Bronze Age Standing Stone Bearing Carved Face Found in Alderney

A Middle Bronze Age lasting chromatic featuring a carved face. Credit: Dig Alderney

Archaeologists person uncovered a lasting chromatic astatine Longis Common connected the land of Alderney that appears to diagnostic a carved face, adding a notable prehistoric find to a tract that has already produced discoveries from aggregate periods of history.

Dr. Jason Monaghan, caput of Dig Alderney, said the chromatic was recovered upright successful the ground, indicating it was placed determination deliberately successful prehistoric times. According to Monaghan, the carved look becomes disposable nether definite lighting conditions, though whether the chromatic was meant to correspond a quality fig remains unclear.

The lasting chromatic is believed to day to the European Middle Bronze Age. Monaghan said it whitethorn person served arsenic a bound marker oregon been utilized for ritual purposes. Its determination adjacent antecedently recovered Iron Age graves has besides led researchers to see whether it whitethorn person marked a burial site.

Standing chromatic with carved look resists afloat investigation

The chromatic is made of section Altonné sandstone and measures astatine slightest 1.12 meters (3.7 feet) successful length. Its basal appears to person been shaped into a rectangular signifier to support it anchored successful the ground.

The aboveground is worn and pitted from extended exposure. Researchers program to analyse it for instrumentality marks and transportation retired dating enactment successful the coming months to find whether the facial features were deliberately carved oregon shaped by earthy weathering implicit time.

Groundwater has analyzable the investigation. The chromatic sits astir 1.5 meters (4.9 feet) deep, and rising h2o has blocked entree to its base. Getting a fuller representation of however the chromatic relates to its surroundings would necessitate a overmuch wider excavation, which whitethorn beryllium planned for a aboriginal date.

Prehistoric tools and pottery look crossed aggregate trenches

Dig Alderney has been moving astatine Longis Common since 2024. Alongside the chromatic find, researchers extended a trench by 12 quadrate meters (129 quadrate feet) aft recovering quantities of prehistoric pottery, flint, and chromatic tools.

About 10 to eleven tools person travel from that area, including a tiny beveled-end portion known locally arsenic a limpet knocker, a sanction tied to 1 of its apt uses. Work connected a 3rd trench has besides begun, wherever pottery, flint, and what whitethorn beryllium a mound person been identified. A 4th trench connected higher crushed is producing mostly modern material. The squad is successful its last week connected site.

Site spans World War II relics to Brittany prehistoric links

Earlier enactment astatine Longis Common turned up Iron Age pottery and ammunition from the German concern of Alderney during World War II. Excavations are besides ongoing astatine Whitegates and Paddock.

Monaghan said the scope of finds confirms the country supported quality enactment crossed thousands of years. The squad hopes the chromatic volition deepen knowing of Alderney’s prehistoric connections to Brittany and bluish France, wherever comparable stones person been documented.