A fragment of human pelvic bone discovered in Hyde Abbey church, Winchester in 1999 is thought to belong to King Alfred the Great or his son, Edward.

The bone fragment was stored among other remains in Winchester Museum, but lack of funding prevented identification until recently.

Dr Katie Thomas of Winchester University was initially tasked with excavating an unmarked grave at the east end of St Bartholomew’s Church in Hyde. The bones of Alfred were previously claimed to be found in this location by John Mellor in 1886, but upon analysis the radiocarbon dates from the bones did not match those in which Alfred and his family lived. However, a community excavation of the east end of Hyde Abbey church in 1999 unearthed a series of human bones, which were sent to the museum.  

The remains were taken for radiocarbon dating led by Professor Tom Higham at the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator. All but one of the bones produced dates in the 12th to 14th centuries, but a single bone, part of an older male pelvis, returned a date of 895-1017.

Dr Thomas stated, “The most likely explanation was that the bone had been brought from elsewhere, namely New Minster. The candidates for who the bone could belong to were therefore Alfred, his son Edward or a brother of Edward, Aethelwaerd. However, only the coffins of Alfred and Edward were buried at the site of the High Altar and this meant the bone was likely to belong to one of them.”

Richard Buckley, co-director of the University of Leicester’s archaeology services said “it would be hard to prove” that the fragment belongs to Alfred the Great. John Blair, a professor at Oxford University, believed that the conclusion “is based on a valid chain of reasoning” but more data was needed before anyone can determine who the fragment belongs to.

Dr Thomas hopes that this will renew interest in the family. “Alfred and Edward were both great Saxon kings who deserve better recognition than they currently enjoy. Their burials have been lost for hundreds of years and this finding may be the catalyst for further excavation and analysis, and proper reburial and memorialisation of the remains in Winchester.”

She added, “A possible future re-excavation at the site of Hyde Abbey church will be headed up by Professor Martin Biddle, but more in his capacity as Head of Winchester Research Committee, rather than as Emeritus Professor at Oxford.”

Second year historian Nick Spearing commented, “It’s an exciting find; Alfred was a great king who served for much longer than most early English monarchs, and this talent is summed up perfectly by the uncommon longevity of his pelvis.”

An Oxford University study conducted by two academics at the Saïd Business School has found that property values in the capital have benefitted for over 20 years as wealthy foreign buyers use property as a means to protect their money.

The study showed that the impact of the foreign buyers was separable from other factors that affect house prices, such as the government’s Help to Buy scheme.

 The two academics who conducted the study, Tarun Ramadorai and Cristian Badarinza, said, “This goes a long way towards explaining why London house prices have continued to rise at a disproportionate rate compared with those in the rest of the country, and can also shed light on the well-known fat that capital flows appear to flow ‘uphill’ from relatively poor to relatively rich countries.”

London has a status as a ‘safe haven’ due to the apparent tendency for properties there to retain or increase in value regardless of events in other parts of this world, making it an attractive city in which to invest in property. The research showed evidence for this effect in the countries studied, including southern Europe, Chine and the Middle East.

 Some students in Oxford are skeptical of the safety of investing in property in the UK. One PPE student from Oriel commented: “I think it ironic for the British housing market ever to be considered a safe haven.

 “The fact that the London market is dominated by foreign buyers is hardly new information. However it is interesting for such a link between political upheaval and economic trends, even between countries at opposite sides of the world, to be affirmed.”

 The methods used in the study to calculate the effects of ‘safe haven’ demand on house prices could also be applied to other assets, such as gold, and to other major cities. Millions of house price transactions spanning a 15 year period were analysed in the study.

The Halifax and Nationwide say that house prices rose around 8% last year, much of which can be attributed to rises in the south-east. The house prices in areas with a high proportion of residents from a particular country were almost 0.5% higher in the months following an increase in that country’s political uncertainty.

Oxford Scientists have warned that the sun’s activity is at its lowest in over a century.

This is despite it having reached its solar maximum, or the point in its eleven-year cycle when activity on the surface should be at its height. The sun should currently be covered with sunspots and spewing out solar flares, but the number of these has been falling in recent years.

Researchers believe that this solar lull could cause huge changes in the temperature on earth. “It’s an unusually rapid decline,” explained Prof Lockwood,  professor of space environment physics at the University of Reading. Speaking to the BBC he said, “We estimate that within about 40 years or so there is a 10% to 20% – nearer 20% – probability that we’ll be back in Maunder Minimum conditions.” This was a time in the 17th century when Londoners could enjoy frost fairs on the River Thames as it had frozen over due to a sharp drop in temperature thanks to the decline in activity. Winters across Europe became bitterly cold during that time.

‘Whatever measure you use, solar peaks are coming down,’ said Richard Harrison to the BBC. ‘I’ve been a solar physicist for 30 years, and I’ve never seen anything like this.’ An analysis of ice cores, which can be used as a record of solar activity on a much longer timespan than human memory suggest that this current decline is the fastest one in approximately 10,000 years.

However, skeptics shouldn’t be too quick to take this as evidence against global warming. While some have argued that natural fluctuations in the Sun’s activity are driving climate change and overriding the effect of greenhouse gas emissions, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change came to the conclusion that solar variation only makes a small contribution to the Earth’s climate. The scientists that compiled the report said that they were 95% certain that humans were the “dominant cause” of global warming since the 1950s, and if greenhouse gases continue to rise at their current rate, then the average world temperature could rise by up to 4.8 degrees Celsius.

Professor Harrison, of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire said, “This feels like a period where it’s very strange […] but also it stresses that we don’t really understand the star that we live with.”

Thomas Wilson, an historian from Exeter College said, “It sounds worrying but I’m sure whatever happens we’ll just have to deal with it. If we could deal with [the Maunder Minimum] back in the 17th century I’m sure we can deal with something similar now. We just may have to wrap up warm in the winter!”