Online Courses in Archaeology

Cave paintings, castles and pyramids, Neanderthals, Romans and Vikings - archaeology is about the excitement of discovery, finding out about our ancestors, exploring landscape through time, piecing together puzzles of the past from material remains.

Our courses enable you to experience all this through online archaeological resources based on primary evidence from excavations and artefacts and from complex scientific processes and current thinking. Together with guided reading, discussion and activities you can experience how archaeologists work today to increase our knowledge of people and societies from the past.

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Crew goes to aid of Viking ship

lifeboat crew went to the aid of a replica Viking longship after it got into difficulty in strong tides at the Kessock Bridge at Inverness.

The boat was being towed out of the city's marina when its support craft suffered engine problems.

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Anglo-Saxon Landscape and Economy: using portable antiquities to study Anglo-Saxon and Viking Age England

In the last fifteen years the role of metal-detected objects in archaeological research has greatly increased through reporting to the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) and the Early Medieval Corpus (EMC). There are now thousands more artefacts and coins known than a decade ago which, in conjunction with fieldwork, have the potential to revolutionise our understanding of the early medieval period. This is the first time that these data have been examined on a national scale. Such an approach enables the detailed analysis of the nature of portable antiquities data, the bias within such datasets and the relationship between patterns of recovery and historic settlement (Sections 2 and 3). In the light of these new interpretations of the overall datasets, the most artefact- and coin-rich sites, known as 'productive sites', can be analysed within a new framework of understanding (Section 4).

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Archaeology Quiz: The Viking Age

The Archaeology Quiz of the Week is on the Viking Age, that early, exciting Medieval period saga of blood, guts, and poor decision making.

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Unique Viking find

Archaeologists have uncovered a well preserved trading post (Kaupang) from early Viking times in Laerdal, in Sogn og Fjordane county. It is probably older than earlier Kaupang finds.

More than 30 house foundations and remnants of extensive handicraft production have been uncovered. The items found have been unusually well preserved due to the dry climate in this region.

Archaeologist Asle Bruen Olsen says to NRK TV that the find is older and larger than those uncovered in other places, and that it will be very important in the research into the early Viking age.

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Conference: New Directions in Medieval Scandinavian Studies

Next year’s annual Medieval Studies conference at Fordham University, New York has just been announced.

Excitingly, the theme is New Directions in Medieval Scandinavian Studies. It will take place on 27-28 March 2010. Key-note speakers will include Lesley Abrams, Martin Chase, Matthew Driscoll, Roberta Frank, Vésteinn Ólason, Kirsten Seaver, and Kirsten Wolf.

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