Böcker i British Archaeological Reports British Series-serien

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

This report describes the results of a developer-funded excavation undertaken in 2001 and 2002 in Middlewich, Cheshire, north-eastern England, prior to the development of the site for housing. Middlewich is located 33km east of Chester, on the Cheshire plain and to the south of the confluence of the Rivers Dane and Croco. The Croco was straightened when the Trent and Mersey canal was constructed in the 1770s. The modern town is also bounded to the west by the River Wheelock.

The aims of this work are to provide as complete a list as possible of all the timber, motte and bailey castles, built in the counties of Gwent and Ergyng, Wales, between AD 1050 and 1250. The list not only records number and place, but also size, shape,type, date of construction and date of disuse. It is also intended, where possible, to assign building and subsequent ownership, to as many of the castles as possible. Using the ensuing combined database, it becomes possible to plot construction development of the timber and earthwork castle across the chosen area. The principal objectives are: To build as complete a database as possible, of the motte and bailey, timber castles of the chosen areas of the Welsh March that can be assigned to the period of 1050-1250. To survey the castles and try to provide a classification system based on size, and shape, using medieval standard measurement. To identify where possible owners or builders of each castle. To recognise any patterns that may be identified i.e. did certain lords, build or favour specific castle types? If so, can a lord's progress be charted through castle type spread, or alternatively, can castle chronology be dated by historical records. To examine the concept of a rolling frontier as the motivation behind motte and bailey, timber castles. Research the spacing of sites in relation to earlier land use, topography or resources, by study of records, fieldwork and aerial photographs. To examine the instances of multiple castle construction within close proximity. Due to the quantity of material that the research generated it was decided to include a separate data DVD. The volume contains the introduction to the study, followed by a social and historical background to the area and period. Chapter 3 follows with a discussion of castle definitions and introduction to the various types of earthwork and timber castles that can be found. The chapter also discusses the idea of pre-conquest castle in Britain and Normandy. In chapter 4, an assessment is made of present classification systems used to record castles and introduces an alternative method as employed by this study. Chapter 5 introduces the methodology and research strategies employed in this study. Chapter 6 contains the results of the statistical work undertaken on the findings of the study and chapter 7 presents distribution maps of the sites researched. Chapter 8 discusses the study in relation to the original aims and objectives and the results of the statistical analysis and distribution maps. The study is the concluded in chapter 9. A gazetteer is included containing an in-depth coverage of all the castles included in the study. The CD contains, plates, topographical surveys, resistivity surveys, excavation reports, and the spreadsheets.

This study uses sociological theories of personal memory to show how Anglo-Saxon burial practices enabled the grieving process, and ensured the remembrance of the dead.

Report on rescue excavations that took place in 1994 on a construction site of a golf course, at Friars Oak, on the northern edge of Hassocks in West Sussex. The area was divided into three parts: a Sunken Feature Building, pits a ditch and a possible post hole building (site A); waterlogged features, wooden trackway and a Roman road (site B); a single post hole structure (site C).

This book includes papers from the conference held at the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of York, England, in November 2006.

The stylised naked female figures carved in stone and wood found upon medieval churches and tower houses, known as sheela-na-gigs, have long attracted both academic and popular attention. Consequently, a diverse body of literature on the subject exists, yet much of it, especially the more easily available works, feature numerous inaccuracies. This book represents a move towards a detailed, accurate and archaeologically sensitive record of the sheela-na-gigs in Britain and Ireland, and establishes their study firmly within the orbit of mainstream research. Throughout, context is a central concern. Accordingly, in-depth analysis of the carvings is used to foreground the typical characteristics of a sheela-na-gig and their architectural and sculptural settings. The medieval repertoire of architectural imagery and the social and religious frameworks in which these images were produced is explored, before turning to look at the complex meanings evoked by the figures. It is argued that previous interpretationsof the sheela-na-gig as a fertility figure, Celtic goddess, or image of lust have occluded the deeper significance of the image, whose ambiguity and danger is more suggestive of a herald of the sacred or otherworldly icon. This is substantiated by an exploration of the vital links between the grotesque, monstrous, ambiguous and the sacred, together with influences derived from philosophy and classical mythology, as expressed in western medieval culture.

The Anglican church of St. Saviour's and its former parsonage, in the historic Hampshire parish of Mortimer West End, lie on the northern shoulder of the valley of the eastward-draining West End Brook that dissects an extensive plateau underlain by the Pleistocene Silchester Gravel and the Bagshot and London Clay Formations (early Tertiary).The sponsor (and effectively the builder) was Richard Fellowes Benyon of Englefield House, Englefield in Berkshire, who had in 1854 inherited the Englefield Estate onthe death of his uncle. Designed by the London architect Richard Armstrong Snr, the church and parsonage were erected over a 20-month period in 1855-6, at a total cost of £3013, of which £473 represents various materials, goods and services provided directly by the Englefield Estate.There is seating for a mere 80 or so people, making it one of the most costly churches in the region. The church, lying outside its 'geological zone' of the Chalk Group, is a small building in the Gothic style, consisting of an aisleless nave, chancel, north porch and north vestry; another vestry was added in 1901-2 at the western end.Split flint faces the building externally and the dressings are of good quality Bathstone; internally the walls are plastered and painted, and there is wainscoting and a raftered wooden roof.The flooring is of wood and ceramic tiles (some in the chancel encaustic), with some Portland stone also in the chancel. Decoration is limited to carved heads on window hoodmould stops, the chancel arch and corbels.The window tracery, modeled on the Geometrical (early Decorated) style, but archaeologically incorrect, is very varied and represented by eight designs.The Parsonage and its offices are of red and blue-grey brick in Flemish bond with Bathstone dressings, and in the Picturesque style favoured by A.W.N. Pugin for houses and rectories.

This volume presents a new approach to decorative practices in Iron Age Britain and beyond. It aims to collapse the historic distinction between art and craft during the period 400BC-AD100 by examining the purposeful nature of decoration on varied Iron Age objects, not just those traditionally considered art. A case study from East Yorkshire (UK), a region well known for its elaborate Iron Age metalwork, is presented. This study takes a holistic approach to the finds from a sample of 30 sites, comparing pattern and plainness on objects of a wide range of materials. The analysis focuses on the factors that led makers to decorate certain objects in certain ways and the uses of different patterns in different social contexts. A concentrated study on evidence for use-wear, damage, repair and modification then draws on primary research and uses assemblage theory to better understand the uses and functions of decorated objects and the ways these developed over time.

This book analyses the buildings, interiors and landscapes of asylums for the insane poor in the early part of the twentieth century, exploring the ways in which environments were seen as therapeutic. An innovative type of asylum layout - the village or colony asylum - is considered in detail. Gillian Allmond offers an original approach to asylum analysis, using field observation, documents and published materials to connect asylum materiality to contemporary discourses of health and poverty. The book shows how the Edwardian understanding of the therapeutic qualities of light and air, together with the promotion of bourgeois domestic ideals, influenced the design of exteriors and interiors in the hope of remaking the minds of the mentally ill. Layout analysis includes the discovery that at least one asylum was based on Ebenezer Howard's 'garden city'. This innovative study is a significant contribution to the growing literature on the historical archaeology of institutions.

Based on the author's thesis (Ph.D.--University of Oxford, 1986)

This collection of papers is based on a conference on urban monasteries held at York in 1989.