Sublime

The famous burial of a man known as the Amesbury Archer, not far from Stonehenge, is a case in point.2 His grave, which has been radiocarbon dated to between 2470 and 2280 BC, was carefully arranged with five complete Beaker pots, a large collection of fine flint and polished stone objects, and no fewer than three copper daggers, plus a pair of

In the mid-nineteenth century, the then director of the Hallstatt salt mines in Austria developed an interest in archaeology and embarked on the excavation of a huge cemetery near the mine. Between 1846 and 1863, Johann Georg Ramsauer and his team unearthed nearly a thousand graves, containing not only the bones of the individuals who had been

At a point where a pocket would have been was a collection of perforated periwinkle shells, presumably either decorations for clothing or a necklace, or objects to be cast as some kind of divinatory process.

Among those fragmentary remains, bits of skull are disproportionately represented. And although the skull cups from Gough’s Cave are unusual – they are not unique. There are at least three other sites where crania seem to have been modified for use as cups. Most are from France, dating from very close to the peak of the last Ice Age, but some