Vikings Online Course

Vikings: Raiders, Traders and Settlers 

22 January to 5 April 2014

Vikings: Raiders, Traders and Settlers is an online archaeology course run by the University of Oxford's Department of Continuing Education.

The course runs for ten weeks and successful completion carries an award of ten CATS points. Students write two short assignments as part of the course.

Online forums for each unit enable students to discuss the topic being studied, and help from the online tutor is always available

You can find more details here...

You can find details of other online archaeology courses here...

New evidence for Battle of Hastings site considered

The Bayeux Tapestry depicts the Battle of Hastings and the death of King Harold

New evidence that questions the traditional site of King Harold's death during the Battle of Hastings is being considered by English Heritage.

Battle Abbey in East Sussex is said to stand on the spot where King Harold died when the English army was routed by the Normans in 1066.

But Channel 4's Time Team claims he fell on the site of what is now a mini roundabout on the A2100.

Abbey curator Roy Porter said the theory would be taken into account.

English Heritage runs 1066 tours of the traditional site of the Battle of Hastings but the actual location has been disputed before.

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1066 and all that

The traditional location for the Battle of Hastings - the site of Battle Abbey - has been called into question.

New research by the Time Team shows that the Battle of Hastings was not fought on the site where it was believed to have taken place. In recent years other theories have been put forward to suggest where the battle took place, but work by the Time Team has shown good arguments for a new location.

Trevor Rowley will discuss the new information in his Oxford Experience course 'William the Conqueror' and incorporate it into the field trip to the battle site. This which will mean that Trevor's students will be amongst the first visitors to the new location.

You can register for Trevor's 'William the Conqueror' course here...

Battle of Hastings 'fought at site of mini roundabout'

Channel 4's Time Team believe they have identified the site of the Battle of Hastings and death of King Harold - now occupied by a mini roundabout

It might seem an inauspicious spot for one of the most seminal moments in the nation’s history.

But new research suggests that the death of King Harold in battle against William the Conqueror’s men actually occurred, not on the site of the high altar of Battle Abbey, where it is commemorated, but on a mini roundabout.

The precise location for the Battle of Hastings has long been in dispute, with competing historians making claims for three rival sites.

Now, an investigation by Channel 4’s Time Team has concluded the battle – and the death of England’s last Anglo-Saxon king – was actually centred on a fourth site: a road junction on the A2100 in East Sussex.

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Double graves with headless slaves

In the Viking era, a number of slaves were beheaded and then buried together with their masters. New methods of skeleton analysis reveal more about the life of the poor more than a thousand years ago.

In 1975, three intact skeletons from the Iron Age were found on the Tommeide farm in Tomma. Naumann interprets this as a family grave. - Despite possible kinship between them, probably as members of the same household, the child nevertheless had a diet that was different from that of the two adults during the last years of their lives. (Photo: Anne Stalsberg, NTNU Vitenskapsmuseet)

How was life for common people in Norway during the period 400–1050 AD? Can we learn more? Yes, according to Elise Naumann, research scholar in archaeology. By using isotope analysis to examine ancient skeletons, she has made several remarkable discoveries. The research results from the analysis of skeletons found at Flakstad in Lofoten have also been reported in the American newspaper USA Today.

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Isotope analysis reveals diet of beheaded Viking slaves

In the Viking era, a number of slaves were beheaded and then buried together with their masters. New methods of skeleton analysis reveal more about the life of the poor more than a thousand years ago.

In 1975, three intact skeletons from the Iron Age were found on the Tommeide farm in Tomma. Naumann interprets this as a family grave. - Despite possible kinship between them, probably as members of the same household, the child nevertheless had a diet that was different from that of the two adults during the last years of their lives [Credit: Anne Stalsberg, NTNU Vitenskapsmuseet]

How was life for common people in Norway during the period 400–1050 AD? Can we learn more? Yes, according to Elise Naumann, research scholar in archaeology. By using isotope analysis to examine ancient skeletons, she has made several remarkable discoveries. The research results from the analysis of skeletons found at Flakstad in Lofoten have also been reported in the American newspaper USA Today.

Read the rest of this article...

Building is underway at The new Wessex Gallery of Archaeology, The Salisbury Museum

Anglo-Saxon satchel mount c.700 AD. Gold and Silver foils with repoussé decoration. 

Found with the burial of an Anglo-Saxon ‘princess’ at Swallowcliffe, Salisbury.

Amesbury Archer Gold Hair Tresses - 2,300 BC. The oldest gold objects found in Britain, 

Copyright Ken Geiger/National Geographic.

Polished macehead made from gneiss found with a cremation burial at Stonehenge,  3,000 – 2,500 BC.

Building is underway at The new Wessex Gallery of Archaeology, 

The Salisbury Museum

Building has begun on the new Wessex Gallery at the Salisbury Museum, which will make it clear for the first time exactly why Salisbury and it’s nearby World Heritage Sites hold a unique place in British history.

The new gallery will be of international importance, telling the story of Salisbury and the surrounding area from prehistoric times to the Norman Conquest. Realm Projects, the Nottinghamshire based builders who worked on the Hepworth Wakefield and The Jewish Museum, have been contracted to complete the works.

“By Christmas this year the major construction work will be complete,” said museum director Adrian Green with a gleam in his eye. “In roughly seven months, the new Wessex Gallery will be ready.”

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Treasure trove reveals Iron Age town

Västra Vång in Blekinge is now a sleepy rural community on Sweden’s southern Baltic coast. It has never been mentioned in ancient or medieval writings. So why are gold figurines and bronze busts turning up there?

Perhaps the locals should have had suspected there was a wealth of history in the soil beneath them. Several discoveries in the past and more recently show that long ago, this spot was out of the ordinary. 

Burial mounds from the Viking Age abound here. In the 1860s residents dug up a six kg Viking treasure consisting of jewellery and over 4,000 silver coins. But archaeologists are now making discoveries that suggest this place was a significant, but unmapped centre.

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