A new five-year project has been announced looking at the history of the English landscape from the middle Bronze Age to the Norman period. It will use a mass of mapped data for the period to explore continuities and changes in the use of the land in different parts of England

A new approach using stable nitrogen and carbon isotope ratios in ancient crop remains suggests that early farmers practised manuring with dung from herded livestock. These results have radical implications for understanding the ecology of early farming and its social consequences.

Sacks of ancient excrement from Herculaneum are helping archaeologists learn more about Roman life. The waste was excavated and put through a series of graded sieves by a team led by Mark Robinson of the University of Oxford which revealed bits of bone, pottery as well as nuts and seeds made it into Roman cesspits.

Miss Gertrud Seidmann, until recently a postgraduate in the School of Archaeology and believed to be the oldest student to have studied at Oxford University, has been awarded a Certificate of Graduate Attainment by the University in a special ceremony in the Divinity School.