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Britain's first hospital discovered - Telegraph
The excavations have revealed a range of buildings and convincing evidence for a foundation in the 10th century Photo: PA
Radio carbon analysis at the former Leper Hospital at St Mary Magdalen in Winchester, Hampshire, has provided a date range of AD 960-1030 for a series of burials, many exhibiting evidence of leprosy, on the site.
A number of other artefacts, pits, and postholes also relate to the same time including what appears to be a large sunken structure underneath a medieval infirmary.
Before this new claim, most historians and archaeologists thought that hospitals in the Britain only dated from after the Norman conquest of 1066.
''This is an important archaeological development,'' said Dr Simon Roffey from the University of Winchester which conducted the dig.
''Historically, it has always been assumed that hospitals were a post-conquest phenomena, the majority founded from the late 11th century onwards.
''However, our excavations have revealed a range of buildings and, more significantly, convincing evidence for a foundation in the 10th century.
''Our excavations at St Mary Magdalen offer an intriguing insight into a little known aspect of the history of both Winchester and England. It is undoubtedly a site of national importance.''
Among the earliest known hospitals in the UK is Harbledown in Canterbury founded by Lanfranc in the 1070s, following the Norman Conquest.
Professor Nicholas Orme, a leading researcher on medieval hospitals, added: ''I have only studied the documentary evidence but I could not find any such evidence for a hospital before 1066 except perhaps as an activity within a monastery or minster.
''A late Anglo-Saxon hospital would surely be a first for archaeology and indeed for history.''
Winchester was the capital of England throughout a large part of the Anglo-Saxon period and after the Norman Conquest. The capital was moved to London from the Hampshire city in the 12th century.
"Lost" Language Found on Back of 400-Year-Old Letter
Brian Handwerk
for National Geographic News
Published August 27, 2010
Notes on the back of a 400-year-old letter have revealed a previously unknown language once spoken by indigenous peoples of northern Peru, an archaeologist says.
Penned by an unknown Spanish author and lost for four centuries, the battered piece of paper was pulled from the ruins of an ancient Spanish colonial church in 2008.
But a team of scientists and linguists has only recently revealed the importance of the words written on the flip side of the letter.
The early 17th-century author had translated Spanish numbers—uno, dos, tres—and Arabic numerals into a mysterious language never seen by modern scholars.
(Related: "'Lost' Languages to Be Resurrected by Computers"?)
"Even though [the letter] doesn't tell us a whole lot, it does tell us about a language that is very different from anything we've ever known—and it suggests that there may be a lot more out there," said project leader Jeffrey Quilter, an archaeologist at Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.
"Lost" Language One of Two Already Known?
The newfound native language may have borrowed from Quechua, a language still spoken by indigenous peoples of Peru, Quilter said.
But it was clearly a unique tongue, and likely one of two known only by the mention of their names in contemporary texts: Quingnam and Pescadora—"language of the fishers."
Some scholars suggest the two are in fact the same tongue that had been misidentified as distinct languages by early Spanish scribes.
(Related: "Languages Racing to Extinction in Five Global 'Hotspots.'")
Also, the writings include translated numbers, which means that the lost language's numerical system was a ten-based, or decimal system—like English.
While the Inca used a ten-based system, many other cultures did not: the Maya, for example, used a base of 20, according to Quilter.
Church Misfortune is Archaeologist's Gain
The letter was found during excavations of the Magdalena de Cao Viejo church at the El Brujo Archaeological Complex in northern Peru. (The National Geographic Society, which owns National Geographic News, has sponsored fieldwork at the site in the past.)
(Related: "Ancient 'Lost City' Discovered in Peru, Official Claims.")
The church served a nearby town once inhabited by indigenous people forcibly relocated to the site by Spaniards, probably for purposes of conversion to Christianity, Quilter said.
The tantalizing fragment is just one of hundreds of historic papers recovered at the site, which has been well preserved by the extremely arid climate—and also by the church's collapse, Quilter added.
"Archaeologists live on other people's misfortunes," Quilter said.
The Spanish colonialists "had the misfortune of having the church collapse—we think probably in the mid-to-late 17th century—which trapped the library or office where they kept their papers."
Language Hints at Diversity of Cultures
Finding the new language at Magdalena de Cao Viejo helps to reinforce the rich diversity of cultures found in early colonial Americas, Quilter said.
"You know that Chinese curse, 'may you live in interesting times'—well that was an extremely interesting time," he said.
“We often think of a confrontation of Spanish and Native Americans, but in almost every location, from Massachusetts to Peru, it was a confrontation of a much more diverse group of people."
For instance, colonialists from many parts of Europe were grouped into "the Spanish," and in the Americas there were many people who spoke different languages and had different customs, he noted.
"it really shows how rich and diverse that world was.
Major archaeological find at site of Civil War prison
Atlanta, Georgia (CNN) -- The discovery of the exact location of a stockade and dozens of personal artifacts belonging to its Union prisoners is one of the biggest archaeological Civil War finds in decades, federal and Georgia officials said Monday.
Outside of scholars and Civil War buffs, few people have heard of the Confederacy's Camp Lawton, which replaced the infamous and overcrowded Andersonville prison in fall 1864.
For nearly 150 years, its exact location was not known, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and Georgia Southern University said.
Georgia Southern students earlier this year began their search at a state park and federal fish hatchery for evidence of the wall timbers and interior buildings.
Map: Lawton, Ga.
"Archaeologists call it one of the most significant Civil War discoveries in decades," a joint statement read.
Officials would provide no details until the formal announcement Wednesday morning at Magnolia Springs State Park, five miles north of Millen in southeast Georgia. An open house for the public will follow from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Life at Lawton, described as "foul and fetid," wasn't much better than at Andersonville, with the exception of plentiful water from Magnolia Springs.
Are these the bones of John the Baptist?
(CNN) -- In a region already rich with archaeological artefacts, the excavation of a small alabaster box containing a few pieces of bone amid the ruins of a medieval monastery might easily have passed unnoticed.
But when Bulgarian archaeologists declared they had found relics of John the Baptist, one of the most significant early Christian saints, their discovery became the subject of rather more interest -- prompting angry exchanges in the local media and even calls for a government minister's resignation.
The claim is based on a reliquary -- a container for holy relics -- found on July 28 under the altar of a fifth century basilica on Sveti Ivan, a Black Sea island off Sozopol on Bulgaria's southern coast. Inside, archaeologists found eight pieces of bone, including fragments of skull and face bone and a tooth.
A later monastery on the island was dedicated to John the Baptist; indirect evidence, according to excavation leader Kazimir Popkonstantinov, that the relics under the altar were those of the church's saint.
Hoping to unearth Irish history, they’ll be digging again in Lowell - The Boston Globe
In August 1822, some 30 Irish laborers walked north from Charlestown on the promise of steady work. They settled in what would become Lowell and became central to the city’s creation, digging canals along the Merrimack River to power textile mills and the rise of a cloth-making capital.
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They lived in a shanty town and, as more of their countrymen joined them, built a wooden church beside their homes and named it St. Patrick. There, a rebuilt version of the 1831 church remains, its grounds all but untouched over the nearly two centuries since the settlement’s founding.
Now, archeologists are poised to excavate the church lawn in search of clues to the early Irish settlement and how its inhabitants lived day to day in their new country, from the food they ate to the hearths they cooked over and the pipes they smoked.
Starting next week, students at the University of Massachusetts Lowell will team up with researchers from Queen’s University in Belfast for a weeklong dig, part of a broader study of the Irish who immigrated to Lowell before and after the Great Famine and the role they played in 19th-century America.
