Archaeology, favourite sites and have you ever found anything?

[stripee]

I did a short course a while back in archaeology and geography at the nearest uni, since then I have been interested in finding past signs of human activity in the landscape. I found a neolithic scraper on the coastal path here, and took it for identification, it was 10,000 yrs old, but the museum had so many, they let me keep it. I haven't ever found anything else since.
A neighbour has found an old hand axe, and a neolithic fishing hook in the stream.

I like visiting Pentre Ifan, in Pembs, an ancient burial chamber, and Castell Henllys near Newport, in Pembs, which is a reconstructed iron age fort. Also the bronze age field boundaries on the Preselis, and of course, Stonehenge. What are other people's favourite sites across the British Isles? And has anyone found anything themselves

[Meta menardi]

I have found that scanning the ground for arachnids means I have picked up about 10 flints in the last few years, some smaller than your little fingernail (my little fingernail, unless we first have a poll on the size of little... Oh, OK, I'll shut up). I also found a bronze age stone hammer head, broken in two. That turned up when digging spuds. I was digging spuds, not the... Oh, OK, I'll shut up.

[ChrisJB]

As much as I love the classic places like Avebury, my favourite area is the South Pennines where I live. Since the 1870s local antiquarians have been scouring the local moors for flints, mainly from the Mesolithic, but also the Neolithic and the Bronze Age.
Since 1993 I have found hundreds of flints (usually waste pieces, but a few blades and microliths as well). My best find was a beautiful Neolithic barbed arrowhead, after a moorland fire had burnt the peat away revealing the subsoil in which the flints are found. In all my searchings, this is what I'd always wanted to find and was ecstatic when I finally did so.

Regards, Chris

[stripee]

Thats interesting Meta and ChrisJB. I found the scraper near a neolithic "factory" where they were made on the Pembs coastal path, people can be seen scrabbling around up there looking for them. I was a bit beside myself too But every other bit of stone that has looked liked it was an artefact isn't one! My daughter unearthed an ancient cow bone during a work experience dig at Castell Henllys, that's all.
I would like to visit the Avebury area, and Glastonbury and the Somerset Levels also the ruins, on Orkney I think (not sure), of an ancient village.

[ChrisJB]

Do try to visit the Somerset Levels and Glastonbury, it's fab! Me and the missus went last spring (we stayed at Cheddar YH) and had a great time. There is a place called 'The Peat Moors Centre' (I think) near Shapwick Heath National Nature Reserve, which is worth a look. You have a good chance of seeing real wild Otters at the nature reserve as well (from Noah Hide is good).
I think the place on Orkney is Scara Brae (spelling?). I'd love to go there myself. Avebury is awesome, better than Stonehenge, even though I liked Stonehenge too.
I would like to revisit Pembrokeshire again. I went on a university field trip there in 1993 and loved it. The beach at Marloes had me captivated, so would really like to go back there.

Regards, Chris

[Adam Cheeseman]

In Britain I love the ancient hill forts and landscape around the west country, mainly Wiltshire.

In Turkey I visited Dalyan, which has its famous cliff tombs, but I was astounded when I climbed up the tall hill overlooking the town to an old fortification and found the area was strewn with shards of Byzantine pottery.

Cheers,

Adam

[Paul mabbott]

Up in Derbyshire/Yorkshire there are lots of old forts, circles and other ancent remains but also more recent archaeology. Interesting to try and work out what all the old quarries, dams and factories were for - mining spoil is very interesting for the plants that grow on it.

Not everything is small-scale though:
[img]http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/archive/data/500
/thumbs/millstone.jpg[/img]
At two or three places locally there are quarries where the gritstone was quarried and worked into millstones. Clearly there came a time when the stones just stopped being saleable and here they are, returning slowly to nature!

[tufftie]

Any of the ones on Orkney really fantastic and they're always finding something new there! The neolithic village at Scara Brae is really good an the Stones of Stenness What's more the views surrounding them are beautiful.

[dragonfly]

my favorate place is ephesis turky I once found some white smoking pipes from the 1880s

[ogwen]

Id love to see the Brochs up in sctoland, which are unique to that country, and like many others Scara brae.
Ive got a memory like a sieve, theres that place on anglesey, iron age round houses where you can see the lay out of it think it begins with Llan