Archaeology  /  Archaeological Method & Theory
Sentient Archaeologies Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 280
ISBN: 9781789259322
Pub Date: 15 May 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: B/w and colour
Description:
Archaeology in the past century has seen a major shift from theoretical frameworks that treat the remains of past societies as static snapshots of particular moments in time to interpretations that prioritise change and variability. Though established analytical concepts, such as typology, remain key parts of the archaeologist’s investigative toolkit, data-gathering strategies and interpretative frameworks have become infused progressively with the concept that archaeology is living, in the sense of both the objects of study and the discipline as a whole. The significance for the field is that researchers across the world are integrating ideas informed by relational epistemologies and mutually constructive ontologies into their work from the initial stage of project design all the way down to post-excavation interpretation.
Variant scholarship Cover Variant scholarship Cover
Format: 
Pages: 240
ISBN: 9789464270464
Pub Date: 19 Apr 2023
Imprint: Sidestone Press
Illustrations: 7fc / 12bw
Pages: 240
ISBN: 9789464270457
Pub Date: 19 Apr 2023
Imprint: Sidestone Press
Illustrations: 7fc / 12bw
Description:
Since the eighteenth century, many if not most ancient and medieval manuscripts or other text-bearing or associated objects have been procured through imperial expropriation or through the antiquities market with little or no evidence of findspot or place of original deposition and with no assurance of legal provenance or authenticity. The consequences of these questionable acquisition practices for scholarship and for our understanding of the past are the focus of much enquiry. Recent high-profile acquisitions (and subsequent returns) of text-bearing objects by prominent private collectors and museums and the appearance on the market of demonstrably modern forgeries have resulted in increased scrutiny of the intellectual and commercial impacts of academic engagement.
Textiles in Motion Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 224
ISBN: 9781789257984
Pub Date: 15 Apr 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Ancient Textiles
Illustrations: B/w and colour
Description:
Dress is at the core of dance. It adorns dancers, defines various roles and forms symbolic expressions that, for example, either bind people together or opposes them. It is a communicative tool that gives crucial information for understanding the dance as well as the culture and the sociological effects of a group of people.
Archaeology Without Digging Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 144
ISBN: 9781789259261
Pub Date: 15 Mar 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: B/w and colour
Description:
Over the last 30 years, the Connecticut Office of State Archaeology and the Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resource Conservation Service have entered into a partnership employing ground-penetrating radar (GPR) to the study of the state’s archaeology and history. As a result, many historical cemeteries and places of note in Connecticut have been investigated. The authors have selected 10 geophysical surveys, which have used GPR as a non-intrusive, non-destructive exploratory tool, that have elicited positive results in the search for unmarked burials, confirmation of marked burials and to authenticate areas of known historical events.
Revealing Christian Heritage Cover Revealing Christian Heritage Cover
Format: 
Pages: 110
ISBN: 9789464261585
Pub Date: 15 Feb 2023
Imprint: Sidestone Press
Illustrations: 5fc / 15bw
Pages: 110
ISBN: 9789464261578
Pub Date: 15 Feb 2023
Imprint: Sidestone Press
Illustrations: 5fc / 15bw
Description:
This volume collects different case studies of rediscovery of Christian antiquities between 1860-1930 in Europe and the Mediterranean basin, in order to stimulate reflections about the impact of these rediscoveries on our culture in a period of great political transition. By turning the light on lesser-known stories on a wider European and Mediterranean horizon (Greece, Holy Land, Eritrea, Malta, Norway), this book gives a strong contribution to the history of Christian archaeology. All articles deal with many topics of the field (museology, cultural heritage protection law, history of religious orders, field archaeology, military explorations), and therefore offer a strong interdisciplinary cut.
Ancient DNA and the European Neolithic Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 208
ISBN: 9781789259100
Pub Date: 15 Dec 2022
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Neolithic Studies Group Seminar Papers
Illustrations: B/W
Description:
The current paradigm-changing ancient DNA revolution is offering unparalleled insights into central problems within archaeology relating to the movement of populations and individuals, patterns of descent, relationships and aspects of identity – at many scales and of many different kinds. The impact of recent ancient DNA results can be seen particularly clearly in studies of the European Neolithic, the subject of contributions presented in this volume. We now have new evidence for the movement and mixture of people at the start of the Neolithic, as farming spread from the east, and at its end, when the first metals as well as novel styles of pottery and burial practices arrived in the Chalcolithic.
Breaking Images Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 328
ISBN: 9781789259148
Pub Date: 15 Dec 2022
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Ancient Societies (MAtAS)
Illustrations: B/W
Description:
Archaeological remains are ‘fragmented by definition’: apart from exceptional cases, the study of the human past takes into account mainly traces, ruins, discards, and debris of past civilisations. It is rare that things have been preserved as they were originally made and conceived in the past. However, not all the ancient fragmentary objects were the ‘leftovers’ from the past.
Connectivity Matters! Cover Connectivity Matters! Cover
Format: 
Pages: 216
ISBN: 9789464270280
Pub Date: 06 Dec 2022
Imprint: Sidestone Press
Series: ROOTS Booklet Series
Illustrations: 25fc / 10bw
Pages: 216
ISBN: 9789464270273
Pub Date: 06 Dec 2022
Imprint: Sidestone Press
Series: ROOTS Booklet Series
Illustrations: 25fc / 10bw
Description:
This book is a presentation of the basic concept of social, environmental and cultural connectivity in past societies, as embodied in a diversity of disciplines in the Cluster of Excellence ROOTS. Thus, rather pragmatically driven ideas of socio-environmental connectivities are described, which form the basis of the Cluster of Excellence in its research. A discussion of the fluidness of the term ‘connectivity’ and the applicability of the concept opens the arena for diverse interpretations.
Cooking with plants in ancient Europe and beyond Cover Cooking with plants in ancient Europe and beyond Cover
Format: 
Pages: 526
ISBN: 9789464270341
Pub Date: 01 Dec 2022
Imprint: Sidestone Press
Illustrations: 207fc / 29bw
Pages: 526
ISBN: 9789464270334
Pub Date: 01 Dec 2022
Imprint: Sidestone Press
Illustrations: 207fc / 29bw
Description:
Plants have constituted the basis of human subsistence. This volume focuses on plant food ingredients that were consumed by the members of past societies and on the ways these ingredients were transformed into food. The thirty chapters of this book unfold the story of culinary transformation of cereals, pulses as well as of a wide range of wild and cultivated edible plants.
An Introduction to Peatland Archaeology and Palaeoenvironments Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 160
ISBN: 9781789257557
Pub Date: 15 Nov 2022
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Studying Scientific Archaeology
Illustrations: B/w and colour
Description:
Peatlands are regarded as having exceptional archaeological value, due to the fact the waterlogged conditions of these wetlands can preserve organic remains that are almost entirely lost from the majority of dryland contexts. This is certainly true, although the remarkable preservation of sites and artefacts is just one aspect of their archaeological importance. This book provides an accessible introduction to the ecology and formation processes of peatlands, and to the different archaeological and palaeoenvironmental techniques that have been developed and adapted for the study of these environments.
Chariots, Swords and Spears Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 312
ISBN: 9781789255423
Pub Date: 15 Nov 2022
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w and colour
Description:
This volume brings together recent excavations at two sites in Pocklington, East Yorkshire. The main focus of the volume is examination of Iron Age burials, which included chariots, swords, and spears, along with inclusion of earlier Prehistoric and later Roman activity. The excavations have enabled further scientific evidence for migration and mobility in the Iron Age population and secure chronologies for artefacts.
Seventeenth-century Water Gardens and the Birth of Modern Scientific thought in Oxford Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 240
ISBN: 9781914427169
Pub Date: 15 Nov 2022
Imprint: Windgather Press
Illustrations: B/w and colour
Description:
Based on a decade of archaeological investigation and historical research, this book tells the story of the Copes of Hanwell Castle in north Oxfordshire and the creation of a garden with links to the development of scientific thinking in Oxford in the late seventeenth century. New research using Robert Plot’s Natural History of Oxfordshire as a starting point has uncovered details of a remarkable family and their rise and tragic downfall, their social circle, that included some great names in the development of early scientific thinking, and their garden that in effect became a place dedicated to the wonders of technology. The complex tale weaves together the activities of a royalist agent, Richard Allestree, a prodigious musician, Thomas Baltzar, John Claridge, a Hanwell Shepherd with a penchant for weather forecasting, and Sir Anthony Cope who in an atmosphere of secrecy and distrust began to gather together a community that eventually was named by Plot as The New Atlantis, a reference to a book published earlier in the century by Sir Francis Bacon in which he suggests a model for a Utopian science-focused society.
The Dean and Canons' Houses of St George's Chapel, Windsor Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 176
ISBN: 9781789258653
Pub Date: 15 Nov 2022
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: Colour
Description:
The College of St George at Windsor Castle was founded by Edward III in 1348 to support the newly created Order of the Garter, and to this day fulfils the same primary purpose. The domestic buildings provided for the Warden, Canons and Priest-Vicars – now the Deanery and Canons Cloister – are an astonishing survival: despite enlargement and alteration over the centuries, a significant amount of the mid-fourteenth-century fabric survives, though often hidden from view. A recent programme of refurbishment and conservation revealed much hitherto unknown evidence for the way the buildings were constructed, their fittings and decoration and their subsequent evolution.
Ancient Olive Presses and Oil Production Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 176
ISBN: 9781915808004
Pub Date: 25 Oct 2022
Imprint: British Institute for Libyan and Northen African Studies
Description:
This masterly study presents the first comprehensive overview of olive oil production in Cyrenaica, North-East Libya, during the mid to late Roman period. The evidence collected by the author overturns previous assumptions about the small-scale of this industry and convincingly demonstrates its economic importance in both urban and rural settings. The typology and characteristics of Cyrenaican pressing elements and gazetteer of sites confirm this work as an essential reference volume for studies of ancient production and open up questions about the Cyrenaica’s role in producing olive oil for local, regional and Mediterranean markets.
Defining Spaces in Iron Age Northumberland Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 160
ISBN: 9781789258561
Pub Date: 15 Oct 2022
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: Colour
Description:
The Iron Age settlements excavated by Headland Archaeology (UK) Ltd at Morley Hill and Lower Callerton lie within the rich later prehistoric landscape of the Northumberland coastal plain. This monograph presents the results of the excavation, specialist analyses and provides a key dataset upon which to discuss regionally and nationally important later prehistoric research themes. The excavations at Morley Hill and Lower Callerton offer two large-scale new datasets to compare within the corpus of enclosed Iron Age settlement sites across the region, allowing for an increased understanding of settlement patterns, architectural forms and farming practices.
From House Societies to States Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 312
ISBN: 9781789258622
Pub Date: 15 Oct 2022
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Multidisciplinary Approaches to Ancient Societies (MAtAS)
Illustrations: B/w
Description:
The organisation and characteristics of early and ancient states have become the focus of a renewed interest from archaeologists, ancient historians and anthropologists in recent years. On the one hand, neo-evolutionary schemas of political transformation find it difficult to define some of their most basic concepts, such as ‘chiefdom’, ‘complex chiefdom’ and ‘state’, not to mention the transition between them. On the other hand, teleological interpretations based on linear dynamics, from less to increasingly more complex political structures, in successive steps, impose biased and too rigid views on the available evidence.