An unsung pioneer of public archaeology, Claire Gaudet (Apr 1869-13 Sep 1945) was born in Kensington, the daughter of a French shipping magnate who became a Freeman of the City of London. Her early life is obscure, pending any archival research (I have...
Jonathan Last
Posted on September 12th, 2023
As last year's essay documents, the 20th century had started cloudy in solstice terms, with the exception of 1903; and nothing changed in 1906. The Clifton Society reported that "over two hundred persons went … to see the sun rise" on the morning of 21...
Jonathan Last
Posted on June 10th, 2022
The perennial media interest in the summer solstice gathering at Stonehenge led me to wonder how the press reported it in the past; indeed what early newspaper reports might tell us about the origins of the modern event. This is the result, or part of ...
Jonathan Last
Posted on June 19th, 2021
"Who put this swastika here?" (Nicolas Poussin - Et in Arcadia ego)
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Like many of us, if reaction on Twitter is anything to go by, I was shocked by the revelations in the Daily Telegraph that neo-Nazi groups were holding rallies and rituals at prehist...
Jonathan Last
Posted on August 11th, 2019
[NB this piece neither endorses nor opposes the road scheme; also it’s entirely my personal opinion and does not represent the views of any organisation… anywhere, ever]
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One of the least edifying aspects of the recent debate about the Stonehenge tunn...
Jonathan Last
Posted on April 25th, 2018
These days prehistorians don’t really like invasions. That was not always the case: the idea that major cultural changes observed in the archaeological record could only be explained by the movement of people held sway for about a century, before being...
Jonathan Last
Posted on April 4th, 2018
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Aardman’s new animated adventure, ‘Early Man’, is the story of a plucky caveman from a time when woolly mammoths roamed the earth, who unites his tribe against the mighty Bronze Age for a game of football. It only takes a cursory glance at this synop...
Jonathan Last
Posted on February 4th, 2018
Martha is a pet rat; she is two and a half years old and has a mammary tumour which means she will have to be put down soon. Two and a half is a good age for a rat, but of course it will still be very sad for me to lose her after what, for a human, is ...
Jonathan Last
Posted on February 14th, 2017
