2016 in archaeology

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This page lists major archaeological events of 2016.

Excavations

• January–June – 81 Anglo-Saxon wooden coffin Christian burials of the 7th/9th centuries are excavated in an unusually well-preserved state at Great Ryburgh in Norfolk, England. ^[1]
• January 12 – Announcement of the discovery and excavation of two roundhouses in an exceptionally good state of preservation at Must Farm Bronze Age settlement in The Fens of eastern England. ^[2]
• February 19 – Announcement of the discovery and excavation of a largely complete wheel at Must Farm Bronze Age settlement. ^[3]
• April 17 – Announcement of the discovery and initial excavations of an exceptionally large Roman villa, well-preserved, at Brixton Deverill in Wiltshire, England. ^[4]
• Summer – Excavation of Early Middle Ages sites at Tintagel Castle on the coast of Cornwall.
• November 3 – Announcement of the discovery of a Bronze Age city in Bassetki, Iraq. ^[5]
• November 24 – Announcement of the discovery of an Early Dynastic Period city and graves near Abydos, Egypt. ^[6]
• November 30 – Announcement of the excavation of a Black Death plague pit at Thornton Abbey in eastern England. ^[7]
• Ancient Black Sea shipwrecks – The Black Sea Maritime Archaeology Project is initiated; within a few months it locates and investigates 41 shipwrecks off the Bulgarian coast of the Black Sea, some dating date back to Byzantine times. ^[8]
• Practice trenches probably dug by Australian troops in 1916 at Larkhill on Salisbury Plain in England are excavated.
• Foundations of an Anglo-Saxon house at Long Wittenham in the Thames Valley of England are excavated. ^[9]

Finds

• March
  • Announcement of the discovery of a Bronze Age burial site near Morecambe Bay in England. ^[10]
  • Wrecks in Portsmouth Harbour (England) are identified as World War I German destroyers V44 and V82. ^[11]
• June 1 – Archaeologists announce identification of one of the Roman Bloomberg tablets found during 2010–13 excavations in advance of construction of new Bloomberg London offices in the City of London as the oldest known hand-written document in the United Kingdom, dating back to 57 CE. ^[12]
• June 25 – Anglo-Saxon name stone at site of Lindisfarne monastery. ^[13]
• July
  • A 7-week-old wolf pup from 57,000 years BP is found perfectly preserved in permafrost in the Klondike, Yukon in northwest Canada. ^[14]
  • Flower found as part of a Bronze Age votive offering in Lancashire, England. ^[15]
• September 3 – The second ship of Franklin's lost expedition, HMS Terror (1813), is located. ^[16]
• September 26 - Ten coins (including four Roman and one Ottoman) are found in Katsuren Castle, Okinawa, Japan. ^[17]
• September – Wreck of whaleback freighter SS Clifton, lost in 1924, is located in Lake Huron. ^[18]
• October – An Imperial German Navy U-boat, probably SM UB-85 (sunk 1918), is found off the west coast of Scotland. ^[19]
• December – Leekfrith torcs in Staffordshire, England. ^[20]
• Wreck of "WA08", a later 19th-century ship carrying Cornish slate, on West Barrow sandbank in the Thames Estuary of England. ^[21]

Events

• October 3 – Announcement that the mound of the motte-and-bailey castle at Skipsea Castle in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England is an Iron Age earthwork, the largest in Britain. ^[22]

Deaths

• March 6 – María Rostworowski, Peruvian historian (b. 1915). ^[23]
• March 20 – Stanley South, American archaeologist (b. 1928). ^[24]
• April 7 – Charles Thomas, Cornish prehistorian (b. 1928) ^[25]
• July 5 – Beatrice De Cardi, British archaeologist of Asia (b. 1914). ^[26]
• September 26 – Don Brothwell, British archaeologist (b. 1933) ^[27]

See also

• List of years in archaeology

References

1. "Great Ryburgh dig finds 81 'rare' Anglo-Saxon coffins". BBC News . BBC. 2016-11-16. Retrieved 2016-11-16.
2. "Bronze Age houses uncovered in Cambridgeshire 'best ever'". BBC News. 2016-01-12. Retrieved 2016-01-12.
3. "Bronze Age wheel at 'British Pompeii' Must Farm an 'unprecedented find'". BBC News. 2016-02-19. Retrieved 2016-02-19.
4. "Roman villa unearthed 'by chance' in Wiltshire garden". BBC News. 2016-04-17. Retrieved 2016-04-17.
5. "Bedeutende bronzezeitliche Stadt im Nordirak entdeckt" (in German). University of Tübingen. 2016-11-03. Retrieved 2016-11-07.
6. "Egypt ancient city unearthed by archaeologists". BBC News. 2016-11-24. Retrieved 2016-11-24.
7. "Thornton Abbey Black Death plague pit excavated". BBC News. 2016-11-30. Retrieved 2016-11-30.
8. Coghlan, Andy (2016-10-20). "Dozens of ancient shipwrecks spotted deep beneath the Black Sea". New Scientist . London. Retrieved 2017-09-16.
9. "House of Wessex Anglo-Saxon building opens". BBC News. 2019-11-28. Retrieved 2019-11-29.
10. Alberge, Dalya (2016-03-13). "3 rare bronze age burial site lay undisturbed 'for millennia'". The Observer . London. Retrieved 2016-10-04.
11. Keys, David (2016-03-24). "German WWI warships rediscovered in Portsmouth Harbour after lying forgotten for decades" . The Independent . London. Archived from the original on 2022-05-01. Retrieved 2016-04-15.
12. "UK's oldest hand-written document at Roman London dig". BBC News. BBC. 2016-06-01. Retrieved 2016-06-01.
13. "Evidence points to earliest Anglo-Saxon monastery - Durham University". www.dur.ac.uk. Retrieved 16 May 2017.
14. Baker, Harry (2020-12-21). "Exquisitely-preserved wolf pup mummy discovered in Yukon permafrost". Live Science . Retrieved 2020-12-22.
15. Alberge, Dalya (2016-10-01). "3,000-year-old flower found in burial hoard". The Guardian . London. p. 13. Retrieved 2016-10-04.
16. Pringle, Heather (2016-06-13). "Unlikely Tip Leads to Discovery of Historic Shipwreck". National Geographic. Archived from the original on October 18, 2016. Retrieved 2017-04-10.
17. Storico, Il Fatto (28 September 2016). "Trovate quattro monete Romane in un castello medievale in Giappone" . Retrieved 26 March 2023.
18. Dier, Arden (2017-09-22). "Great Mystery of the Great Lakes Is Solved: SS Clifton found 100 miles south of last known location in Lake Huron". Newser . Retrieved 2017-10-31.
19. "Wreck of German U-boat found off coast of Stranraer". BBC News. 2016-10-19. Retrieved 2016-10-19.
20. Kennedy, Maev (2017-02-28). "Detectorists strike gold 20 years after leaving field empty-handed". The Guardian. Retrieved 2017-02-28.
21. Addley, Esther (2021-02-04). "Mystery shipwrecks added to England's national heritage list". The Guardian. Retrieved 2021-02-04.
22. "Largest Iron Age monument found at Skipsea Castle". BBC News. 2016-10-03. Retrieved 2016-10-04.
23. "María Rostworowski obituary". The Guardian. 6 April 2016. Retrieved 19 December 2016.
24. "Stanley South Student Archaeological Research Fund". University of South Carolina. Retrieved 30 May 2017.
25. Fowler, Peter (8 May 2016). "Charles Thomas obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 August 2017.
26. "Beatrice de Cardi, archaeologist – obituary". The Telegraph. 6 July 2016. Retrieved 16 May 2017.
27. "In Memoriam Don Brothwell - Archaeology, The University of York". www.york.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 10 April 2017. Retrieved 7 June 2017.