Hard roads to travel: Lessons learnt from practising community archaeology

Manchester Centre for Public History and Heritage has developed community archaeology projects with marginalized communities, and within areas where archaeology is often disregarded, socially, economically, and politically. These projects use approaches based on the co-production of historical and archaeological knowledge, and have ethical implications for academics and participants; projects actively engaging the public in archaeology often do so by linking modern day communities to historical communities, and in this process uncover uncomfortable truths and painful pasts. To explore the issues raised by this work, this paper self and collaboratively reflects on experiences from two contrasting community archaeology projects in the UK and Nigeria. This discusses lessons learnt from these ‘socially engaged’ community archaeology projects, including contentious and unanticipated aspects that arose in the field, and such issues as dealing with conflicting values, ensuring long-term sustainability, supporting duty of care, and understanding psychological and emotional risk

Author Correction: The Anglo-Saxon migration and the formation of the early English gene pool.

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The Anglo-Saxon migration and the formation of the early English gene pool.

The history of the British Isles and Ireland is characterized by multiple periods of major cultural change, including the influential transformation after the end of Roman rule, which precipitated shifts in language, settlement patterns and material culture1. The extent to which migration from continental Europe mediated these transitions is a matter of long-standing debate2-4. Here we study genome-wide ancient DNA from 460 medieval northwestern Europeans-including 278 individuals from England-alongside archaeological data, to infer contemporary population dynamics. We identify a substantial increase of continental northern European ancestry in early medieval England, which is closely related to the early medieval and present-day inhabitants of Germany and Denmark, implying large-scale substantial migration across the North Sea into Britain during the Early Middle Ages. As a result, the individuals who we analysed from eastern England derived up to 76% of their ancestry from the continental North Sea zone, albeit with substantial regional variation and heterogeneity within sites. We show that women with immigrant ancestry were more often furnished with grave goods than women with local ancestry, whereas men with weapons were as likely not to be of immigrant ancestry. A comparison with present-day Britain indicates that subsequent demographic events reduced the fraction of continental northern European ancestry while introducing further ancestry components into the English gene pool, including substantial southwestern European ancestry most closely related to that seen in Iron Age France5,6

The Anglo-Saxon migration and the formation of the early English gene pool

The history of the British Isles and Ireland is characterized by multiple periods of major cultural change, including the influential transformation after the end of Roman rule, which precipitated shifts in language, settlement patterns and material culture1. The extent to which migration from continental Europe mediated these transitions is a matter of long-standing debate2,3,4. Here we study genome-wide ancient DNA from 460 medieval northwestern Europeans—including 278 individuals from England—alongside archaeological data, to infer contemporary population dynamics. We identify a substantial increase of continental northern European ancestry in early medieval England, which is closely related to the early medieval and present-day inhabitants of Germany and Denmark, implying large-scale substantial migration across the North Sea into Britain during the Early Middle Ages. As a result, the individuals who we analysed from eastern England derived up to 76% of their ancestry from the continental North Sea zone, albeit with substantial regional variation and heterogeneity within sites. We show that women with immigrant ancestry were more often furnished with grave goods than women with local ancestry, whereas men with weapons were as likely not to be of immigrant ancestry. A comparison with present-day Britain indicates that subsequent demographic events reduced the fraction of continental northern European ancestry while introducing further ancestry components into the English gene pool, including substantial southwestern European ancestry most closely related to that seen in Iron Age France5,6

Public History: A Practical Guide

Public History: A Practical Guide delivers a comprehensive outline of this increasingly prevalent area of the discipline, offering a distinctly global approach that is both accessible and engaging in equal measure. Finally, it explores future methodological possibilities and can be used as a reference point for professional development planning in the sectors discussed