Other websites

This website contains links to other websites which are not under the control of and are not maintained by Channel 4 Television. Channel 4 Television is not responsible for the content of these sites and does not necessarily endorse the material on them.

Forensic Archaeology
http://archaeology.about.com/cs/forensic/
Forensic archaeology is about applying archaeological methods to the investigation of crime. The methods used by archaeologists in excavating human remains from the distant past are now widely recognised and adopted by law enforcement officers (including human rights investigators) investigating more recent murders and other crimes. The Forensic Archaeology website offers some of the best all-round information on forensic archaeology on the web, with detailed information on bone pathology, taphonomy, geophysics, odontology and environmental archaeology. Promised soon are pages on university courses and the law. Also contains an excellent set of links to related websites.

Spoilheap
www.spoilheap.co.uk/hsr.htm
The Spoilheap website contains well-presented information about burial archaeology and human bones. Why excavate human bones? What can we learn from studying them? These and other questions are answered, along with introductions to palaeopathology and different techniques of ageing, sexing and otherwise analysing bones. The section on burial archaeology deals with burial practices by period, the legal aspects of burial archaeology, archaeological techniques, and interpretation and conclusions. Good bibliographies are also provided.

Capra, the Journal for Cave Archaeology and Palaeontology
www.shef.ac.uk/~capra/
As well as the journal articles and other resources, Capra's online gazetteers of hominid-bearing caves in England, Scotland and Wales contain summaries of information about caves, fissures and rock shelters that have contained human remains of possible or proven prehistoric date. The gazetteers are organised into regions with bibliographies of all published information supplied for each cave.

The Capra website includes an article by Jodie Lewis, of the University of Bristol, 'Upwards at 45 degrees: the use of vertical caves during the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age on Mendip, Somerset' (Capra 2, available at www.shef.ac.uk/~capra/2/upwards.html). The Mendip Hills in Somerset contain geological features known locally as swallets, vertical 'shafts' in the limestone, usually formed by dissolutional activity. In recent years, excavations by cavers have revealed a range of archaeological material placed inside them. The materials are generally of prehistoric date, and seem to indicate a climax of deposition in the Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age. Using the evidence from two sites, Charterhouse Warren Farm Swallet and Brimble Pit Swallet, it is argued that swallets were being used for deliberate ritual deposition during these periods. A link between swallets and monuments is also made, both in terms of the material placed within them and their relationship in the landscape.

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