That was a fun day, with my absolute treasure of a colleague. Plus working with our great students, colleagues from @currentarchaeology.bsky.social & loads of glorious @uclarchaeology.bsky.social Alum! #CALive25

Two humans, both wearing striped t-shirts, stand behind a table at the current archaeology awards at the Institute of education at Ucl.

Great day at the @currentarchaeology.bsky.social Awards! Thanks for having us! #CALive25

#LocalAndGlobal

That’s all folks! #CALive25 has finished. Hope to see you all next year (watch this space for the date for CALive! 2026!)… until then… over and out!

Congratulations to this year’s winners, and thank you to everyone who voted, to the award sponsors, and to Julian Richards for presenting them! #CALive25

And finally! The 2025 CA Award for Archaeologist of the Year, sponsored by @AndanteTravels, goes to… Professor Joyce Tyldesley! #CALive25

The 2025 CA Award for Research Project of the Year, sponsored by Wessex Insurance Brokers Ltd, is… Pioneering spirit: exploring the archaeology and history of The Glenlivet whisky (Pioneering Spirit Project; National Trust for Scotland / The Glenlivet) #CALive25

The 2025 CA Award for Rescue Project of the Year, sponsored by @sommertravels, is… From stronghold to Steel City: Uncovering the ‘birthplace of Sheffield’ (Wessex Archaeology / Sheffield City Council) #CALive25

The 2025 CA Award for Book of the Year, sponsored by Cardiff University BioArchaeology, is… Crypt: life, death, and disease in the Middle Ages and beyond, by Alice Roberts #CALive25

We’re delighted to announce the results of the 2025 Current Archaeology Awards! Voted for by you, and presented by archaeologist and educator Julian Richards @Archaemedia #CALive25

The pottery also preserve traces of things that no longer exist - for example, some pots have marks from cordage, and some bear the imprint of basketry on their base. Also a possible impression from fabric. And most tactile of all, finger- and palm-prints from their makers #CALive25

Pots from the Ness range from big cooking vessels to miniature pots, and some were deliberately coloured with different slips #CALive25

Among the most famous motifs from the Ness is the 'Brodgar butterfly'... also lots of interesting stone tools, over 100,000 sherds of Grooved ware (a metric tonne!), and evidence of material from the Western Isles, Arran, Shetland. This was not an isolated place #CALive25

The Ness is home to an amazing array of Neolithic art - a few dozen or more examples every year: fine examples of decorated stone, with detailed geometric designs #CALive25

Structure 27 has also preserved fragments of wood - part of a plank, poss part of collapsed roof structure - exciting, as organic material doesn't survive well on the Ness #CALive25

Had an amazing time at #CAlive25 representing the Kent Archaeological Society. Lots of lovely conversations, friends caught up with and my specialism in #pseudoarchaeology was shouted out by Natasha Bilson!

We will definitely be back again next year!

#archaeology #CurrentArchaeology #publicarch 🏺

Structure 27 was found buried beneath a midden mound. It lies outside the main enclosure wall and is big - 15m by 11m. 'A masterpiece of the aesthetics of what you can do in stone and engineering skills', Nick says #CALive25

Neolithic subsidence was a big problem at the Ness, as buildings constructed over their predecessors later collapsed and were remodelled once more #CALive25

Some of the buildings are very refined - Structure 10 incorporates different red and yellow sandstones, and has carefully pecked dressing. It is aligned on Maeshowe and the equinox sunrise #CALive25

Looping back to the topic of the first talk of the day, we are now looking at evidence of cooking within some of the Ness' structures - reddish deposits with black lenses where pots were set down to heat them #CALive25

These piered structures gradually get bigger, grander, and more defined at the Ness; we are being shown Structure 8, nearly 20m long, with 5 or 6 hearths. And Structure 12, which has three entrances (the eastern framed by standing stones)& incorporates different coloured dressed sandstones #CALive25

We are examining some trends in Ness architecture, looking at stone piered structures and comparing them to early domestic buildings at Barnhouse and Skara Brae #CALive25

We are hearing about the Great Wall of Brodgar, which bordered the settlement - 4m wide, it was bigger than Hadrian's Wall (though not as long) and had steps to give access to the top #CALive25

The longevity of occupation at the Ness of Brodgar offers invaluable insights into how Neolithic architecture evolved in Orkney. And under Structure 5, they found a timber building, Structure 41. #CALive25

The site is amazingly complex - some of the structures have as many as 20 phases. #CALive25

What is the Ness of Brodgar? A huge complex that, radiocarbon dating indicates, was occupied for the whole of the Neolithic, 3500-2300 BC. That's 50 generations - equivalent to the period from the Anglo-Saxon period to today, Nick says - and think how much society has changed since then #CALive25

At the end of the 2024 season, the trenches were backfilled, and the focus is now on post-excavation analysis. The vast majority of the stone would quickly delaminate if exposed to the weather (unlike Skara Brae, which is mainly of hard, resilient beach stone) #CALive25

Even after more than two decades of digging, and opening trenches A-Z, only 10% of the Ness of Brodgar has been excavated to-date. #CALive25

Even the project's initial small test pits revealed the complexity of the site, which in some places preserved 4m of overlaid archaeology #CALive25

After more than two decades of excavation, the site has since yielded an amazing array of over 40 Neolithic buildings - and many more are indicated by geophysics #CALive25

Geophysical survey in 2002 revealed that the Ness of Brodgar peninsula was absolutely covered in archaeological features - and in 2003, ploughing brought a large stone to the surface. Further investigation revealed not the expected Bronze Age cist, but the top of a wall #CALive25