Latest news with #HadriansWall
Bloomberg
5 days ago
- General
- Bloomberg
Its Easier to Get Mad About One Tree Than It Is Deforestation
One evening in September 2023, two men sawed down the Sycamore Gap tree that had grown alongside Hadrian's Wall in England for 150 years. When I read the outpouring of grief and rage at the baffling destruction, a thought struck me. Why was there only one tree in this vast landscape? The expanse of National Park in which the tree once stood is blanketed with grass and bare of trees, other than one replacement sapling protected by a wall from the nibbling of grazing sheep.
The Independent
5 days ago
- General
- The Independent
Discovery at Roman fort near Hadrian's Wall ‘baffles' archaeologists
Excavations at the Roman fort of Magna near Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland in north east England have uncovered some very large leather footwear. Their discovery, according to some news coverage, has 'baffled' archaeologists. The survival of the shoes is not, by itself, miraculous or unusual. Excellent preservation conditions caused by waterlogged environments with low oxygen mean that leather and other organic materials survive in the wet soil of this part of northern England. Many years of excavations by the Vindolanda Trust at Vindolanda, just south of Hadrian's Wall, and now at Magna, have recovered an enormous collection of Roman shoes. These finds have provided us with an excellent record of the footwear of soldiers and the civilians who lived around them. The shoes from Magna stand out because many of them are big. Big shoes have also been found at Vindolanda. However, of those whose size can be determined, only 0.4% are big. The average shoe size at Vindolanda is 9.5 to 10.2 inches in length, which is between a modern UK shoe size 7 to 8. Big shoes make up a much larger share of the shoes at Magna. The biggest shoe is a whopping 12.8 inches long, roughly equivalent to a modern UK size 12 to 14. This shoe collection raises an immediate and obvious question: why did people at Magna have such large shoes? The possible answers to this question raise more questions and bring to the fore a central component of archaeological research: a good debate. Emma Frame, senior archaeologist for the Magna excavations, suggests: 'We have to assume it's something to do with the people living here, having bigger feet, being potentially taller, but we don't know.' This idea of bigger feet, bigger people, makes a good deal of sense, though it would suggest that some of the military community at Magna were very tall indeed. And, as the Roman cemeteries of Hadrian's Wall have been little excavated or studied, we have little information about how tall people were in this part of the Roman world. Other ideas might be worth entertaining, too, however. For example, could these be some kind of snowshoes or winter boots meant to allow extra layers of padding or multiple pairs of socks to be worn? A letter, preserved by similar conditions to the shoes at Vindolanda, refers to a gift of socks and underpants that was sent to someone stationed there, presumably to keep them warm during the cold winter nights. We also know from other evidence that Syrian archers made up one of the units stationed at Magna. These men would not have been used to the frosty climate of northern England. Could these large shoes be an attempt to cope with the bitter shock of a British winter? Or instead, could these shoes have a medical purpose, perhaps to allow people with swollen feet or people utilising medical dressings to wear shoes? It's important to note, I am not claiming to have the answers. I'm simply putting out some hypotheses which could explain the extra-large shoes based on other evidence we have and potential logical explanations for such large footwear. These kinds of hypotheses lie right at the heart of the archaeological method. Fresh archaeological discoveries are made every day, and they often make headlines with phrases about 'baffled archaeologists.' While this language can spark public interest, it also risks giving a misleading impression of the discipline. In reality, the work archaeologists like me and thousands of my colleagues around the world do is grounded in careful, evidence-based analysis. The challenge lies not in our lack of expertise, but in the nature of the evidence itself. Much of the distant past has been lost to time, and what we do recover represents only a small fragment of the original picture. We're not so much 'baffled' as we are rigorously testing multiple hypotheses to arrive at the most plausible interpretations. Interpreting these fragments is a complex process, like piecing together a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle with many of the most crucial pieces (like the edges) missing. Sometimes we have exactly the right pieces to understand the big picture, but other times we have gaps, and we have to put forward a series of different suggestions until more evidence comes to light.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
School presents £2,000 cheque to charity after Hadrian's Wall run
A school in Brampton has presented a cheque for over £2,000 to the Great North Air Ambulance Service (GNAAS). William Howard School's Mountain Runners presented a cheque for £2173.75 to a representative of GNAAS on Tuesday, July 15. The school's Mountain Runners raised the funds by completeing a 30-mile charity run along Hadrian's Wall, from Chesters Fort near Chollerford to Brampton, on Saturday, July 5. READ MORE: School's mountain runners raise over £1,400 with charity Hadrian's Wall run Kath Pigdon is William Howard School's headteacher and the leader of the Mountain Runners, and after the school presented the cheque to GNAAS, praised everyone involved with the fundraising efforts. She said: "Running with our students 30 miles along Hadrian's Wall was nothing short of inspirational. "Their determination and resilience captured everything that makes our school community special. "They pushed themselves beyond their limits, not just for the achievement, but to raise over £2,100 for the Great North Air Ambulance. "We couldn't be prouder of what they've achieved."
The Guardian
7 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Reform-led Durham county council scraps climate emergency declaration
A Reform-led council is thought to have become the first in the UK to rescind its climate emergency declaration, a move condemned as 'a very dark day' for the authority. Durham county council, which has had an overwhelming Reform majority since the May local elections, passed a motion to rescind a declaration made in 2019. More than 300 local authorities have declared a climate emergency. It voted instead to declare a County Durham care emergency, a move described as 'cynical and insulting' by the Liberal Democrat councillor Mark Wilkes. He said there was a financial case as well as an environmental case for keeping the declaration. Wilkes said the council's climate action had helped save more than £13m in the last year alone. He added that stopping work on tackling the climate crisis would risk the loss of external funding. It ran the risk of less money to invest in social care, he said. 'This is not an either-or.' During a sometimes fractious and bad-tempered debate on Wednesday, the Reform council leader, Andrew Husband, said the authority was now driven by data and common sense. 'During the Roman-occupied era not far away from County Durham, around 45AD, there is evidence of Roman vineyards along Hadrian's Wall. This is because the Roman period in Britain is known for having a relatively warm climate which would have been conducive to growing grapes. Mind, how the climate has changed,' he said. Kenny Hope, a Reform councillor, accused the Lib Dems of being in favour of adult and child slave labour. He said the mining of material for lithium batteries was 'rife with child slavery' as was the production of solar panels in China. 'I do not believe in child or adult slave labour and I believe the guys on this side of the house also do not believe in it. But I believe the guys on the other side must believe in adult or child slave labour because they have not took that into consideration,' he said. Darren Grimes, a former GB News presenter, prolific tweeter and now deputy leader of the council, proposed the motion and accused his opponents of wanting to make local residents 'colder and poorer … shame. Shame. Shame.' He said Durham was done 'with expensive virtue-signalling tripe' and said the 2019 declaration was 'a feel-good' one chasing 'net-zero rainbows while the likes of China belch out coal more than Sauron's Mordor'. Afterwards, Jonathan Elmer, one of the council's two Green members, described some of what he heard in the debate as 'bonkers'. He said the vote represented 'a very dark day' for the council. 'Eighty per cent of the population do believe in the climate emergency and want to do something about it. Durham has an administration that doesn't. They've got a head-in-the-sand, don't-look-up approach,' Elmer said. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Wilkes said he was concerned for his nine-year-old son. 'I want to know he can grow up and live in a country and on a planet that is safe. There is a personal aspect to everything, isn't there?' On Monday, the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, warned MPs about the climate crisis, saying he would explicitly call out politicians who rejected net zero policies for betraying future generations. The duration of the Durham council debate was short because of rules limiting it to 30 minutes. A move by Wilkes to have a fuller debate was voted down by Reform. The rules also meant there was no time for another motion by Grimes to strengthen what he described as free speech protections in the code of conduct for elected members. Before the debate, about 200 protesters gathered outside county hall with banners and placards highlighting the climate crisis. 'Reform is asking you bury your head in the sand,' read one. 'Our children need a healthy world,' said another.
The Guardian
7 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Reform-led Durham county council scraps climate emergency pledge
A Reform-led council is thought to have become the first in the UK to rescind its climate emergency declaration, a move condemned as 'a very dark day' for the authority. Durham county council, which has had an overwhelming Reform majority since the May local elections, passed a motion to rescind a declaration made in 2019 More than 300 local authorities have declared a climate emergency. It voted instead to declare a County Durham care emergency, a move described as 'cynical and insulting' by the Liberal Democrat councillor Mark Wilkes. He said there was a financial case as well as an environmental case for keeping the declaration. Wilkes said the council's climate action had helped save more than £13m in the last year alone. He added that stopping work on tackling the climate crisis would risk the loss of external funding. It 'risked less money to invest in social care,' he said. 'This is not an either, or.' During a sometimes fractious and bad-tempered debate on Wednesday, the Reform council leader Andrew Husband said the authority was now driven by data and common sense. 'During the Roman-occupied era not far away from County Durham, around 45AD, there is evidence of Roman vineyards along Hadrian's Wall. This is because the Roman period in Britain is known for having a relatively warm climate which would have been conducive to growing grapes. Mind, how the climate has changed,' he said. Kenny Hope, a Reform councillor, accused the Lib Dems of being in favour of adult and child slave labour. He said the mining of material for lithium batteries was 'rife with child slavery' as was the production of solar panels in China. 'I do not believe in child or adult slave labour and I believe the guys on this side of the house also do not believe in it. But I believe the guys on the other side must believe in adult or child slave labour because they have not took that into consideration,' he said. Darren Grimes, a former GB News presenter, prolific tweeter and now deputy leader of the council, proposed the motion and accused his opponents of wanting to make local residents 'colder and poorer … shame. Shame. Shame.' He said Durham was done 'with expensive virtue-signalling tripe' and said the 2019 declaration was 'a feel-good' one chasing 'net-zero rainbows while the likes of China belch out coal more than Sauron's Mordor.' Afterwards, Jonathan Elmer, one of the council's two Green members, described some of what he heard in the debate as 'bonkers'. He said the vote represented 'a very dark day' for the council. 'Eighty per cent of the population do believe in the climate emergency and want to do something about it. Durham has an administration that doesn't. They've got a head in the sand, don't look up approach,' Elmer said. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion Wilkes said he was concerned for his nine-year-old son. 'I want to know he can grow up and live in a country and on a planet that is safe. There is a personal aspect to everything, isn't there?' On Monday, the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, warned MPs about the climate crisis, saying he would explicitly call out politicians who rejected net zero policies for betraying future generations. The duration of the Durham council debate was short because of rules limiting it to 30 minutes. A move by Wilkes to have a fuller debate was voted down by Reform. The rules also meant there was no time for another motion by Grimes to strengthen what he described as free speech protections in the code of conduct for elected members. Before the debate, about 200 protesters gathered outside county hall with banners and placards highlighting the climate crisis. 'Reform is asking you bury your head in the sand,' read one. 'Our children need a healthy world,' said another.
