LINCOLNSHIRE, ENGLAND—A team from the University of Sheffield has confirmed that a previously unknown Anglo-Saxon site was discovered by a metal detectorist in the village of Little Carlton. The metal detectorist found an eighth-century silver stylus in a plowed field, and reported it to England’s Portable Antiquities Scheme. He then returned to the site, and using a GPS system to record the location of his discoveries, recovered an additional 20 writing implements, 300 dress pins, a small lead tablet bearing the woman’s name “Cudberg,” and coins from the seventh and eighth centuries. Archaeologists from the University of Sheffield recovered Saxon pottery and butchered animal bone from the site. They think that it may have been an island monastery or trading center. Geophysical and magnetometry surveys, and 3-D modeling suggest that the island was connected to the rest of the Lincolnshire area through water courses. “It’s one of the most important sites of its kind in that part of the world. The quantity of finds that have come from the site is very unusual—it’s clearly not your everyday find,” Hugh Willmott of the University of Sheffield told The Guardian. For more on Anglo-Saxon England, go to "The Kings of Kent."
