of the central figures, including a remarkable image of Henry viii in the last months of his life. Further sketches of details by the same artists, the Sherwin brothers, found in the Mitford archives, help to throw new light on the original Tudor painting.

This paper examines the complicated circumstances surrounding the very slow production of The Monumental Effigies of Great Britain, the great masterpiece of Charles Alfred Stothard, FSA, and the various reasons why it took twenty-one years to complete. The methods and techniques Stothard adopted to produce his celebrated etchings and the evolution of his artistic style are first analysed, as is the role played by Thomas Kerrich, FSA, in the project. Next, this paper investigates the severe problems facing Stothard's young widow, Anna Eliza, and his brother-in-law, Alfred Kempe, FSA, as they tried to bring the project to a conclusion, and the reasons why it was necessary to employ four different etchers to produce the remaining plates from Stothard's original drawings. Anna Eliza's recording of Charles Stothard's achievements, her scrupulous preservation of his drawings and her poignant publication of his life story are shown to have consolidated and enhanced his posthumous reputation as perhaps the finest antiquarian artist ever to depict medieval monumental sculpture.

In 1998 the author published ‘Genetics, linguistics and prehistory: thinking big and thinking straight’, a critique of late twentieth-century attempts to synthesize the disciplines of genetics, linguistics and archaeology. This paper assesses subsequent progress, using examples from various parts of the world, including Britain, Denmark, Finland, France, Frisia, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Micronesia, Portugal, Spain and the Canary Islands. The growing importance of mitochondrial DNA and the Y chromosome, rather than classical population genetics, is emphasized. The author argues that ancient DNA and early linguistic data should be used more. Languages mentioned include Aquitanian, Basque, Celtiberian, Etruscan, Finnish, Hungarian, Iberian, Lepontic, Lusitanian, Pictish, Raetic, ‘Tartessian’, Thracian and the Ladin dialect of the Italian Alps. Aspects of the ancient linguistic geography of Scotland and the Iberian peninsula are discussed, as is the difficulty of deciding the direction of spread of Indo-European and non-Indo-European languages. The potential of ancient place and personal names is illustrated from Celtic.