Böcker i British Archaeological Reports British Series-serien

The Late Iron Age in northern East Anglia ended with the Boudican rebellion in 60/61 CE, after which the people known to classical writers as the Iceni were subsumed into the Roman empire. This volume presents new research which tests the archaeological evidence for the Iceni as a defined group, through analysis of the region's distinctive material culture, particularly highlighting the impact of metal-detector finds on the available dataset for research. It evaluates the validity of the theory that the Iceni were slow to adopt Roman imports and luxury goods, either as a form of deliberate resistance or due to cultural conservatism following the failed revolt. The interpretive narrative of the Iceni as 'Other', in both classical and modern sources, is also investigated.

London was the administrative centre of Roman Britain, and its largest city. After centuries of excavation, Londinium is one of the best understood cities in the Empire. London is also home to one of the most exceptional collections of craft and agricultural tools in the Roman world. London's Roman Tools moves beyond typological analysis to show how Roman artefacts can illuminate the lives of ordinary people. Using a framework of practice theory, it explores the lives of Roman craft and agricultural workers in London; a diverse and changing group which has rarely been examined previously. Also provided is an illustrated catalogue of 837 Roman tools from London. Many are exceptionally well preserved, some are unknown elsewhere, and most have not previously been published. A detailed typological discussion synthesises decades of developments in French and German literature with new insights from the London material.

Grand public buildings and opulent villas more often than not steal the limelight from more mundane structures such as shops and workshops which, nevertheless, played a vital role in catering for the needs of Roman Britain.

This monograph presents an account of the archaeological and historical investigation of the seabed remains of the Flower of Ugie, a wooden sailing vessel built in Sunderland in 1838 and wrecked in the Eastern Solent, England in 1852. The vessel was discovered in 2003 when a fisherman snagged his nets on the wreck, following initial investigation by the Hampshire and Wight Trust for Maritime Archaeology (HWTMA), on-going survey was conducted on the site between 2004 and 2008. The shipwreck lies within anarea that is licensed for aggregate extraction, placing the remains under potential threat from such activity. Liaison with the dredging company led to the establishment of a voluntary dredging exclusion zone around the site. The shipwreck lies in three main parts comprising two large sections of hull remains, with a dispersed area of broken, mainly concreted iron elements in between. The vessel is primarily constructed from oak, ebony and elm. At the time of sinking, the exterior of the hull was sheathed in yellowmetal. It was not possible to date the vessel through dendrochronology, but comparative analysis of the metal fastenings allowed a provisional date of c. 1820-1850 to be assigned. A provisional tonnage of 350 old tons was suggested. There are few artefacts from either the vessel's cargo or on-board items surviving.

The results of five excavations carried out in Cambridgeshire between 1998 and 2002 by Birmingham University Archaeological Field Unit (BUFAU) - currently known as Birmingham Archaeology (BA). The respective sites are distributed fairly evenly across thecounty and run in a broad west to northeast direction that roughly centres upon Cambridge. The sites investigated are all within small towns or villages that have been the site of continuous settlement since at least medieval times. Consequently, the excavations proved very productive, revealing evidence for a wide range of activities and sometimes considerable spans of occupation. At Woodhurst, a Romano-British settlement was later succeeded by Saxon and then medieval occupation of the same area. Fordham provided a detailed insight into changing patterns of activity in a single location during the Anglo-Saxon period. Investigations at Buckden produced a less wide-ranging but nonetheless significant view of economic activities during medieval times. Finally, the excavations at Soham and St Neots revealed sequences running respectively from the Late Saxon and medieval periods through until modern times. In addition, all five sites produced small-scale evidence for prehistoric activity which combine to form a small but useful contribution to existing knowledge of prehistoric occupation in the region.

Detailed reports of excavations on four sites in Bath: Bath Street, Beau Street, at the Cross Bath and Julian Road, undertaken by Bath Archaeological Trust between 1984 and 1989. Earliest finds date to the Mesolithic time. Roman period starts with early Flavian occupation which can be followed through to the Late Roman Period. Evidence of a major re-planning of a part of the town was discovered in the late Antonine period. Further changes to the town planning have been found dated to the late Saxon period.

With the redevelopment of the former car park adjacent to Baskerville House as part of the Library of Birmingham project, the opportunity arose to examine some of the most complete remains of the 19th-century industrialisation in Birmingham. Birmingham Archaeology of the University of Birmingham, in association with Carillion and the Birmingham City Council, undertook an archaeological excavation, before the construction of the new Library of Birmingham, in an area between Cambridge Street and Centenary Square, Broad Street in the city centre. The excavation identified six phases of activity pre-dating, during and after the completion of the brass metal works.

This is a study of the seasonal activity cycles of a pre-urban society, examined through the lens of an early medieval Welsh case study. It considers the patterns of power and habitual activity that defined spaces and structured lives. Key areas of early medieval life - agriculture, tribute-payment, legal processes and hunting - are shown to share a longstanding seasonal patterning that is preserved in medieval Welsh law, church and well dedications, and fair dates. Focussing on a cantref ('hundred') land unit in south-west Wales, it uses an innovative GIS-based multidisciplinary, comparative analysis to circumnavigate a restricted archaeological record and limited written sources. The study presents the first systematic survey of assembly site evidence in Wales, and reassesses widely-used interpretative models of the early medieval landscape. Digital resources include databases of geolocated pre-1700 place-names and of sixteenth-century demesne and Welsh-law landholdings.

In the summer of 2000 archaeological excavations on the periphery of the Roman 'small town' at Worcester revealed extensive evidence for timber-framed buildings, probably representing the lower status homes of some of the settlement's inhabitants. Major changes during the later Roman period led to much of the site being levelled and a series of gravel and cobbled surfaces being laid out. Several new structures were then built in this area, including a substantial post-built rectangular building, together defining a courtyard associated with a number of hearths, thought to be part of a smithy complex. It may even have formed one element of a wider 'light industrial' zone of the settlement, with evidence for pottery production and other metalworking in the vicinity. This volume presents the results of this work, setting it in the context of increasing archaeological investigation of Roman Worcester, which together is transforming our understanding of the settlement.

Chadwell St Mary is a village in the unitary authority of Thurrock, in southern Essex. This part of the county contains a high proportion of prehistoric settlement. This volume describes the archaeological excavation of a site to the east of Chadwell St Mary and the late Bronze Age and Anglo-Saxon settlements that were recorded there. The Bronze Age settlement contains a ringwork or 'Springfield style enclosure', relatively rare sites with a restricted geographical distribution, and is significant because of its proximity to the similar site at Mucking. This volume examines the function of such enclosures, their significance in the landscape of southern Essex, and looks, in general, at our current understanding of the utilisation of the Bronze Age landscape. The small Anglo-Saxon settlement is of significance due to its potential relationship with the larger contemporary settlement at Mucking. The book examines Anglo-Saxon structures and settlement form and layout.

Stories from the Edge identifies a methodology to illuminate the early medieval history of places that lack the compelling evidence to be included in national surveys of the period. It demonstrates that even in seemingly unpromising places something can be said about the people of the period. In landscape terms it is a study of the little world, the local, the manorial complex with its church and burial place, a micro-topography, investigating the construction of social memory. Through this we see the way the early medieval landscape was perceived and how people engaged with it in a creative and imaginative series of responses. Their past and present were negotiated and expressed through the landscape. It is about stories and storytelling, about the creation of memory, the invention of home, spirituality and social hierarchy. This study re-tells some of those stories and recaptures the early medieval sense of place in Pirehill. Above all though, this is an account of living in a mutable landscape and the stories people once told there.

The village of Exning in the most westerly part of Suffolk is a small settlement appended to the north-west of the larger town of Newmarket. Despite its modern inferiority to Newmarket, it is understood to have been an important location in the Anglo-Saxon period. Statements in the Liber Eliensis or 'Book of Ely' suggest that St Æthelthryth, or Etheldreda, the daughter of King Anna of East Anglia, who would become Abbess of Ely, was born here. This volume describes the archaeological excavation of the site and the 7th century Anglo-Saxon cemetery that was recorded here. Grave goods present with several of the burials in the cemetery were indicative of high status. Of further note is the similarity of the richest grave at this site with a grave recorded at a cemetery on the Isle of Ely which is considered to have had links with the religious community there.

This book examines the archaeological investigations undertaken between 1979 and 2009 on the wreck of the Stirling Castle a 70-gun third-rate ship of the line, lost on the Goodwin Sands, Kent during the Great Storm of 1703. Included is a history of the warship, a detailed account of archaeological investigations undertaken and the environmental factors impacting the seabed remains. A review of the ship’s construction draws on records of structure remaining on the seabed and recovered material. The artefact collection is considered by material and type. Specialist analysis has enabled greater understanding of ship fittings, weapons, navigation equipment, medical artefacts, food preparation and consumption, clothing and apparel, and life onboard. The volume demonstrates the value of studying dispersed archives from shipwreck excavations and their potential to add considerably to maritime history and archaeology. In this case the examined archaeological records and artefacts from the Stirling Castle offer a compelling insight into the maritime world of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries from a range of perspectives. 

The Camel and Fowey rivers incise deeply into Cornwall, nearly meeting in the middle. This book is a landscape study of the Camel/Fowey corridor which forms a natural trans-peninsular portage route across Cornwall, avoiding circumnavigating the notoriously hazardous Land's End sea route. The author investigates the effect this route had on society through micro- and macro settlement studies involving an extensive programme of geophysical analysis. This has generated fresh insight into the socio-economic and continuity dynamics of this part of Cornwall, together with the interaction between Romans and the indigenous population. The findings explore socio-political influences in the Roman period and cultural continuity into the post-Roman period.

More than 800 hoards of medieval precious metal coins are known from England and Wales, but the phenomenon as a whole remains poorly understood: who made coin hoards, what did they put in them, how did they assemble them, where did they bury them, and, ultimately, why did they do it? This book provides a pioneering analysis of the archaeological and numismatic evidence for coin hoarding in medieval England and Wales, using innovative multivariate and spatial techniques to shed fresh light on the behaviours, motivations, and mentalités behind the formation and deposition of coin hoards during in the period c.973-1544. It is accompanied by a digital gazetteer describing the 815 hoards used in the study, the largest and most comprehensive corpus ever assembled for this region and period.

The book examines the moneyers, those men responsible for minting the king's coinage, within developing urban society in England during the tenth and eleventh centuries to address both their status and whether the internal workplace organisation of the mints might reflect the complexity of an Anglo-Saxon 'state'. In reviewing the minting operation of late Anglo-Saxon England, and the men in charge of those mints, a better picture of the social history of pre-Conquest England is realised. These men were likely part of the thegnly or burgess class and how they organised themselves might reflect broader trends in how those outside of the aristocracy acted in response to royal directives. The book outlines a new and innovative method of analysing the organisation of labour in Medieval England. These new techniques and methodologies provide support for a previously unknown level of complexity in English minting.Accompanying the book are several digital downloads, including the Moneyers of England Database, 973-1086, consisting of information on 3,646 periods of moneyer activity derived from 28,576 individual coins produced at ninety-nine geographic locations.

In this book, David A. Fisher combines methods including Geographic Information Systems (GIS), GPS, computerised three-dimensional modelling and astronomical formulae in order to reconstruct the world as it was seen by the builders of Scottish megalithic sites within the region of Argyll and Mull. These sites have no associated archaeological artifacts that allow us to determine the dates of their construction. Through the employment of these methods, however, the sites' astronomical orientations may be visualised and used to predict a feasible date range for their construction more accurately than has been possible in past research. New discoveries made via computer simulations/animations showing 3D recreations of the sites through the course of a single year, or over millennia (available as a digital download accompanying this book), show that the sites are 800 to 1000 years older than previously stated, and new hypotheses as to how the sites were employed are also suggested. For the first time, the author offers the definitive conclusion that stars formed an important part of megalithic history.

Archaeology of Roman Britain, Volume 1This book examines the archaeological material from Hadrian's Wall within the significant Clayton Collection. The Collection was formed through the work of John Clayton, antiquarian and landowner, in the 19th century. His work took place at a pivotal time in the study of Hadrian's Wall, as public interest was growing, access was improving, and the discipline of archaeology was developing. As part of a large network of antiquarians, Clayton excavated, studied and published his discoveries. After his death, his archaeological estate was retained, and the Collection was moved into a museum in 1896. Despite being in the public domain for so long, the material has never been studied as a whole, or in the light of its 19th century creation. This work is the first to bring together the history and development of the collection alongside the material itself. It offers an insight into how important antiquarian collections can provide valuable information about Roman life.

UCL Institute of Archaeology PhD Series, Volume 1The research presented in this book advances scholarship on Anglo-Saxon non-elite rural settlements through the analysis of material culture. Forty-four non-elite sites and the high-status site of Staunch Meadow, occupied throughout the Anglo-Saxon period (c. 5th-11th centuries) and geographically representative of Anglo-Saxon settlement in England, were selected for study. Comparative analyses of the material culture assemblages and settlement data from these sites were evaluated from four main research perspectives: the archaeological contexts and distributional patterns of material culture at the sites; the range and character of material culture; patterns of material culture consumption; and material culture as evidence for the economic reach of rural settlements.

This book provides a corpus of inscribed hawking rings (vervels) reported Treasure via the Portable Antiquities Scheme over the last twenty years. Since vervels are normally inscribed with information about their owners, they constitute an important social and archaeological record. This information is explored through the corpus, which shows the objects to have been owned predominantly by men of status, particularly in the Stuart period. Also included is a discussion of the development of hawking and the use of vervels, and analysis of their form, function and dating, as well as variations in design. Particularly significant is the information on their distribution, as many inscribed vervels are found in the vicinity of estates owned by the individuals mentioned upon them. This publication thus provides a unique resource to the scholar and to the casual enthusiast.

The aim of this study is to consider pits from the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age - not easily classified - in substantial detail, to address questions concerning the kinds of practices and places they represent.

The Roman Gask project was founded in 1995 in the University of Manchester. It has since been engaged in an extensive campaign of surveys, excavation and archive work. Its remit was to cover all of Roman Scotland north of the Antonine Wall but, as its name suggests, its principal focus has been on the system of military works on and around the Gask Ridge in Perthshire (from the Glenbank fortlet, north of Dunblane, to the fort of Bertha on the Tay). This volume is an interim report describing the progress made during its first five years. It is in two sections; the first provides an overview of the current state of knowledge on the Gask, while the second section reports on a series of field work programmes (two rescued from archives dating from the 1960s and 1970s. The project has undertaken nineteen excavations, numerous surveys, museum/archive work, air-photography assignments, and field-walking tasks: a significant achievement over a short period of time.With contributions from A.T. Croom, M.H. Davies, A.C. Finnegan, M.A. Hall, K.F. Hartley, B. Hoffmann, A.J. Hughes, N.J. Lockett and S. Ramsay.

This book presents a study and comparison of the historical and archaeological records of Middle Saxon Lincolnshire and Hampshire in the period immediately following the conversion to Christianity to the reign of King Alfred (c.650-870). The work charts and compares, from an archaeological perspective, the political, social, and economic development of Lincolnshire and Hampshire throughout the Middle Saxon period. It is the first full-length study of this period to include metal-detector finds, and to illustrate the outstanding importance of this extensive and continuously growing new material. In fact, the book presents a plea for the recognition of metal-detected material and the outstanding value of these finds to the archaeology of the Middle Saxon period. Containing 31 detailed maps in colour, illustrating finds and features.

This book presents the detailed results of excavations at a small multi-period site in south-east Dorset. The site provided evidence for an Early Neolithic enclosure, a timber-framed, Late Bronze Age roundhouse, Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age middening activities, Iron Age and Roman settlement and a post-Roman inhumation cemetery. The midden and its associated features and finds are of particular significance, with evidence for deposition and accumulation over several centuries. Other important features include: a Late Iron Age stone-lined pit containing over 100 near-complete pots and a substantial quantity of animal bone, suggesting a large-scale communal gathering and feasting activity; a Roman barn, used as a shale workshop and as a burial place for infants; a 6th- to 8th-century AD cemetery of single, double and triple graves, illuminating the nature of change in burial practices in Dorset at this time; and significant pottery and animal bone assemblages, particularly from the Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age and Late Iron Age.

This report describes the results of the evaluations and excavations of the new A34/M4 interchange at Chieveley, West Berksire, England, and discusses the combined evidence from superficial and subsurface finds. It is concluded that there was a significant intensification of activity in the area starting in the Middle Bronze Age following a sporadic earlier prehistoric presence. This continued into the Late Bronze Age. The lack of Iron Age material is noted and there seems to have been a re-intensification of occupation in the late Iron Age or early Roman periods. The few early-middle Saxon pits were divorced from a settlement context and remain enigmatic.With contributions from Alex Thorne, Jane Timby, Tora Hylton, Ian Meadows, Val Fryer, Rowena Gale and Karen Deighton

Written by Peter Ellis, Gary Coates, Richard Cuttler and Catharine MouldA report on four pieces of fieldwork undertaken in Cambridgeshire (Pode Hole Farm, Paston, Longstanton, Bassingbourn) in 1996 and 1997. Pode Hole Farm provided Bronze Age to Romano-British material; Paston Romano-British; Longstanton Late Saxon and Medieval; and Bassingbourn Saxon and Medieval. Each has a similar format and layout, starting with a review of the processes leading up to the fieldwork and an outline of the methods used followed by acknowlegements. In the case of three of the excavations, an historical and documentary section follows which summarizes the known data before excavation began and provides a necessary historical background. In a general concluding discussion some points are considered from the excavations and the results are set within their county context.

The book explores the potential of geographic information systems (GIS) techniques to reduce the difficulties encountered while dealing with vast lithic data from the British Lower and Middle Palaeolithic and support analysis and interpretation of all the available archaeological evidence. The topics discussed are spatial modelling of the industrial landscape and long-term modelling of hominid behaviour.

This book investigates the topic of human imagery and hybrid human imagery rendered on metalwork of early Anglo-Saxon date recovered within eastern England (Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, Suffolk and Norfolk), AD 400-680. It presents the first definitive catalogue of its kind for this region and timeframe. Taking inspiration from recent transitions in thinking on early medieval mortuary archaeology and art, the author considers such topics as the interrelationship between image, object and the user, the changing portrayal of human representation and the social implications of such developments and the emergence of new bodily gestures in representational art. These key themes may provide an understanding of how and why human imagery changed as it did, how and by whom it was deployed in life and death and the role that this type of imagery performed in the construction and presentation of social identity.

Birmingham University Field Archaeology Unit - Monograph Series 1Written by Peter Ellis, Gwilym Hughes, Peter Leach, Catharine Mould and Jon SterenbergDescribes the results of archaeological investigations at a number of sites undertaken by Birmingham University Field Archaeology Unit in 1996. New prehistoric sites were found along the length of the road corridor which, from Alconbury Hill to Norman Cross, coincides with Ermine Street. Here the major Roman road would have taken on additional importance where it skirted the fen edge. The book reports on a number of excavations along this section.

Aves Ditch is one of the best-preserved and yet most enigmatic of the ancient monuments in Oxfordshire, and it has remained a landmark to the present day. Lined by a straight row of trees, it can be seen over a fair distance. It runs virtually dead straight over no less than 4.2 km from north of Kirtlington to the modern parish boundary between Upper Heyford and Middleton Stoney. For over three centuries scholars have wondered whether it is of pre-Roman, Roman or Anglo-Saxon origin, whether it was a road or a linear earthwork and, in the latter case, what function it may have served. Notwithstanding this centuries-old debate and it being easily accessible just 15 to 22 km north of Oxford, it is also one of the least known of the county's visible archaeological features and is seldom referred to in popular or scholarly work on the history or archaeology of the region. Previously unpublished excavations of the 1930s and further work in the 1990s have contributed much to solving this enigma, and the present book provides the final report on these excavations.With contributions by Paul Booth, Patrick Erwin, Peter Hacking, Birgitta Hoffmann, Stephanie Knight and Mark Robinson.