The Guardian by Esther Addley 10/25/2018
Archaeologists on the HS2 rail link between London and Birmingham have begun work on the UK’s biggest ever excavation, cutting an “unprecedented†slice through 10,000 years of British history.
The mammoth archaeological project, taking in more than 60 separate digs along the 150-mile route, is the first stage in construction of the controversial rail line ahead of main building works starting next year.
The developers have now revealed some of their early finds including a prehistoric hunter-gatherer site on the outskirts of London, a Wars of the Roses battlefield in Northamptonshire, a Romano-British town near Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire and an Iron Age settlement in Staffordshire.
Their discoveries include prehistoric flint tools, a Romano-British cremation urn and two late Victorian time capsules dug up close to Euston station in London, containing rolled-up newspaper tied with twine, calling cards and leaflets promoting temperance.
More than 1,000 archaeologists, bone specialists, scientists and conservators will be working on the sites until 2020, making the excavations the largest archaeological dig ever undertaken in Britain and potentially in Europe, according to Helen Wass, the project’s lead archaeologist.
“It’s an unprecedented undertaking; certainly there has been nothing in Britain on this scale,†said Wass. “We are really going to be able to tell the story of a nation.â€
As part of their initial surveys, the developers put together a Lidar (light detection and ranging) map – based on laser scanning – of the entire route, and archaeologists have carried out ground-penetrating geophysical surveys of the equivalent of 14,000 football pitches.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/oct/26/story-of-a-nation-hs2-rail-archaeological-dig-begins-in-uks-biggest-excavation
