Books in the British Archaeological Reports British Series series

Subtitled a survey of grave treatment and furnishing, AD 43-410' this 1990 Birmingham thesis is a study of the layout and the contents of all cremation and inhumation graves. This means that it is firstly an enormous compilation of data, which is presented in catalogue form and in numerous distribution maps. There is also extensive discussion of all types of grave and grave find: cremations in glass or pottery vessels, or amphorae; inhumations in stone cists; prone burials; decapitated burials; burials in boots; burials with jewellery, with weapons ... to name but a few. All extremely useful summaries, with not a few perceptive comments. No one writing on burials in the future will ignore this volume.

Examination of ten major churches of pre-Viking period in Anglo-Saxon England, from a linguistic as well as from an historical point of view. As a whole, the book provides an historical context for the development of Anglo-Saxon architecture in the seventh and eighth centuries. Evidence from Merovinigian and early Carolingian Gaul is also examined and the text of almost all the documentary evidence, together with the author's new translations, is given in the second part of the study.

This work investigates the use of Old Red Sandstone from South Wales, Gloucestershire, Avon and Somerset during the Roman period, for rotary querns. It is based on detailed petrographic studies of these rocks at both microscopic and macroscopic levels to define practical keys which allow types of Old Red Sandstone, and hence artefacts made from it, to be identified and provenanced to their geological formations. 1200 rotary querns of Old Red sandstone from 180 sites were analysed (stretching from southeast Wales in the west, to Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire in the east. It extends as far south as Dorchester (Dorset) and as far north as Coleshill (Warwickshire)). The petrological study also identifies the three major source areas in the Roman period as the Forest of Dean, the Bristol area and the Mendips and investigates the differences in the distribution of finds from each of these sources. A typological study is included, with a detailed description and analysis of the types of ORS querns manufactured, their dating and their distribution. The routes and mechanisms through which the querns were moved are also investigated and the production of ORS querns is also assessed.

Tenure describes certain relations between people and material things. It has long been an important theme in archaeology, especially in the interpretation of ancient land division. How do archaeologists approach this subject, and which approaches have the most potential? This monograph explores tenure through analysis of Bronze Age land division on Dartmoor (south-west Britain) . The research has two aims: to develop existing approaches to tenure, and to interpret land division and tenure on Dartmoor during the second millennium BC. The research applies a series of different theories of, and approaches to tenure to data from Dartmoor. Methods used include spatial analysis of land division and settlement patterns, metrological analysis, experimental reconstruction and synthesis of palaeoenvironmental, excavation and artefactual data. The results are used to advance an interpretation of land division and tenure on Dartmoor and to reflect critically on approaches to tenure.

Moving away from the highly constrained, purely humanistic and empirical studies of hillfort location and morphology of the past, this book presents a multi-regional GIS-based analysis of the form and siting of several groups of hillforts across Britain. The location and morphology of hillforts in Ceredigion, Dartmoor, Aberdeenshire, The Gower and Warminster are investigated through a combination of GIS-based analysis and field visits. An innovative approach of integrating movement with visibility is employed to investigate whether movement, visibility and topography influenced the location and morphology of these hillforts. This investigation emphasises the complexity of hillforts as a class of site. It demonstrates that GIS-based analysis, when combined with fieldwork, can effectively be applied to the investigation of hillfort location and form, paving the way for future research agendas within hillforts and beyond.

This book brings together, for the first time, all of the burials and funerary practices from the Middle Neolithic to the end of the Middle Bronze Age (3600-1200 BC) in Wales into one coherent volume. The work is the first to provide an up-to-date synthesis of monument form and mortuary practice in Neolithic and Bronze Age Wales. It provides a comprehensive overview of all human bone deposits (both cremation and inhumation) throughout this time span. This comprises the osteological analysis of over 250 human bone deposits, with new observations and interpretations. The book engages with current debates on the changing character and significance of burial rites in later prehistory.

A Gazetteer representing practical field observations of most of the prehistoric Standing Stones in Great Britain and some 'Other Stones' which post-date AD 1. The list also includes 34 prehistoric Standing Stones known to be extant but which the author was unable to visit, a list of Standing Stones of unknown provenance, and of interesting 'Other Stones'. The motivation for this work was the Wimblestone (Somerset, ST434585) which is an extant prehistoric Standing Stone close to the author's childhood home and which started his interest in these monuments. In September 1996 the author set out to find, visit and sketch the prehistoric Standing Stones in Great Britain and soon discovered that there was no readily available, and comprehensive list or lists of Standing Stones and their exact locations. Therefore, with numerous Standing Stones unknown to the author and others which were very difficult to find, the author decided to attempt to produce a readily usable gazetteer of as many as possible of the prehistoric Standing Stones in Great Britain (with the National Grid reference number for each) together with colour sketches, photographs, field records and relevant information gathered from various sources; deliberately excluded were stone circles, long stone rows, burial chambers and dolmens. Some Standing Stones were not visited because they were inaccessible for various reasons and these are separately listed. These and the other Standing Stones and some other stone monuments which postdate AD 1 are recorded in the gazetteers but are excluded from the analysis. Apparently unrecorded Standing Stones continue to be found, making the production of a totally comprehensive gazetteer of all the prehistoric Standing Stones in Great Britain the work of many lifetimes.

The description of Kent contained in "Domesday Book" does not stand alone. At the time of the "Survey of the whole of England" - the survey conducted in 1086 by order of king William I - there were four ancient churches existing in Kent: Christ Church and Saint Augustine's in Canterbury, Saint Andrew's in Rochester, Saint Martin's in Dover. From the archives of three of them (all except Dover) copies of documents survive which are more or less closely related to the Survey. The aim of the present book is to bring together all the relevant written evidence, so as to enable a better understanding of it. A few documents are printed here which have not been printed before. For those which have, this book provides a more accurate text than any previous edition. For example, the transcription of the "Domesday Book" text given here includes a few words which have become undecipherable in the original, but which were still legible when a copy was made in the 1760s. That is the same copy used by Edward Hasted, whose "History of Kent" (1778-99) was the first serious attempt to reconnect the written evidence with the actual landscape. For anyone interested in the workings of the Survey, or in the topography of medieval Kent, this book will be indispensable.

The purpose of this study is to explore, through a variety of approaches, the extent to which the stereotype of the 'obese medieval monk' is founded in truth. The work aims to determine the 'antiquity' of that stereotype, by exploring the image of the monk throughout the medieval period (defined as AD 1066-c.1540), and the contribution of the medieval accusations and criticisms of monks to the evolution of the modern stereotype. Chapters focus on archaeological and historical evidence pertaining to monastic diet, and an osteological study comparing the physique and the prevalence of obesity-related joint disease in medieval monks from London with their secular counterparts. Ultimately, the evidence presented in each chapter is drawn together and considered to give a holistic perspective on the 'obese medieval monk'.

This work, focusing on specific categories of royal estates, concentrates on the later Anglo-Saxon period in England (the mid-ninth century to the mid-eleventh AD). These centuries were a formative period in early medieval history, in which a state can be seen to have developed from a small kingdom to take control of lowland Britain, and, indeed, exert political influence over much of the rest of Britain. The area of this study consists of royal lands in the two shires of Hampshire and Dorset as set out in the folios of Domesday Book. Royal estates were lands used to support kings and their immediate retinue, and lands granted by kings to members of the royal family. Lands of royal agents are also examined in this work.

Principally through the use of landscape archaeology, this work explores the medieval landscape of west Wales, particularly the 'cwmwd' of Gwinionydd in the central Teifi valley, Ceredigion. The main focus of the study is to recreate the 'cwmwd-maenor-tref', territorial system administered by a pre-conquest Welsh aristocracy and locate native tenures along with their specific agricultural regimes. A retroactive analysis of estate structures, such as those at Llanfair and Llanllyr, establishes their medieval antecedence and they are considered alongside the monastic granges of Whitland, Strata Florida and Talley abbeys. This project draws upon techniques including field survey, remote sensing, geophysics, mapping and terrain modelling using Geographic Information Systems and Lidar data. These are complemented by excavation to target and clarify the interpretation of the survey results. The work can be viewed as a trans-disciplinary landscape analysis that has implications for future approaches to the study of rural Wales: this successful study of an apparently inscrutable rural landscape is relevant for research and curatorial disciplines alike.

*Funta place-names, epitomize the complex network of linguistic and historical intersections in post-Roman Britain. It was a Latin term originally, but adopted and adapted by non-Romans, and used to describe liminal spaces where British and Germanic peoples met. Despite their relevance to a number of key questions about interactions between these cultures, they have never been systematically catalogued and studied before. This research, combining linguistic and archaeological analysis, remedies this. The book provides a detailed gazetteer of sites, extensive analysis and interpretation and, finally, an explanation of language usage and development in the fifth century. It precisely defines the *funta element in place names for the first time. It also discusses the development of British to Old English culture, and provides an insight into peaceful interactions between the different cultures that made up early Anglo-Saxon England, to temper the more traditional characterization of this period as a Dark Age.

Huddersfield and District Archaeological Society: Excavations in the vicus of Slack Roman fort 2007, 2008 and 2010Work on the vicus of the Roman fort at Slack, Huddersfield, by the Huddersfield and District Archaeological Society during three seasons of excavation in 2007, 2008 and 2010, covered in this volume, has led to a reconsideration of the dates of Roman occupation, taking it well into the 3rd and possibly 4th centuries AD. As on many other Roman military sites, the vicus area has had little attention and the possible continuation of the civilian area as a place of note on the Roman road has not previously been fully investigated. Radiocarbon dating and pottery analysis show convincingly that there was considerable late activity in the vicus area adjacent to the fort and the Roman road from Chester to York.

This book provides an exciting foray into the use of emerging Mixed Reality techniques for examining and analysing archaeological landscapes. Mixed Reality provides an opportunity to merge the real world with virtual elements of relevance to the past, including 3D models, soundscapes, smellscapes and other immersive data. By using Mixed Reality, the results of sophisticated desk-based GIS analyses can be experienced directly within the field and combined with body-centered phenomenological analysis to create an embodied GIS. The book explores the potential of this methodology by applying it in the Bronze Age landscape of Leskernick Hill, Bodmin Moor, UK. Since Leskernick Hill has (famously) already been the subject of intensive phenomenological investigation, it is possible to compare the insights gained from 'traditional' landscape phenomenology with those obtained from the use of Mixed Reality, and effectively combine quantitative GIS analysis and phenomenological fieldwork into one embodied experience. This mixing of approaches leads to the production of a new innovative method which not only provides new interpretations of the settlement on Leskernick Hill but also suggests avenues for the future of archaeological landscape research more generally. The book will be of interest to anyone studying or working in the fields of landscape archaeology, digital techniques in archaeology, archaeological theory or GIS.

In recent years zooarchaeology has started to move beyond the purely economic towards social interpretations. In particular, these 'social' interpretations have often concentrated upon complete or partial animal burials rather than upon the disarticulated and fragmented faunal remains more commonly recovered from archaeological sites. This book presents a study of these associated bone groups from the Neolithic to late Medieval periods of southern England and Yorkshire. Not only does it present data on over 2000 deposits, it also discusses their interpretation, arguing that most are based on generalised period-based assumptions. It is proposed that a biographical approach to these types of deposit, allows the investigation of the specific above ground actions behind their creation, moving away from generalisations towards individual interpretations. The study shows the value of not only utilising specialist data, but integrating such knowledge with other archaeological evidence and theoretical approaches. The book is divided into three main sections. The first two chapters discuss the history of associated bone groups in the archaeological record and how they are created by human and natural actions. The second section consists of detailed chapters (three to nine) discussing the evidence from each region and period. The third section discusses trends in the data and the problems with how they are interpreted. It outlines and tests the use of a biographical approach and discusses the implications of these findings for wider research.

Over 700 creatures of land, sea and sky have been recorded from at least 140 Romano-British mosaics. This comprehensively illustrated book is the first detailed study of them. It identifies and discusses the animals, assesses their role in floor decoration, and explains how they were much more than appealing decoration.

Archaeological investigations in response to the expansion of Pode Hole sand and gravel quarry (Cambridgeshire, east England), exposed a well-preserved prehistoric Fen-edge landscape covering an area of approximately 24 hectares. Pottery dates and a series of radiocarbon determinations reveal that the site was occupied throughout the second millennium BC, with activity apparently intensifying later in that period. A substantial assemblage of locally made Bronze Age pottery and other artefacts was gathered during the excavations.Principal Specialist Contributions from Paul Buckland, Kate Brayne, Catherine Langdon, Gemma Martin, Elaine Morris, James Rackham, Rob Scaife, Maisie Taylor, Jane Wheeler and Tania WilsonIllustrations by Steven J. Allen, Charlotte Bentley, Jacqueline Harding, Chloe Watson and David Watt 0

Analytical survey of visible evidence has been undertaken on twelve areas of prehistoric fields in southern Britain. In all cases at least two phases were noted, one directly overlying the other; in ten areas the earlier phase comprised an extensive rectilinear grid and the later, smaller areas of aggregated fields. It is suggested that the earliest of these fields date to the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC, on both sides of the Channel, and that they were symbolic of status within a period of visibly ostentatious possessions. The later fields represent a contraction of enclosed land; their design is suited to stock production.

Using a quotation from the English antiquary John Leland (c. 1503-1552) as their inspiration, the editors provide a fresh look at the monuments of Boston Lincolnshire (eastern England), and in particular the parish church of St Botolph's. Modern-day Boston is a small, sleepy market town, with little of its industrial enterprises having survived into this century, and is nowadays chiefly of importance as a shopping centre for its rich agricultural hinterland. Almost alone of the landmarks of Leland's Boston, St Botolph's remains as a testament in stone to Boston's glory days. It is the tallest parish church tower in the world, with a height of 83m. The nave is 74m long and 32m wide, larger than many cathedrals. This volume results from a 'Study-Day' organised at Boston by the Monumental Brass Society in May 2009 and forming part of the programme to celebrate St Botolph's 700th anniversary. In addition to the papers presented on the day, others have been specially commissioned to give a thorough overview of the town in the later Middle Ages, the architectural history of St Botolph's, the religious guilds which played such an important part of the lives of the townsfolk and, above all, the monuments. To this has been added a detailed illustrated catalogue of the medieval monuments. This book was shortlisted for the 'Flora Murray' prize, an award made annually by the Society for Lincolnshire Archaeology and History, and awarded the 'Certificate of Excellence' at the Society's AGM held in Kirton-in-Lindsey, north Lincolnshire, on Saturday June 15th, 2013. 'As Sally Badham points out in her introduction to this superb volume, St. Botolph's has one of the most important parish church floors in England, having lain relatively undisturbed across the centuries... With great mastery, Stephen Rigby takes us through Boston's rise and decline as a trading port, and through its general history and governance... Linda Monckton greatly enhances our understanding of the architecture of the parish church of St. Botolph's by placing it within a regional context.... Sally Badham's account of these guilds provides the third contextual study... These three contextual chapters do far more than offer background for the study of the monuments. They are significant studies in their own right. Inevitably, however, it is the studies of the monuments themselves that are the heart of the book. Paul Cockerham's chapter on the incised slabs is an important study, elegantly written and eminently quotable... We then turn to the brasses and indents under the expert guidance of Sally Badham, who brings her enviable skills as a detective to bear on the evidence, as well as her unrivalled knowledge of workshops.... One final comment needs to be made. The quality of this book reflects the increasing sophistication in the study of these monuments over recent decades, and the leap in knowledge, understanding and appreciation as a result. It is striking just how much ground-breaking work by members of the Monumental Brass Society, past and present, is cited in the footnotes. The Society is itself a great fellowship, as successful in its own way as any of the medieval guilds.' ('Transactions of the Monumental Brass Society', Volume XVIII, part 5 (2013), 504-7)

The book includes a thorough catalogue of seal-boxes from Britan, it offers a typology of shapes, looks at the chronolgy and manufacture and discusses possible uses as well as designs and significance.

ARCUS Studies in Historical Archaeology 1"'Made in Sheffield'" still carries a huge amount of credibility, both nationally and abroad. These pages chronicle the history of the men and women who originally gave these three simple words their standing in the world today." This volume is the first in a new series of studies in historical archaeology. Bringing together the work of archaeologists, historians and others, this publication examines the Sheffield cutlery industry - from Chaucer's time and before, right up to the present day.Written by James Symonds with contributions from Victoria Beauchamp and Joan Unwin and foreword by John C. Bramah, Master Cutler

Two extended papers investigating two contemporary areas of experimental archaeology. Paper 1: Simulation of prehistoric cremation: experimental pyres, and their use for interpretation of archaeological structures. Excavation in 1990-1992 of the round barrow at Guiting Power 3, located in the Gloucestershire Cotswolds (England), produced burnt surfaces, scatters of fire-debris, and deposits of cremated human bone in primary locations. All of these elements were critical for interpretation of the sequenceof ritual at the site, and for discussion of its general function as a monument. Analysis of a series of fully-monitored experimental cremation pyres is used to supplement the interpretation of burnt pyre-bases, and other associated archaeological features, of the type found under Bronze Age round barrows in Britain, and to add detail to the process of ancient cremation. Paper 2: Methods of grain storage during the Iron Age in southern Britain: further investigation by experiment. Discovery of unusually large, rock-cut 'silo-pits' at certain Iron Age enclosures in the Cotswolds (Gloucestershire, UK), with parallels elsewhere, prompted examination of their potential as unsealed but roofed granaries, in view of practical difficulties inherent in sealing them at ground level and other structural evidence. A series of fully-monitored experiments allows their performance during over-winter storage of grain to be assessed, and compared with operation of smaller sealed pits.

This programme of five geophysical analyses arose from specific problems encountered during survey and excavation of mid-later Iron Age settlement enclosures by the author in the Gloucestershire Cotswolds (UK). At these sites there was a need to supplement detailed magnetic mapping from gradiometry with higher quality data on magnetic susceptibility (MS), in order to establish a more viable basis for assessing patterns of burnt material over and around clearly defined archaeological structures. Paper 1: small Iron Age enclosures: The first project introduces the MS probe within a detailed analysis, supported by data from a range of related sites. These smaller, lightly-defended ditched enclosures, often complexes with appended subenclosures, usually clearly definable by gradiometry, are a common type in the Cotswold and English Midland areas, and present excellent subjects for functional analysis using MS and other geochemical data. Few such detailed studies exist. Paper 2: Iron Age hillforts: The Cotswold area contains a series of hillforts, ranging from smaller and more modestly defended, to larger and often highly defensive sites. This diversity, and the relative absence of data on internal, and especially on any external features, present clear grounds for investigation. MS surveys over the interiors of Iron Age hillforts and adjacent extra-mural areas indicate patterns of activity highly relevant to their functional interpretation, and allow comparison with data from broadly contemporary ditched enclosures. Paper 3: larger Roman settlement:Survey of extensive and complex areas of Iron Age and Roman settlement provides data relevant to their layout and operation. One Roman 'small town' site and one complex of more agrarian Roman settlement, both with known mid-later Iron Age antecedents, were selected, both on a similar gravel substrate. Paper 4: early Bronze Age round barrows: The region includes many funerary areas of Neolithic to Bronze Age date, containing mainly round, but often long barrow sites. MS survey can be applied with some confidence to map distributions of burnt sediment over and around them, and to retrieve at least some information. Detailed survey of barrow monuments and their surrounding areas provides data on the properties of known sites as MS anomalies, indicates the potential for detection of terminal sites, truncated and without apparent above-ground features, and allows association between round barrows and areas of nearby settlement or activity to be assessed. Paper 5: Cotswold area: Extensive survey over a 40 km2 sample of the Cotswold upland and dip-slope reveals patterns of MS relevant to discussion of early land clearance and use, to development and organisation of settlement in the area, also to environmental events in this catchment area of the upper Thames valley and their effects on its hydrology.

Papers in Honour of Martin Biddle and Birthe Kjølbye-Biddle

This study takes as its subject matter the use of social space in early medieval Irish houses (c. AD 600-1200), with the evidence from the province of Ulster interrogated in more detail. During this period there is a shift from curvilinear to rectilinear house forms.

The present book demonstrates how major advances in the understanding of historic battles can be achieved through the application of the techniques of archaeology alongside those of military history, to exploit these neglected sets of evidence. It also provides examples of how results can be improved through the application of scientific expertise, in fields such as ballistics. It begins with a chronological review of battlefield studies in England, considering the effectiveness of the approaches that have been taken. Building upon this assessment, a detailed methodology is defined which seeks to exploit the full range of evidence that exists for these major historical events. Firstly the techniques for the reconstruction of the historic terrain are described, together with the ways in which the evidence from the primary sources for the battles can be used to place the military events more accurately within this context. As military history and landscape archaeology are well developed areas of research, their methodologies can be applied with little further development. It then shows how the hypotheses developed in such work can be validated and enhanced through analysis of the physical evidence left by the battles themselves. Because battle archaeology has received such limited attention in England there is a detailed discussion of the methodology for systematic survey of battle archaeology using metal detectors. However, given that lead bullets are the main form of archaeological evidence recovered from early modern battles, it is their analysis that forms the centre piece of this study. Finally the effectiveness of the whole methodology is demonstrated through a major new field investigation and documentary study of the terrain, battle archaeology and military history of the battle of Edgehill.

It has been variously considered that churches faced east for liturgical reasons or reasons of Christian religious belief; that they faced Jerusalem; that they faced sunrise on the day that building work started; or that they faced sunrise on their patronal-saint's feast day, and, in the cases where nave and chancel were aligned differently, that this represented religious symbolism; etc. This study investigates the many reasons for alignment variances in medieval English churches and explores whether the differing alignments have any specific meaning and the scope of the survey allows statistically significant conclusions to be drawn from the results. A further element of the study considers the location of rural churches. In the past it has always been assumed that a church was built in, or close to, the village or estate that it served, but as a secondary action. This work explores the timing of the adoption of the sites that now contain village churches, particularly in relation to the processes of settlements fixing their position in the Saxon period, and settlement nucleation. This offers the possibility that some church sites may have determined the location of the settlement that they now serve rather than vice versa.

This is the report of the excavation of an enigmatic site in South Gloucestershire, which contained a decorated cellar with a cruciform setting of channels beneath its floor, almost certainly of 'ritual' significance, and a very large bath-house which included a swimming pool some fourteen metres long. Both the cellar and the bath-house had painted wall plaster and the bath-house contained a small area of tessellated floor. No other rooms were decorated in any way. The site dates from the late 1st Century AD and there was no evidence of any earlier activity apart from a number of randomly distributed flints, mainly Mesolithic.With contributions from Michael J. Allen, Rosemary Braithwaite, Blue Circle Technical Centre, Tony Boxall, Janet Cooper, Hugh Corrie, Martin Henig, Mark Maltby, Fiona Roe, Erica Utsi, Bruce Waddell, Jenny Waring, John Peter Wild, David Williams and Kay Wood.

The book assesses the impact of a Cistercian monastery on the landscape and how, in its turn, the landscape influenced the monastery. It also tests some of the traditional views on the early ideals of the Cistercians such as their attitude to colonisation, land clearance, administration of their territory and dealings with secular society. This study also goes beyond the monastic period and examines what effect the suppression of the monastery had on the landscape and community. This volume approaches the subject from a different perspective and examines not only the abbey but its territory using archaeology, architecture, documents and map evidence in a holistic, 'landscape' manner. Using the earthwork survey plan of the abbey, features within the precinct are identified.

This study examines female representation in British Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age (2500 - 1500 BC) funerary practices. Chronology relating to the burial practices is studied, from large scale change over time through to small scale individual chronologies; looking at age representation. In contrast to previous approaches, this study moves beyond purely looking at the grave goods and instead places greater emphasis upon other features of the burials, such as location, form and method. As a result, the methodology used in this study examines the varied forms of this period's burials, yet still considers them as a unit.