☀️A sunsenational night of solar science! Quantum Sauce meets @wxwakefield.bsky.social beneath #Helios, for chats about: - our sun’s life story🌌 - solstice religions - geothermal energy futures♨️ Massive thanks to Dr Felix Sainsbury-Martinez, @undertheground.bsky.social & @jimleary.bsky.social! 👏
Jim Leary
@jimleary.bsky.social
Archaeologist & writer. Senior lecturer at Uni of York. Books: The Story of Silbury Hill; The Remembered Land; Footmarks, a journey into our restless past. Agent: JP Marshall.
We’re deep into Stonehenge silly season. A few comments from me here. www.nationalgeographic.com/history/arti...
Did humans observe the solstice at this site centuries before Stonehenge?
Two wooden posts sunk into a hillside three miles east of Stonehenge may have been the earliest known solar alignment on that landscape, scientists say.
nationalgeographic.com
Chop, Chop! Axe-Marked Bronze Age Timber Found in Yorkshire 🪵🪓 Archaeologists excavating at Skipsea in Yorkshire have discovered a Bronze Age timber that has preserved the marks of the sockered axe used to fell the tree! Thanks, @jimleary.bsky.social! 📰 AWLOH: open.substack.com/pub/historyh...
For #FindsFriday, I'm gifting you this fantastic Bronze Age felled tree we’ve just excavated from #Skipsea in Holderness. The marks of the socketed bronze axe are clearly visible, and the thud of the axe is almost audible. Used - we think - as a post, perhaps for a trackway.
What is it about the Ridgeway that makes people ignore the dating of archaeologists and describe it as ‘Britain’s oldest road’? And the date of 5,000 years old is so strangely random. Every stretch of Roman road is older than the Ridgeway.
What have we found at #Skipsea this week? Well, on the edge of a small pond fed by springs and streams, we found this Iron Age horse’s head and neck. There is no body with it, and I can’t help thinking of it lying there with its large eyes closed and mane gently washed by water.
For #FindsFriday, I'm gifting you this fantastic Bronze Age felled tree we’ve just excavated from #Skipsea in Holderness. The marks of the socketed bronze axe are clearly visible, and the thud of the axe is almost audible. Used - we think - as a post, perhaps for a trackway.
What is it about the Ridgeway that makes people ignore the dating of archaeologists and describe it as ‘Britain’s oldest road’? And the date of 5,000 years old is so strangely random. Every stretch of Roman road is older than the Ridgeway.
What have we found at #Skipsea this week? Well, on the edge of a small pond fed by springs and streams, we found this Iron Age horse’s head and neck. There is no body with it, and I can’t help thinking of it lying there with its large eyes closed and mane gently washed by water.
Well, this is a wonderful find from the ancient lake edge at #Skipsea - a 1.3m worked wooden pole. A digging stick, possibly Mesolithic, is our best on-site guess, but we’ll know more when it’s back at the labs and reviewed by our wood expert. #WoodenWednesday #Prehistory #Peat
Well, this is a wonderful find from the ancient lake edge at #Skipsea - a 1.3m worked wooden pole. A digging stick, possibly Mesolithic, is our best on-site guess, but we’ll know more when it’s back at the labs and reviewed by our wood expert. #WoodenWednesday #Prehistory #Peat
For #FindsFriday, we have this wonderful piece of worked wood from our trench on the edge of the palaeolake at #Skipsea. Our student, Lydia, found it in an area that was once alder carr. At the moment, we don’t know its date, but it is likely prehistoric.
For #FindsFriday, we have this wonderful piece of worked wood from our trench on the edge of the palaeolake at #Skipsea. Our student, Lydia, found it in an area that was once alder carr. At the moment, we don’t know its date, but it is likely prehistoric.
For #FindsFriday I have the smallest of Small Finds for you - a titchy but beautiful Mesolithic shale bead. One of many that would have been strung on a necklace. Found out of context but not far from the edge of a lake at Skipsea in Holderness.
For #FindsFriday I have the smallest of Small Finds for you - a titchy but beautiful Mesolithic shale bead. One of many that would have been strung on a necklace. Found out of context but not far from the edge of a lake at Skipsea in Holderness.
I love digging prehistoric peat - the way the ground bounces with every movement, the soft, sucking nature of it, and the anticipation of what we’ll find in it. Skipsea, Holderness, preparing trenches for the student field school.
I love digging prehistoric peat - the way the ground bounces with every movement, the soft, sucking nature of it, and the anticipation of what we’ll find in it. Skipsea, Holderness, preparing trenches for the student field school.
It’s that time of year again when swallows arrive and skim the fields, and archaeologists flock to Skipsea in Holderness to open trenches.
It’s that time of year again when swallows arrive and skim the fields, and archaeologists flock to Skipsea in Holderness to open trenches.
The cart tracks of the North York Moors. Last year’s devastating fire on Fylingdales Moor has revealed archaeology in graphic detail. Medieval holloways and seventeenth and eighteenth-century cart tracks are visible for the first time and look as fresh as the day they were made.
The cart tracks of the North York Moors. Last year’s devastating fire on Fylingdales Moor has revealed archaeology in graphic detail. Medieval holloways and seventeenth and eighteenth-century cart tracks are visible for the first time and look as fresh as the day they were made.
I was back doing some fieldwork at one of my favourite Neolithic monuments yesterday. The neck-craning, almost 8m Rudston Monolith, a great, grey Yorkshire leviathan. The warden of the Wolds. No other standing stone in the UK beats it in sheer stature. #StandingStoneSunday
I was back doing some fieldwork at one of my favourite Neolithic monuments yesterday. The neck-craning, almost 8m Rudston Monolith, a great, grey Yorkshire leviathan. The warden of the Wolds. No other standing stone in the UK beats it in sheer stature. #StandingStoneSunday
The heart-quickening sight of an old friend. #SilburyHill - the largest prehistoric mound in Europe. A Neolithic monument I once spent a year inside. It is a mass of ancient matter, and quicksilver - substantial, heavy, brilliant, yet can’t be pinned down. #Neolithic
Get your popcorn 🍿 ready for tonight - 8pm BBC2, our excavations at #Skipsea in Holderness will be on #DiggingforBritain. @uoyarchaeology.bsky.social
Get your popcorn 🍿 ready for tonight - 8pm BBC2, our excavations at #Skipsea in Holderness will be on #DiggingforBritain. @uoyarchaeology.bsky.social
The Ehenside Tarn axe, found in Cumbria in 1869, now in the British Museum. An early Neolithic stone axe from Langdale, with its original wooden handle still attached. The haft always reminds me of Captain Caveman’s club! #FindsFriday
The Ehenside Tarn axe, found in Cumbria in 1869, now in the British Museum. An early Neolithic stone axe from Langdale, with its original wooden handle still attached. The haft always reminds me of Captain Caveman’s club! #FindsFriday
Hello old friends! A trip to London isn’t complete without a visit to say hello to the Folkton Drums. These Neolithic carved chalk cylinders found in a child’s burial in Yorkshire. I love their surprised little faces. #FindsFriday
𝐖𝐞𝐝𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲, 𝟏𝟒𝐭𝐡 𝐉𝐀𝐍𝐔𝐀𝐑𝐘 𝐋𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄 𝐚𝐭 𝟓 𝐩𝐦 Dr Jim Leary and Dr Elaine Jamieson will be presenting our next lecture on ‘Life on the lake: The prehistory and history of Skipsea, Holderness’. At Burlington House and on youtu.be/dTxePLmT25I
Life on the lake: The prehistory & history of Skipsea, Holderness Dr Jim Leary & Dr Elaine Jamieson
YouTube video by Royal Archaeological Institute
youtu.be