The Anglo-Saxons: Old English

Tags

archaeology, education, England, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, Saxon, WEA

There are already some resources available in this blog for those who wish to find out more about Old English and Beowulf, however, this is a short video clip which illustrates the evolution of the English language from Old English to the present day by assuming you had a time machine and went back in time, stopping off at various stages to see how English was spoken then:

This short TED-Ed video also discusses the evolution of the English language:

 

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The Anglo-Saxons: Paganism and Christianity

Tags

archaeology, education, WEA, Nottinghamshire, England, Nottingham, Saxon

In our last session, we discussion Anglo-Saxon paganism and the conversion to Christianity. If you wish to find out more about this topic, the following websites may be of interest to you:

• Anglo-Saxon Paganism (Wikipedia)
• What did the Anglo-Saxons believe? (BBC Bitesize)
• Christianity in Anglo-Saxon England (Wikipedia)
• Christianity in Anglo-Saxon England (Dickinson College)
• The Venerable Bede (Durham World Heritage Site)
• The Venerable Bede (British Library)
• The Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Internet History Sourcebooks)

The Anglo-Saxons: Society and Social Structure

Tags

archaeology, education, WEA, Nottinghamshire, England, Nottingham, Saxon

In yesterday’s session, we discussed the society and social structure of Anglo-Saxon England. If you’re interested in finding out more about this subject, you may find the following webpages useful:

• Anglo-Saxon society pre-1066 (BBC Bitesize)
• Anglo-Saxon Social Organisation (Regia Anglorum)
• Anglo-Saxons (Wikipedia)
• Who were the Anglo Saxons? (British Library)

The Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England

Tags

archaeology, education, England, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, Saxon, WEA

There are already a number of resources on this blog which may be of interest to those of you on the Anglo-Saxons course. Just click on the word Saxon in the left hand menu and you will bring up all those entries that have been tagged as being related to the Anglo-Saxons. These include several video clips which you may wish to watch, as well as links to additional information on topics we cover during the course.

Seven Million Years of Human Evolution

Tags

archaeology, education, Human Journey, prehistory, WEA

This video from the American Museum of Natural History provides a useful synopsis of the different hominin species. Today, our closest living relatives are chimpanzees, but extinct hominins are even closer. Where and when did they live? What can we learn about their lives? Why did they go extinct? Scientists look to fossils for clues.

The Human Journey: Homo floresiensis

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archaeology, education, Human Journey, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, WEA

In our final session of the Human Journey, we looked at Homo floresiensis, also known as the Hobbit. The origins of this species – a human relative only a little over a metre tall – have been debated ever since its discovery in 2004. This video from Nature discusses this question:

If you wish to find out more about this species, the following may be of interest:

• Homo floresiensis (Smithsonian)
• Homo floresiensis: Making Sense of the Small-Bodied Hominin Fossils from Flores (Nature)
• Origins of Indonesian hobbits finally revealed (Phys.org)
• The Hunt for the Ancient ’Hobbit’s’ Modern Relatives (National Geographic)
• Did Modern Humans Wipe Out the ‘Hobbits’? (National Geographic)
• Unique Dental Morphology of Homo floresiensis and Its Evolutionary Implications (PLOS One)
• Homo floresiensis Contextualized: A Geometric Morphometric Comparative Analysis of Fossil and Pathological Human Samples (PLOS One)
• A Critical Evaluation of the Down Syndrome Diagnosis for LB1, Type Specimen of Homo floresiensis (PLOS One)
  

The Human Journey: Homo sapiens in Australia and the Americas

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archaeology, education, Human Journey, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, WEA

In our last session of the Human Journey, we looked at how Homo sapiens continued to spread across the globe, reaching as far as East Asia, Australia and the Americas.

In East Asia and Australia, we looked at sites such as Niah Cave and Lake Mungo.

Whilst in the Americas we discussed the evidence for the pre-Clovis and Clovis people. Those interested in finding out more about the latter, may wish to listen to the episode on Clovis Points from the BBC’s History of the World in 100 Objects series.

This short video clip from National Geographic looks at the skeleton of a teenage girl determined to be the one of the oldest and most complete human skeletons ever discovered in the New World.

The Human Journey: Homo Sapiens

Tags

archaeology, education, Human Journey, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, WEA

In our last session of ‘The Human Journey’, we looked at the appearance of our own species, Homo sapiens, and various theories about how we spread around the world.

Further reading on this subject includes:

• Out-of-Africa versus the multiregional hypothesis (Nature)
• Recent African origin of modern humans (Wikipedia)
• Multiregional origin of modern humans (Wikipedia)
• The Great Human Migration (Smithsonian Magazine)
• Rethinking our human origins in Africa (Natural History Museum, London)

This short video clip helps to illustrate some of the proposed routes:

The Human Journey: The Neanderthal Thorax

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archaeology, education, Human Journey, news, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, WEA

Following on from the recent post about Neanderthals and Denisovans, comes news of a new virtual, three-dimensional reconstruction of the thorax of an adult, male Neanderthal  which is presented in Nature Communications. Analysis suggests that the Neanderthal thorax had a different shape to that of modern humans, leading the authors to propose that Neanderthals may have had a subtly different breathing mechanism.

Beginner’s Guide to Archaeology: Metal Detecting, Nighthawking and the Portable Antiquities Scheme

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archaeology, Beginners Guide, Britain, education, England, Leicestershire, Loughborough, Scotland, Wales, WEA

In our last session we looked at the Treasure Act 1996,  Treasure Trove in Scotland, metal detecting, nighthawking and the Portable Antiquities Scheme.

This video is of a lecture entitled “The Treasure Act and Portable Antiquities Scheme: experience from South of the Border” that was given by Roger Bland, Keeper of the Department of Britain, Europe and Prehistory at the British Museum joint with the National Museums Scotland, to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 2014 on the application of the Treasure Act and the development of the Portable Antiquities Scheme to record discovered artefacts.