Megalithic Jersey

19/04/2024

Come and join the Société Jersiaise Archaeology Section on a fascinating walk around St Clements exploring our Megaliths..... All welcome!

20/07/2022

Archaeology Festival 2022

The People of the Dunes, a film about archaeology in Normandy awarded at the Rovereto International Archaeological Film Festival

19/07/2022

On this evening at 5.30pm. You can just turn up

Walk & talk with Dr Matt Pope about recent work at La Cotte, part of the Archaeology Section's British Council of Archaeology 2022 Festival

19/07/2022

Walk & talk with Dr Matt Pope about recent work at La Cotte, part of the Archaeology Section's British Council of Archaeology 2022 Festival

12/07/2022

12/07/2022

La Societe Jersiaise is participating in the British Council of Archaeology's 2022 Festival by putting on its own programme of events.
It starts this weekend on Saturday with the Fetes des Dolmens, a tour around the Islands Neolithic dolmens. I will be hosting this tour and it is bookable via EventBrite as per the programme.

10/04/2022

Interesting article! Amazing what appears to be capable of extraction!

First nuclear DNA from sediment shows turnover, migration among ancient cave dwellers in Spain

08/04/2022

Interesting finding suggesting that Neanderthals and Humans mixed and the former may not have become extinct, but continued within the latter.

A re-study of the prehistoric find from 1910 suggests interbreeding between two human species.

03/04/2022

The sleeping Lady, regarded as one of the most important prehistoric finds from the temples in Malta. Absolutely beautiful!

03/04/2022

In Malta at the moment looking at some of the Island's prehistoric past. Great Archaeology Museum displaying some of the very varied era artefacts. Loved these designs on the Neolithic pottery.

05/03/2022

Further to post the other day, I watched the film the Iceman (it is on Prime) which is based on Otzi, who was discovered in the Alpes. It prompted me to find out some more about him.

The famed mummy died from an arrow to the back on a high Alpine mountain pass 5,300 years ago. Now researchers are tracing his unusual movements right before his murder.

04/03/2022

Met the team last year when they were taking samples at Green Island. Should be really interesting when they have results which will add considerably to Jersey's fabulous geological history!

Another update from Dr Thomas Stevens and PhD researcher Yunus Baykal on their work to date our loess and raised beaches.

Yunus is now preparing samples in Denmark (under artificial light) for detailed OSL dating. This will determine the last time these ancient sediments were exposed to light, giving us a date for their deposition. This should mean that the story of Jersey’s history over the last 200,000 years should soon become a lot clearer.

The team are also on the island again in March, working closely with local researchers, to identify new sites for future dating.

More updates soon!

03/03/2022

The first picture of Ötzi as he emerged from the melting ice, taken by the finders – the German couple Helmut and Erika Simon. (1991) - Photo Credit: Paul Hanny, Gamma-Rapho via Getty.

www.ancient-origins.net

04/02/2022

Some prehistoric pottery surface finds. Was out on a walk with friends the other day, and realised that I was passing a place where I had found some pottery before. Sure enough, the winter had exposed some more pieces which I quickly picked up in about 2 minutes flat off the surface before catching up with the others.
Some interesting pieces which appear to have blackened surfaces which I deduce are stains of whatever was cooked in them!
I will add an entry on the Jersey Historic Environment Record.

13/04/2021

NOTE:
ANY ARCHAEOLOGICAL FINDS SHOULD BE DECLARED AND RECORDED ON THE HISTORIC ENVIRONMENT RECORD AT JERSEY HERITAGE.
CERTAIN FINDS LIKE PRECIOUS METALS ARE SUBJECT TO FURTHER RULES AND RESTRICTIONS
YOU SHOULD NOT TO DIG OR DISTURB THE SOIL TO REMOVE AN ITEM.
ON A LISTED SITE, YOU MUST NOT REMOVE ANY ITEMS, DIG, METAL DETECT OR DISTURB THE SOIL AS IT IS A CRIMINAL OFFENCE TO DO SO.
ANY ITEMS FOUND BELONG TO THE OWNER OF THE LAND AND THEREFORE REMOVING IT MAY CONSTITUTE THEFT IN ADDITION TO ANY OF THE ABOVE.
IT IS A CRIMINAL OFFENCE TO REMOVE FROM THE ISLAND CERTAIN HISTORIC ARTEFACTS WITHOUT AN EXPORT LICENCE.
FURTHER ADVICE AND INFORMATION IS AVAILABLE AT JERSEY HERITAGE.

11/04/2021

Les Blanches Banques Neolithic landscape. The Ossuary in the foreground and the Broken Menhir behind. A large and protected area and as yet archaeologically mainly unexplored in detail. Interestingly the spoil from rabbit holes often brings up worked flint and pottery from prehistoric settlement areas to the surface!

10/04/2021

Neolithic Dolerite stone axe which I found as a teenager on the surface of the soil in the meadow next to our family home.
This stone axe-head was declared to the authorities after I found it and was on display on loan for many years at the Jersey Museum before being returned to me when it was no longer required for display.
There are numerous gouges and scars on the faces of the axe which are probably of more recent origin - perhaps scars from ploughs and mechanical farming implements.
When I hand an artefact to my tour guests, they are always wowed by it and being able to hold something which was made several thousand years ago.
The Le Pinacle site on the west coast of Jersey has evidence of Neolithic quarrying of Dolerite rock for stone tool making. I believe that my axe is of the same type of Dolerite rock but I need to compare it directly with some museum specimens from that source.

NOTE:
ANY ARCHAEOLOGICAL FINDS SHOULD BE DECLARED AND RECORDED ON THE HISTORIC ENVIRONMENT RECORD AT JERSEY HERITAGE.
CERTAIN FINDS LIKE PRECIOUS METALS ARE SUBJECT TO FURTHER RULES AND RESTRICTIONS
YOU SHOULD NOT TO DIG OR DISTURB THE SOIL TO REMOVE AN ITEM.
ON A LISTED SITE, YOU MUST NOT REMOVE ANY ITEMS, DIG, METAL DETECT OR DISTURB THE SOIL AS IT IS A CRIMINAL OFFENCE TO DO SO.
ANY ITEMS FOUND BELONG TO THE OWNER OF THE LAND AND THEREFORE REMOVING IT MAY CONSTITUTE THEFT IN ADDITION TO ANY OF THE ABOVE.
IT IS A CRIMINAL OFFENCE TO REMOVE FROM THE ISLAND CERTAIN HISTORIC ARTEFACTS WITHOUT AN EXPORT LICENCE.
FURTHER ADVICE AND INFORMATION IS AVAILABLE AT JERSEY HERITAGE.

05/04/2021

We may not get snow today on Easter Monday (Scotland probably will!), but we did have a light dusting in February!
La Pouquelaye de Faldouet - not always seen in its true light as a Neolithic megalithic structure.
In the early 19th century, William Plees writing about Jersey writing in "An account of the Island of Jersey" (1813) describes the Neolithic remains of the island in this way:
"These vestiges of Pagan superstition were, in Jersey, of the three following descriptions. A single stone, reared up an end, like a rude column; or a large flat one, in a horizontal position, or other stones placed upright, or edgewise, and sometimes surrounded with more, set singly at equal distances; or, lastly, circles of stones in an erect position, some covered with slabs, and others standing singly. There are also, in different parts of the island, single erect stones, and assemblages of stones, of too equivocal appearance to be pronounced Druidical.
It is evident, from the position of those that had horizontal coverings, and from the great quantities of ashes found in the ground about them, that they were used as altar; and it is universally admitted, that they frequently smoked with blood of immolated human victims."
Plees was describing Faldouet amongst other dolmen before they were excavated, and indeed it is labelled as "Druids' Temple" on contemporary maps. It seems that at the time of Plees' writing, only the capstone and the tops of the five supporting stones were visible. It was supposedly possible to crawl underneath the capstone through a small hole in the ground.
We now know that the dolmens date to a period several thousand years before the druids and were built to bury and/or commemorate the dead, to mark the passing of the seasons (those with solar alignments) and not as places of ritual sacrifice.
No doubt, because of their ancient pre-Christian origins, the sites, in most cases having fallen in disuse and abandonment, became associated with the earlier pagan beliefs and rituals as well as witchcraft in later mediaeval times.

05/04/2021

Les Trois Rocques - located in the relatively flat landscape beyond the dunes immediately behind the high tide mark and sea wall at St Ouen's Bay, these three stones are standing roughly in a line.
There is some debate as to whether they are in their original positions as they do not appear to have been trigged and are set into a level of soil and sand more recent than the Neolithic period. They are quite close to the White Menhir which stands on Les Mielles golf course and may well be part of a grouping including that menhir.
No Neolithic artefacts were discovered when limited excavation was carried out in 1933 and more recent resistivity and contour surveys have been inconclusive in solving the mystery of the granite stones which have been transported some 3km from their source.

28/03/2021

The old and the new....
The lichen covered Neolithic dolmen at Mont Ube, overlooking the south coast of the Island of Jersey. It is one of the four known passage dolmens of the period about 6000 years ago on the eastern side of the Island when the landscape would have been filled with standing stones, menhirs and other placed and natural stone markers.
Springtime Alexanders (Syyrnium olusatrum) with its yellow green flowers have a distinct and pleasant smell of nectar loved by bees. A local Jersey-French name (d'l'alisandre) means wild celery, and the stems and roots can be boiled with the flower heads used in salads. The name is a shortened version of the mediaeval name, Parsley of Alexandria which may refer to place of origin in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean or to Alexander the Great.

27/03/2021

27/03/2021

No filters, no flash, no tripod, no artificial light! The interior of La Hougue Bie dolmen deep underground being lit by the sun just after sunrise.
For a short while the interior is bathed in light and becomes a warm, magical and powerful place of ritual. No longer do you need time for your eyes to become accustomed to the dark and an extra layer of clothing for warmth!
It only happens twice a year on and around the spring and autumn equinox and is highly dependent on having clear skies.
The dolmen was constructed by the Neolithic people about 6000 years ago using technology which we struggle to understand and which would have been second nature to them but lost to us who have come to rely on computers and mechanical assistance!

Camera: Canon EOS 6D 50mm f1.8


Société Jersiaise Jersey Heritage

26/03/2021

Rocque Herbeuse - a small grass covered islet just off the southeast coast of Jersey which is cut off / surrounded by the tide twice a day. A very prominent feature of a former Neolithic landscape where people lived and farmed and which existed before sea levels rose to today's height..