SARK, GUERNSEY—Excavations of an ancient settlement on the island of Sark in the English Channel uncovered spindle whorls, which show that sheep have been raised there since the second millennium B.C. “People were living in the center and doing their spinning and their weaving and other industrial things around the limits of the site,” said Barry Cunliffe, an Emeritus Professor at Oxford University. Four and one-half beads of an amber necklace were also found this year. The string of the necklace may have broken. “He or she was able, I suppose, to get some of them back but lost some—and there they were for us to find,” added Cunliffe. The amber came from Denmark.
Bronze Age Islanders in the English Channel Kept Sheep
News July 19, 2013
Recommended Articles
Features November/December 2024
Let the Games Begin
How gladiators in ancient Anatolia lived to entertain the masses
Features November/December 2024
The Many Faces of the Kingdom of Shu
Thousands of fantastical bronzes are beginning to reveal the secrets of a legendary Chinese dynasty
Digs & Discoveries November/December 2024
Egyptian Crocodile Hunt
Digs & Discoveries November/December 2024
Monuments to Youth
-
Features May/June 2013
Haunt of the Resurrection Men
A forgotten graveyard, the dawn of modern medicine, and the hard life in 19th-century London
(Private Collection/The Bridgeman Art Library) -
Features May/June 2013
The Kings of Kent
The surprising discovery of an Anglo-Saxon feasting hall in the village of Lyminge is offering a new view of the lives of these pagan kings
(Photo by William Laing, © University of Reading) -
Letter from Turkey May/June 2013
Anzac's Next Chapter
Archaeologists conduct the first-ever survey of the legendary WWI battlefield at Gallipoli
(Samir S. Patel) -
Artifacts May/June 2013
Ancient Near Eastern Figurines
Ceramic figurines were part of a cache of objects found at an Iron Age temple uncovered at the site of Tel Motza outside Jerusalem
(Clara Amit, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority)