Today is the 60th anniversary of the National Historic Preservation Act, a US law which set up protections for historical sites. A special section of this act, Section 106, requires developers to work with archaeologists prior to certain construction projects.

But now, a proposed law stands to change everything. Embedded in the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act is language which would take archaeologists out of this process, remove all opportunities for public comment, and allow development to continue even if historical sites are encountered.

If you're in the US, please consider calling your congresspeople before November 9th and ask them to protect US archaeology by opposing the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act. Learn more at https://www.106strong.com/

A few years ago, excavations at Stainton West near Carlisle turned up two carved oak "tridents" in a waterlogged river channel, dated to the early 4th millennium BC. Similar objects are known from Ehenside Tarn in Cumbria and from County Armagh. Each is carved from a single oak plank, with three tines and a pair of shaped projections, or "ears", where the tines meet the body. Nobody is sure what they were for.

My theory is that they're turf cutters and lifters.

Why turf: Neolithic Britain used enormous amounts of it. Long barrows, henge banks, houses and Silbury Hill all contain cut turf, sometimes tens of thousands of sods in a single monument. Yet no turf-cutting tool has been identified from the period. Something had to do that job.

Why this shape:

• It's one piece of oak. A hafted flint, bone or antler blade adds a joint that breaks. A turf specialist tried an ox-scapula mattock, and it was slow and snapped.
• The tines slip past roots and push them aside, where a solid blade would jam.
• It's used low and nearly flat, thrust in to start the cut, then swivelled and levered. The ears act as a pivot to flip the turf onto a plank.
• The best turf grows on flat, stone-free, damp ground such as river floodplains, which is where several of these have been found.

The wear: the complete Stainton example looks to me like a tool at the end of its life. The gaps between the tines have worn from a rounded shape into a V, which traps roots rather than shedding them. Reshaping it further would snap the tines off, and one of the pair did have broken tines. A longer example exists, which I read as a fresher tool earlier in its life.

The test: I carved a one-piece wooden replica on a long handle and tried it on a meadow and a lawn. It lifted sods cleanly. The catch is that I copied the worn Stainton example, so my tines were too short and blunt. It worked anyway, and a fresh, sharp one should work better.

Has anyone seen any other suggested ancient turf lifters?

Video Here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfWlXHCuHmU

Sources: F. Brown (2013), IfA Finds Group newsletter, on the Stainton West finds; R. Loveday (2006), "Turf – an Invisible Component", Scottish Archaeological Journal 28(2).

Happy to answer questions. Tear it apart

A villager in Egypt's Nile Delta reported a carved block on his land, and an emergency excavation has since uncovered two colossal royal statues, at least one of them Ramesses II, plus a pink granite block bearing the pharaoh's titles. How they ended up in a village known for a temple built almost nine centuries after his reign remains unexplained.

A man in Behbeit el-Hagar, a village in Egypt’s Gharbia province, was working on a plot of land in front of his house when he came across a block covered in carvings.

He told the local antiquities inspectorate. What came out of the ground afterwards, according to a statement from Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, were the remains of two enormous royal statues. One shows Ramesses II.

The other, in all likelihood, shows the same pharaoh. A block of pink granite carrying part of his titles in hieroglyphs turned up with them. Inspectors visited the site and confirmed that the block was ancient. The local inspectorate followed the legal procedure and drew up a report, and Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, the state body in charge of the country’s archaeological sites, set up a committee and a specialist team to open a rescue excavation.

That kind of dig is not part of any research plan. It happens when something unexpected surfaces and has to be recorded and protected before it is lost.

Archaeologists at the ancient city of Kayalıpınar in central Turkey have uncovered a Hittite royal archive of 184 cuneiform tablets and fragments preserved for about 3,400 years.

The current excavation, led by Koç University in collaboration with Turkey’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism, recovered 131 tablets this season, adding to the 53 found at the site in previous years.

Kayalıpınar is located in the Yıldızeli district of Sivas Province, on land the Hittites once knew as Šamuḫa. This site served as an administrative and religious center that is frequently mentioned in surviving Hittite texts.

Excavations have been ongoing since 2021, led by Koç University Associate Professor Çiğdem Maner and a multidisciplinary team from Turkey and abroad.

The land of Šamuḫa was known for the worship of Šauška, a goddess associated with love and war.

Previous excavations have uncovered more than 50 seal impressions stamped into clay, belonging to Hittite royalty, priests, and administrators. The team suspects a building used to seal official documents may lie beneath layers containing early Christian burials.

The site has been occupied for thousands of years, with evidence of Assyrian trading posts before the rise of the Hittite state, as well as Roman and Byzantine occupation.

The newly discovered tablets add another layer to this sequence, documenting a Bronze Age period through texts written in both Hittite and Hurrian.

Finds suggest account in medieval folklore of a camp near Frenni Fawr hill was rooted in reality.

Magnus Maximus, the Roman emperor who ruled Britain in the fourth century, led his troops against the Picts and Scots, but a theory that he also established a military camp near Frenni Fawr hill in Wales has so far been based on folklore.

Now fourth-century coins, among other finds at a newly identified Roman fort in Pembrokeshire, suggest the medieval tale was rooted in reality, to the excitement of archaeologists.

The fort was discovered by Dr Mark Merrony, a leading Roman specialist at the University of Oxford. He heads an excavation that is bringing to life a story about Magnus Maximus, as told in the Mabinogion, a collection of medieval epic tales of myth, magic and miracles.

Merrony expressed excitement that this landscape held the only Roman military site close to where the Mabinogion places the emperor.

“If Magnus Maximus was there, there must have been an army there,” he said.

Really enjoyed this interview with comedian and actor George Fouracres on The Archaeologists Notebook. Always interesting to see people from outside the profession with a genuine enthusiasm for archaeology!

A geophysical survey of the Grotta delle Veneri (Cave of Venuses) in southern Italy has identified possible hidden cavities that may connect to the existing prehistoric cave system.

The Grotta delle Veneri is located near the town of Parabita in the Puglia region and is an important Palaeolithic site, with archaeological evidence of occupation by both Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans.

The cave takes its name from the discovery of two Palaeolithic Venus figurines, carved from animal bone around 20,000 years ago.

Both figurines depict stylised female forms with their arms positioned across the breasts and beneath the abdomen, which some researchers have interpreted as representations of pregnancy or fertility.

Previous archaeological investigations at the Grotta delle Veneri have also uncovered older deposits associated with Neanderthal occupation.

In a new study, researchers from the University of Malta and Italy’s Institute of Heritage Studies conducted a geophysical survey to investigate the subsurface structure of the cave and surrounding limestone.