I’m Chris Gerrard, a professor of archaeology at Durham University (UK). I work on lots of different things like the archaeology of natural disasters (earthquakes and tsunamis) and direct big-scale excavations at the bishop’s palace at Auckland Castle (County Durham), Shapwick village (Somerset – with Mick Aston from TV’s Time Team) and at Clarendon royal palace (Wiltshire). I’ve dug quite a bit in Spain and Portugal too. I tend to work at the edges of my subject where it touches on history, architecture, geography and earth sciences but basically I’m interested in people and in daily life in the past, where and how people lived. I am an ‘academic’, I suppose, but I am committed to public history and to communicating research to the widest possible audience.
Most recently I’ve been fortunate to be involved in an extraordinary project in which two mass burials were found here in Durham in 2013. This video will give you a flavour:
Over the next two years a complex jigsaw of evidence was pierced together by a team of archaeologists to establish their identity. Today we know them to be some of the Scottish prisoners who died in the autumn of 1650 in Durham Cathedral and Castle following the battle of Dunbar on the south-east coast of Scotland. This was one of the key engagements of the War of the Three Kingdoms (or Civil Wars). Using the latest techniques of skeleton science we tried to give back a voice to these men through an understanding of their childhood and later lives. Archaeological and historical evidence allows us to reconstruct with vivid accuracy how and why these men vanished off the historical radar.
Since this discovery, we have been tracing what became of the survivors. On a journey which has led me to clues in France, Barbados, Maryland (USA), Virginia (USA), Massachusetts (USA) and Maine (USA) as well as places in the UK including the Cambridgeshire Fens, North/South Shields, Newcastle, the coal mines of County Durham. We know most about those who left for New England and their descendants, among them actors John Cryer and Kate Upton - among 400,000 others who are passionate about their ancestry. We’ve been lucky enough to win
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Every couple of days I browse a newspaper custom feed and for the last couple of months there have been an insane amount of headlines about knife crime in the UK.
There's children as young as 4 among hundreds being arrested at school with blades,
>In Manchester, an 11-year-old, who had replaced a highlighter nib with a blade, told another pupil: "Listen to me or else I'll stab you."
>Former teacher David Simmons, who set up the Changing Lives charity, said he was confronted by a six-year-old brandishing a knife while working in a north London school.
There is a curfew plan for 12 year olds. They're being stabbed as school closes?
>His patients are also getting younger; they have an average age of 16, but a quarter are even younger. Recently, he treated a five-year-old who had been shot.
The government sent out 320,000 boxes with a #knifefree hashtag which was considered racist because it's fried chicken.
It's so bad they're trying everything, like online rapping challenges in the campaign to fight knife crime.
Female knife posession crimes are up 73% in England.
The epidemic has moved from the cities into the rural areas which are seeing a 50% rise in knife crimes
Teenagers are being drawn in in record levels. As you might expect, people are calling for churches to be havens for youths with weapons amnesty policies.
They've tried getting tough, seizing 10,000 knives in one week, and
... keep reading on reddit ➡It's just rather confusing how interrelated so many Royal families throughout Europe are.
I am a Chinese university student want to study medieval europe history.However, there are very few Chinese books in this area, so I would like to ask some English books. The history of choosing the history of England is mainly because I want to learn to read English works by learning more familiar history.
I have read The Sea Wolves: A History of the Vikings by Lars Brownworth
Medieval Europe a short history by judith M.Bennett and C.warren Hollister about this area
Western Europe in the Middle Ages: 300-1475 by Brian Tierney and Sidney Painter about this area
Any recommendations would be great.
I assume that it changed over time. What were the different seats of power over time?
As the Normans fought&conquered westward,what was occurring in Ireland during the Norman invasion? (This sub is amazing). I've gleaned the majority of research using this sub.living in Ireland with an English accent,I see the animosity between religions,mainly catholic&protestant,clearly.Im attempting to find the origin,reason why these religions clashed so badly that even now fathers teach their children to hate&mock &so the cycle continues. Where or when did the animosity between these religions begin? . Thankyou, in advance,for any help,reading suggestions etc.
I found an excellent summary of the History of England which provides a continuous picture of how their systems evolved and can well serve as both an introduction as well as a reference.
https://faculty.history.wisc.edu/sommerville/123/contents.htm
This is extremely relevant to India because, denial notwithstanding, our republic's socio-political institutions are essentially theirs almost in entirety. Learning their history allows us to understand the roots of why things are the way they are - for example, if you wondered why the parliament is the way it is, look to the evolution of their parliament. If you wondered where "rule of law" came from, look to the Magna Carta. If you wondered why we distinguish between civil and criminal law, look to the evolution of the the English Common Law.
I’ve read that it takes about 10000 years for fossils to form, but that was talking about animal bones, not tiny insect exoskeletons.
