The scorching weeks of the summer of 2018 left crops shrivelled and gardens scorched. It has also revealed the lines of scores of archaeological sites across the UK landscape, tracing millennia of human activity, from neolithic cursus monuments laid out more than 5,000 years ago to the outline of a long-demolished Tudor hall and its intended replacement.
Lost sites have been turning up all over Britain and Ireland, ploughed flat at ground level but showing up as parch marks from the air, in areas where grass and crops grow at different heights, or show in different colours, over buried foundations and ditches. A treasure trove of discoveries, including ancient field boundaries, lost villages, burial mounds and military structures, was revealed on Wednesday, recorded during the summer by aerial archaeologists flying over the landscape for Historic England.
Duncan Wilson, the chief executive of Historic England, said the weeks of very hot weather had provided perfect conditions. “The discovery of ancient farms, settlements and Neolithic cursus monuments is exciting. The exceptional weather has opened up whole areas at once rather than just one or two fields, and it has been fascinating to see so many traces of our past graphically revealed.”
The results are still being assessed, but Damian Grady, the aerial reconnaissance manager for Historic England, said: “This has been one of my busiest summers in 20 years of flying.” Helen Winton, the head of aerial investigation and mapping, said it was the best year since 2011, which revealed more than 1,500 sites for the first time.
There is particular excitement over four iron age square barrows at Pocklington in the Yorkshire wolds. Their distinctive shape is rare nationally, but others in Yorkshire have also been excavated to reveal spectacular burials with grave goods including chariots.
For more read the full of article at The Guardian
