Books in the British Archaeological Reports British Series series

In 2006 and 2007, a 94km-long gas pipeline was excavated across the Pennines, from Pannal in North Yorkshire, to Nether Kellet in Lancashire (N/W England). Around twenty archaeological excavations were undertaken to mitigate the impact of the construction of the pipeline on the archaeology of the route, and these form the subject of this volume. The excavated remains were generally slight and were widely scattered along the route; the range of periods they represent is equally broad and intermittent. The earliest recorded evidence was a Mesolithic flint scatter from Ribblesdale. Bronze Age activity was represented by ringworks, burnt mounds and rock art, with an apparent concentration on the Craven lowlands during this period. The prehistoric remains seem to reveal a low and shifting population, more concerned with monumentality and remembering than with settlement and land division. Very few traces of activity attributable to the 1st millennium BC were encountered. Romano-British remains were surprisingly sparse considering the military infrastructure and transport network inserted into the region at this time. The pattern of slight and transient landuse with low levels of material culture, established in prehistory, appears to have been an enduring characteristic of the area. The excavations along the Pannal to Nether Kellet pipeline have undoubtedly helped to characterise the archaeological resource of the Pennine river valleys through which it passed, and have refined the understanding of the distribution and chronology of various activities and site types across a range of time periods. Some questions have been answered, and many new ones framed. These sites now exist as a comparator for future work, both in the local area and nationally.

Insect remains from archaeological sites can tell us an astonishing amount about the past. This ranges from lists of which species were present, via intimate details of the parasitological state of Londoners of the time, to socially and economically significant reconstructions of the environment and climate. However, many insects are unfamiliar to most people, and the methods used to glean information from their fossils can be complex. In this study the author makes us feel much more familiar with the creatures themselves, and presents descriptions of site results, explanations of methodology, and outlines his conclusions. In addition we understand how the details of remains for single sites can be woven together into bigger stories. The results from London, with their long time span and geographical range, present an excellent basis for an accessible account of this kind. This book will bring them to a wider audience, which is commendable. But even more importantly it will serve to convince more archaeologists that bioarchaeology in general, and work on insect remains in particular, is worthwhile and more than justifies its cut of any excavation project budget.

This study uses place-names to suggest the major routes in use in early medieval England. Many Roman roads existing by the fifth century are known. Some fourteenth century routes in existence can be deduced from the Gough map of c.1360, and seventeenth century routes from Ogilby's road atlas of 1675. Between the fifth and fourteenth centuries there is little information about routes except in scattered charter boundary references. Here it is suggested that this gap can be partially filled using place-name evidence. Certain names such as Stratton, Drayton and Compton occur consistently by Roman roads and a few other old routes but rarely elsewhere. A string of such names along a route suggests that it was in use. Hythe and Eaton indicate waterways in use. The needs of travellers, possible destinations and how such a naming system may have arisen is considered.

In 2002-2003, the construction of a new road to bypass the village of Toomebridge, Co Antrim, through which the main Belfast to Derry Road (A6) passed, was commenced by Roads Service; an Agency within the Department of Regional Development. As part of the overall planning permission for the Toomebridge Bypass, the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) raised a requirement for archaeological mitigation. Northern Archaeological Consultancy Ltd was appointed to undertake the archaeological excavation of this site. In the course of topsoil stripping a small drumlin on part of the road scheme 2,100 flint artefacts were uncovered. While the majority (approximately 70%) of these dated from the Late Mesolithic, the Earlier Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age periods were also represented. Archaeology was uncovered on the western side of the drumlin. It formed 14 discrete areas (Features 1-14). The features were for the most part structures and ranged in date from the Mid-Mesolithic (Features 1-4), through the Late Mesolithic (Features 5-8), the Bronze Age (Features 9-11), and the late Bronze Age or Iron Age (Feature 13) and the 19th to 20th centuries (Feature 14).

This book outlines the discovery and investigation of a Roman fort, enclosing an area of c. 2.1 ha, which overlooks the River Tamar, at Calstock in south-east Cornwall. Extensive geophysical survey has taken place, alongside campaigns of evaluation trenching and area excavation between 2007 and 2010. The fort was established c. AD50/55, and continued in use until c. AD 75/85. The presence of an earlier marching camp is also proposed. The whole site appears to be surrounded by a large polygonal hilltop enclosure that may have Iron Age origins, though may alternatively be of Roman military construction. Activity during the medieval period recommences by the eighth century, with two major phases of timber building in the eleventh / twelfth and twelfth / thirteenth centuries. The parish church of St Andrew sits within the footprint of the fort, and associated burial grounds overlay the northern half of the site. The contexts of Roman military and medieval occupation are discussed within the regional and national context.With contributions by John Allan, Michael J. Allen, Paul Bidwell, Christopher B. Ramsey, Dana Challinor, Hilary Cool, Gordon T. Cook, Alex Croom, Jenny Durrant, Charles French, W. Derek Hamilton, Lorrain Higbee, Michael J. Hughes, Julie Jones, John Meadows, Jo Mills, Henrietta Quinnell, Rob Scaife, Norman Shiel, Roger T. Taylor, Jane Timby, Susan Watts, and Tim Young

This work sets down the results of the author's excavation and fieldwork in west Wales within the framework now emerging for British early prehistory. Whilst much of the new data assembled here is thus relevant to the early Flandrian settlement of Wales,the coverage has been extended to include a consideration of the evidence for Late Pleistocene settlement as well. This arises not only from the author's interests but also from the fact that both Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic find-spots are co-located if not at the same find-spot then frequently in the same area. In chronological terms, the scope of the work therefore extends from c. 250,000 BP to c. 5,000 BP, but concentrates specifically on the Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic record. Chapter II sets out to summarize the Pleistocene archaeological record for Wales against what is known of the environmental background. Only after the late Devensian glacial maximum, does this record become in any sense prolific in Britain. In Chapter III the discussion moves on into the Flandrian to consider the early Mesolithic settlement of Wales. In Chapter IV a further very important Mesolithic find-spot is introduced. This is the well-known flint 'factory' at The Nab Head on the clifftop of St. Brides Bay, west Wales, recognized since the last century as a prolific source of flint tools and chippings. Later Mesolithic technology in Wales is introduced and discussed in Chapter V. Additional chronological and environmental data are assessedfollowed by a description of some of the other important Welsh find-spots with 'narrow blade' material. Amongst the latter is a newly discovered site at The Nab Head (Site II) - described in Chapter VI - where the writer conducted excavations in 1981, 1982 and 1986. Using the results from the excavations at The Nab Head to predict the probable appearance of local late Mesolithic stone technologies, Chapter VII then discusses collections made by the author from the abundant lithic scatters along the coastal lowlands of north-west Dyfed. Earlier research sought to place a greater emphasis on the high biotic potential of western coasts and the advantages of a combined exploitation of both terrestrial and marine economies. This latter theme is taken up again here in the final part of Chapter VII, which assesses the economic resources potentially available during the late Mesolithic and speculates upon the exploitation and settlement patterns responsible for such apparently intensive coastal activity. The significance of coastal regimes to the emergence of farming at the end of the Mesolithic is also considered. Finally, a concluding Chapter briefly notes some of the more significant results of this research and ends by emphasizing the need both for more freshly excavated data and the further application of AMS dating throughout the periods covered.

The search for the origins of rural communities in England as perceived in the medieval period has exercised a strong fascination for scholars. Until well into the 20th century, such work was almost exclusively the preserve of historians and was, by and large, "document-driven". Today, the landscape itself is "interrogated" to provide evidence in its own right, and archaeologists can give answers to many questions posed by landscape historians. In this work, the author presents a general, synthetic survey of certain aspects of medieval settlement in three contrasting areas (hundreds) within the county of Somerset, England. The objective is to give an impression of the nature of rural occupation, its affinities and antecedents, very much from a topographical perspective. The author makes extensive use of fieldwork, historic maps and records, and unpublished archaeological and landscape reports, and it soon becomes apparent that a wide range of settlement patterns and forms is encompassed both within and between the three hundreds of the present study, and this allows the reader to draw illuminating comparisons and contrasts in terms of the topographical themes that define the work.

One of the most tenacious and long-running controversies regarding the origin and development of the late Anglo-Saxon town has been the nature and function of 'heterogeneous tenure', one of the defining characteristics of the Domesday borough. This refers to the basic division of the larger boroughs as described in Domesday Book into the customary burgesses or tenements which owed dues and obligations to the king alone, and the non-customary burgesses or tenements which were appurtenant to the various manors of tenants-in-chief of the shire (and sometimes neighbouring shires) to whom they paid rent and owed other dues and services. This present study outlines a preliminary model for the development of these rural-urban connections, based primarily on a reassessment of the evidence in Domesday Book and in earlier charters, where available, and the spatial relationships of the manors enumerated in it to their central boroughs, their neighbours, and to shire and other early boundaries, as well as to other features of the physical and historic landscape. This model is developed and tested by the analysis of evidence from several adjoining areas in central England - 1) Wiltshire (chapters 2 and 3); 2) Hampshire (chapter 4); 3) Warwickshire and south Staffordshire (chapter 5); 4) Gloucestershire (including the former Winchcombeshire) (chapter 6); 5) Worcestershire (chapter 7); and 6) Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire (chapters 10-12).

The research reported in this monograph follows on directly from the findings that were reported in BAR 492, in which, among many other discoveries, the author recognised that the courses of both Roman Dere Street and Hadrian's Wall had been underpinned by frameworks of long-distance alignments. Stimulated by the detection of several more of these alignments across northern England by another researcher, Robert Entwistle, the author, who is a chartered engineer as well as an archaeologist, seeks to examine why, how, and when such long-distance alignments may have been laid out. Consideration is then given to the processes by which some of these alignments seem subsequently to have been adopted to help set out the courses of Roman roads. These processes are shown, at times, to have been far from straightforward, and this appears to offer an explanation for many of the minor divergences that Roman roads, as built, take from such alignments in practice. The courses of four well-known Roman roads in Northern England are then examined in detail to diagnose the processes by which they are likely to have been planned and laid out. These roads are the Western Main Road from Manchester northwards through the Lune Gorge, the Maiden Way, the network of cross-country roads from Kirkham to Aldborough, and the Devil's Causeway.

This study explores the changing relationship between humans and two important animals, pigs and cattle, during the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods in Britain. Faunal remains from prehistoric sites in southern Britain were studied in order to understand changes in the size and shape of animals, changes in population structure and other information useful for understanding changing human motivations. Its results contribute to our understanding of Neolithisation process in Britain, early animal husbandry practices in the study area and the role that pigs and cattle had in Mesolithic and Neolithic society.

This volume charts the changing human-animal relationship at one particular location, Dudley Castle, West Midlands, over several centuries. The temporal span considered (the 11th-18th centuries) is, arguably, one of the most formative in the evolving relationship between humans and animals. The period was one of profound economic, social and demographic change, witnessing not only the evolution of modern breeds of domestic animals, but also a change in the way animals were perceived and treated. In this study, the animal bones recovered from archaeological excavations at Dudley Castle have been integrated with historical documentation to provide a basis from which to explore these issues. The size of the faunal assemblage, its chronology and location, combine to make the results of this analysis invaluable in enhancing our current state of knowledge. Just as human-animal relationships in the period reflected a combination of economic, social and cultural values, so the questions addressed in this volume reflect this diversity and inter-connectivity at a number of different scales. Thus, site-specific questions, as well as broader trends within the social and economic landscape of the medieval and post-medieval periods in England are considered. This study also attempts to explore dietary patterns on site, and the way in which the acquisition and consumption of food was used in the negotiation of social relationships.

Portal tombs are the least researched megalithic class in Ireland, despite the fact that they have one of the widest distributions of all tomb classes. This study sets out to present a critical synthesis of the previous work on portal tombs and to investigate the chronology, morphology and landscape setting of this enigmatic tomb class. It concerns itself with all portal tombs, in Ireland, Wales and Cornwall. Chapter 1 defines the research methods and the main research questions and aims. Chapters 2 and 3 present the history of research in two parts. All excavations, antiquarian explorations, classification models and the theoretical concepts underlying them are discussed in chapter 2, while landscape studies, phenomenology and my own theoretical approach are discussed in chapter 3. Chapter 4 analyzes the morphology of portal tombs and the different architectural elements, i.e. capstone, portal stones, cairns and so on, and chapter 5 discusses subtypes, hybrids with other tomb classes and regional variations. Chapters 6 and 7 both deal with the chronology of portal tombs. Chapter 6 re-assesses the material culture found in portal tomb contexts and establishes a relative chronology, and chapter 7 introduces the newly obtained radiocarbon assays and puts them into context with the previously obtained dates. Chapter 8 provides an analysis of the various landscape elements found around portal tombs and suggests several conclusions as to what role the landscape might have played for portal tomb builders. Chapter 9 looks in detail at eight case studies, macro-regions with portal tomb clusters, to see if these might provide clues as to how society was organised, if there is evidence for settlement and how portal tombs related there to other tomb classes and to the landscape. Chapter 10 looks at portal tombs and settlements, especially using Early Neolithic settlement evidence, but also comparing it with the Late Mesolithic. Finally Chapter 11 provides a summary and conclusions. A full catalogue is provided in Appendix A containing all 225 sites of portal tombs which had been named as such.

Archaeological excavation of about 11ha of land at Tower's Fen, Thorney, Peterborough (England), investigated part of an extensive pattern of ditched enclosures and fields associated with several waterholes and two ponds. One large pit, which may have been a waterhole, yielded Early Bronze Age pottery and is radiocarbon dated to the terminal 3rd millennium BC. Two other dates from the ponds came out at around 1500-1300 BC. The other features were probably also Middle to Late Bronze Age although the limited quantity of pottery was not datable precisely. Waterlogged material recovered from the deeper features included most of an unusual wooden tub or bucket, as well as other pieces of worked wood. The palaeo-environmental evidence from pollen, plant macro-fossils, insects and charred plant remains indicated that the land supported a mosaic of woodland, scrub, arable fields, meadow and short grazed grassland. A wide variety of trees was present, particularly wet-loving species such as willow and alder, and there was abundant evidence for coppicing. Nearby excavations at Pode Hole, and the wider picture provided by plotted cropmarks, indicate that the site formed part of an extensive prehistoric landscape. It is suggested that the Bronze Age agricultural landscape developed piecemeal and was based upon a mixed arable and pastoral economy. This contrasts with Fengate and other landscapes of this period where large-scale land divisions have been related to intensive livestock management. The sparse evidence for contemporaneous settlement is typical of many sites of this period.Written by Andrew Mudd and Ben Pears.Edited by Andy Richmond, Gary Coates, Andy Chapman and Pat ChapmanWith contributions from Maisie Taylor, Nick Branch, Barbara Silva, Christopher Green, Scott Elias, Alys Vaughan-Williams, Iñaki Valcarcel, Imogen Poole, Karen Deighton, Stuart Needham, Andy Chapman, Pat Chapman and Steve Critchley.Illustrations by Jacqueline Harding and Pat Walsh with Steven J. Allen.

This study explores the insights into provincial Roman societies that can be gained from the archaeological evidence for burial practice, focused on Britain, drawing on wider work in the archaeology of death. It evaluates the distribution of burial evidence and the factors that condition it, including, it is argued, archaeologically invisible burial continuing from the Iron Age .It reviews the archaeological evidence for cremation rituals and explores how social status was expressed through burial, primarily in case studies from south-east England. Funerary ritual was a dynamic arena for asserting social status throughout the Roman period, taking forms that can be read as both 'traditional' and 'Roman'. The setting of burial is assessed to establish spatial relationships between living and dead in town and country and the distribution of funerary display across the landscape.

This volume deals with the appearance of an imported commodity and its associated accoutrements in Later Iron Age Britain. Wine begins to appear in the archaeological record in southern Britain in the early first century BC. Wine is so much part of the culture of the classical world that its appearance in Britain cannot be seen in isolation. Part 1 of this work sets the scene by examining the ancient sources and looks into the influence of the god of wine, Dionysios, and his Roman counterpart, Bacchus. The literary and archaeological evidence for wine in temperate Europe (Iron Age France) is also briefly reviewed. Part 2 contains a detailed consideration of the evidence and contexts of wine in Late Iron Age Britain, including, crucially, wine use at ritual and ceremonial sites. The author suggests that the use of wine in burials was one of the major forces driving wine imports into Britain at this time.

This is a study of the Iron Age hillforts of north Ceredigion (Cardiganshire), mid Wales. Over one hundred diverse and unusual hillforts and defended enclosures are known in this topographically distinctive landscape, framed between the west coast of Cardigan Bay and the eastern high ground of the Cambrian Mountains. This new research sheds light on their architecture, chronology and the dynamic use of the regional terrain in later prehistory, reaching conclusions that have resonance for the wider study of British hillforts. The core of the study is a detailed analysis of the architecture of the later prehistoric hillforts of mid Wales, focusing on north Ceredigion. This shows them to have been sophisticated three dimensional spaces, built within a set of regional architectural traditions far more complex than has previously been acknowledged. In turn, these reflect the development of strong regional identities in later prehistory. This study also examines wider landscape themes including a model for overland 'cultural contact' linking mid Wales with other regions of the Severn and Wye valleys and western Britain, fossilised in the spread of distinctive shared ideas of hillfort design and construction.

One Sunday evening in the summer of 2008, while prospecting on commercial land in the vicinity of the village of Warmington, situated on the summit of Edge Hill (south Warwickshire, England), a metal-detectorist saw a small silver disk on the surface. This was followed by the registration of a further two coins by his equipment, then others as he began a methodical survey of the area. After he had alerted the local Warmington Heritage Group to his discovery, the decision was taken to locate and mark the nucleus of the soundings being made and to leave further work to the following day. This revealed a spread of coins, at times up to fifty metres away from the original finds, but it was not till Tuesday that the nucleus itself was excavated, revealing a pot full of unstratified coins. Following cleaning, photographing, and initial identification, the hoard was deposited in the Warwickshire Museum pending arrangement of the necessary inquest in accordance with the Treasure Act. During this period additional coins came to light, bringing the total to 1146 specimens. Chronologically the hoard covers the period from 194/190 BC to AD 64, and from analogies elsewhere clearly represents a cross-section of material in circulation at the time of deposition in view of the fact that, with the exception of some issues at times of military stress, denarii had largely remained stable in terms of both fineness and weight from their inception to the reform instituted by Nero. This volume presents a detailed and essential catalogue of this splendid hoard.

With a Supplementary Report 'Mapping Matters with the Antonine Wall' by Peter McKeague and a Preface by David J. Breeze.

In May 2011, a team of archaeologists from the Department of Prehistory and Historical Archaeology of the University of Vienna, assisted by colleagues from the Czech Republic and Norway, carried out a research excavation at the Law Ting Holm in Tingwall on Shetland's Mainland. The site is believed to be the place of the main assembly of Shetland, which was in use most likely from the Norse period to the second half of the 16th century.With contributions by Günther K. Kunst, Zoe Outram, Sam E. Harris, Cathy M. Batt, Louise Brown, Erich Nau, Michael Doneus, Anthony Newton and Karin Wiltschke-Schrotta

This study explores the status of children in the late medieval period (AD 1066-1539) based on two concepts of the child; biological and cultural. The biological evidence is explored by an osteoarchaeological analysis of sub-adult skeletal remains concentrating on markers related to status, such as, age, rates of growth, the presence of stress indicators, and rates of dental wear. The cultural aspect involves an analysis of the funerary context, such as, location of burial, position of the body, and grave inclusions, as well as reference to historical sources depicting the role of children.

This study considers a time span of two and a half thousand years from 4500cal BC, which constitute the Manx Neolithic. The work focuses in particular on the pottery, which is analyzed and characterized in detail, and the sites from which it is derived. All finds are fully illustrated.

This research investigates the development of early medieval identities in the South West, through continuity and change in the insular material culture, the settlements, and ultimately in social identity. These cycles of change, brought about by influences within and outside the region, are evidenced through regional (macro-scale) and micro-regional (site-specific) assessments of the evidence. An overriding sense of long-term continuity is perceived in the ability of these insular identities to retain former traditions and develop their material culture, despite the apparent political domination by far-reaching social groups in the Anglo-Saxon and Norman periods. These traditions consist of all social practices and portable material culture, including the ceramics which make up a large proportion of these finds, and where an examination of developments in form and fabric have created a chronological framework that is more sympathetic to the archaeology of the region than the accepted broad periods of Early, Middle and Late Saxon, and which perhaps reflects a more accurate picture of social changes through time. The retention of prehistoric and Late Roman practices, in particular the former, is seen throughout all aspects of the archaeological evidence and is examined here through the themes of settlement hierarchies, exchange mechanisms and identity, and their spatial differentiation, with geographical determinism a deciding factor in the form and nature of communities. The project explores the development of Late Roman societies in an assessment of the impact of geographical determinism on identity, and the potential development of Atlantic and maritime identities within society as a whole.

This book examines archaeological and historical evidence for the socio-economic organization of the kingdom of East Kent, England, as a territorial and social system during the Early to Middle Anglo-Saxon period (AD 400-900). Explicit archaeological and theoretical frameworks are considered to propose a hierarchical model of the spatial organization of communities as a way of providing a micro-economic case study of state formation. In addition to other classical economic and geographical analyses applied, the distributional approach examines the frequency or quantity of commodities with respect to units of economic consumption, such as individuals, households and communities. By examining the saturation levels of community consumption as represented in burial assemblages, a hierarchical model of value regimes underlying exchange sub-systems is suggested. Taken in combination with an analysis of the geographical organisation of settlement, the author argues a thesis on the way regional space was socially and spatially constructed in ways that restricted and monopolised allocative and authoritative resources. Correlations between spatially-distributed phenomena and features of the physical environment are assessed in order to consider the social dynamic in land-holding underlying the territorial and spatially-definable conditions of reproduction. An assessment is made of the importance of restrictions on the movement of people in social formation, by analysing the relationships between routes of communication, the mortuary landscape, and the visual experience of movement. Finally, consideration of these phenomena with respect to changing exchange systems provides models of early medieval state formation.

A story revealed by tavern, inn and other bottles.With a catalogue of bottles and seals from the collection in the Ashmolean Museum.

CHOMBEC Working Papers No. 1The Sounds of Stonehenge originated as a workshop of the Centre for the History of Music in Britain, the Empire and the Commonwealth (CHOMBEC), held at the Victoria Rooms, University of Bristol, UK in November 2008. The 8 papers contain material pertaining to acoustic physics, anthropology, archaeology, architecture, cognitive psychology, English literature, film studies, history, history of art, media and popular studies, musicology, sociology, and creative composition.

This study evaluates the methodologies used to prepare the national Rural Settlement Atlas, published by Roberts and Wrathmell in 2000, and the English Heritage sponsored Historic Landscape Characterisation exercises that have been undertaken at a county level since 1998. Both methodologies are morphological, based on deriving meaning from patterns in the landscape. The evaluation seeks to determine the extent to which they can offer an accurate portrayal of historic landscape character in the upland study area of the Upper Calder Valley in the South Pennines, an area that has received very little attention from landscape historians to date. The basic approach taken by the book is to apply both methodologies to the study area before comparing the results with those obtained by more traditional landscape history methodologies. The book prefaces this evaluation with a discussion and explanation of the origins and processes of both methodologies, reviews the criticisms previously made, and examines the commonalities exhibited. The basic commonality of using a morphological approach is critically discussed in detail. A new model is proposed that combines the evidence of historical process with the morphological attributes of settlement and fieldscapes. While this model is based on the South Pennine pays, the principles involved in its construction are intended to be applicable in other landscape areas.

This work examines how and why Roman structures - commonly villas, forts, and bathhouses - were reinvented as religious centres in the Post-Roman period. Two principal lines of enquiry are pursued: the relationship of post-Roman burials with Roman buildings, and the relationship between early churches and Roman buildings. The aims of this research were to establish a unified corpus around which the study of these type-sites may be pursued; to present a balanced, judicious, and informed consideration of the problem of continuity, and to critically assess various models for the progress from secular structures to sacred sites; and to demonstrate that the physical remains of Roman structures had a significant impact on the religious landscape of Early Medieval England sites.

Bronze Age metalwork has always caught the interest of archaeologists, largely due to the very large volume and variety of objects that is still being recovered on an almost daily basis. Regional catalogues have been repeatedly undertaken in an attempt to manage the sheer wealth of data and analyse the implications. In 1983, one Susan Pearce published such a study of south western Britain (BAR 120, 1983), contributing a catalogue of 896 find spots. This discussion embraced the wider understanding of metalworking in the region, how this fitted with traditions across the rest of the country and the European continent, and how the metalwork was integrated into prehistoric society. This volume is intended to bring the 1983 corpus of south western Bronze Age metalwork finds up to date by documenting finds made in the four counties between January 1980 and July 2014. The intention here is not to undertake a full re-examination of the south western metalwork and its context - such a discussion is beyond the confines of this publication - but instead to suggest some of the broad parameters within which such a discussion might take place, and to point to several key themes that have become prominent in Bronze Age studies since 1983 and to some that remain relatively underexplored. A digital copy of the 1983 corpus is available to download as part of this publication to allow access to the complete collection of find spots in south western Britain.

This work presents a history of Dorchester-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, in an overlapping double vision. One image presents the more traditionally understood place that Dorchester holds as the 'oppidum' that grew to be a town and retained that urban identity in the face of the crumbling fifth century, while the alternate hypothesis challenges the notion of 'urban' community, suggesting that stability of geographical presence and perseverance of spatial identity are more considerable factors in the longevity of Dorchester's significance.

This volume comprises a collection of essays in memory of the late John Rhodes by some of his many friends and colleagues. They salute a remarkable individual of wide tastes and interests. His achievements in the conservation, study and recording of the past from the Roman period to the present day, both in museums and in the field, were prodigious. The aim of the book is to follow the tradition of English antiquarian scholarship by taking three approaches: the study of individual monuments and objects, the investigation of the manner in which that study is reflected in their present-day care and interpretation, and the study of the wider implications of such approaches. 'Memorial volumes can be a bit hit and miss, but this one is all hits, partly because the papers are all iconoclastic in one way or another, offering an alternative view or a dissenting voice, which one senses is what John did in his own life to very good effect.' The Society of Antiquaries of London Online Newsletter (Salon): Issue 309, 25 November 2013