In September 2022 Oxbow's bookshop and distribution business merged with Pen & Sword Books, a family run independent publisher of history books. As Casemate UK, this new distribution business will continue to bring you the best books in the field of archaeology and related disciplines from our partner publishers. The Oxbow Books publishing imprint remains as a separate entity, still sold and distributed exclusively by us. Browse the archaeology subjects below, or visit our Ancient History and Medieval History books landing pages in the menus above.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 76
ISBN: 9781900188739
Pub Date: 01 Dec 2000
Series: Archaeology Data Service & Digital Antiquity Guides to Good Practice
Description:
A straightforward guide which provides advice on preparing and depositing digital archives which also includes recommendations for archive curators and collecting agencies and copyright considerations. The book contains practical information and guidelines for depositing an archive with the Archaeological Data Service and the principals behind archiving archaeological data in a digital form.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 154
ISBN: 9780947816513
Pub Date: 01 Dec 2000
Illustrations: (A Tschan & P Daly). 154p, b/w illus, tbs
Description:
These nine papers, based on the 4th World Archaeological Congress held in South Africa in 1999, take a critical view of computer usage in archaeology and study its impact on the discipline and especially in terms of archaeological method and theory. Contents: Introduction (Gark Lock & Kayt Brown) ; Computers and archaeological cultural change (J Huggett) ; Archaeological computing and disciplinary theory (J Gidlow) ; Mathematics and computers (H Forsyth) ; Virtual reality (G Goodrick & M Gillings) ; Archaeological archives for the 21st century (F Grew) ; Intellectual excavation (A Beck) ; English sites and monuments records (B Robinson) ; Can computers help aerial survey? (R Palmer) ; Is there such a thing as `Computer Archaeology'?
Format: Hardback
Pages: 300
ISBN: 9781902937021
Pub Date: 01 Dec 2000
Series: McDonald Institute Monographs
Illustrations: b/w pls
Description:
In the early 1990s the University of Cambridge reopened excavations at the Neolithic site of Catalhöyuek in central Turkey, abandoned since the 1960s. In this volume, Ian Hodder explains his vision of archaeological excavation, where careful examination of context and an awareness of human bias allows researches exciting new insights into prehistoric cognition. The aim of the volume is to discuss some of the reflexive or postprocessual methods that have been introduced at the site in the work there since 1993.
These methods involve reflexivity, interactivity, multivocality and contextuality or relationality.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 102
ISBN: 9780905594279
Pub Date: 31 Dec 1999
Series: East Anglian Archaeology Monograph
Illustrations: b/w figs
Description:
Three major excavations and other work in Thetford reveal settlement north of the river by AD1000, within a semi-circular defensive enclosure which probably pre-dates that south of the river, but was initially little more than a bridgehead.Occupation peaked in the 11th and 12th centuries, with a shift of people to the north bank, followed by medieval decline.The bones represent a range of domestic animals, dominated by sheep kept for wool, cattle for meat and dairy products, and then pigs.
Some stray Middle Saxon finds may hint at re-use of the Iron Age fort as an exchange/market centre.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 283
ISBN: 9781852811624
Pub Date: 31 Dec 1999
Series: East Anglian Archaeology Monograph
Illustrations: 27 pls, 158 b/w figs, tbs
Description:
The site at Ivy Chimneys, Witham, appears to have been occupied continuously throughout the Iron Age, and remained in use until the end of the Roman period. Most traces of domestic Iron Age structures were removed by ploughing, but the surviving ditches seem to indicate more than a simple farmstead. Very large, probably defensive, ditches of late Iron Age date may imply that the settlement at Ivy Chimneys was a focus of activity at that time, and a small amount of circumstantial evidence hints at a religious use for part of the site.
The nature of activity in early Roman times is unclear, although there is ample evidence for occupation of some form. The instigation of two large, long-lived, artificial depressions at this time may point towards the beginnings of Roman religious activity on the site. In the 3rd century AD a large, almost square, post-hole structure, interpreted as a Romano-Celtic temple, was constructed on the crest of the hill, and was enclosed by various ditches remnant of earlier activity. A large pond with a sophisticated water regulation system was constructed at about this time, and isolated timber columns may also have been present. A new temple appears to have been constructed in the early 4th century, represented by a continuous ditch enclosing a sub-rectangular area. An adjacent depression contained votive material and may have been used for religious ceremonies, although a pottery kiln appears to have produced only conventional material. The interpretation of a Christian phase in the mid-4th century is based on the presence of a baptismal font constructed of tile, and of a small two-celled structure, possibly a chapel. Other evidence may indirectly point to a pause in the pagan activity, but no specifically Christian portable objects were found. In the late 4th and early 5th century the site was certainly used as a pagan shrine, as attested by numerous votive offerings such as coins and pieces of jewellery. There is no evidence for the date of the final destruction of the site, but the presence of a relatively high number of Theodosian coins suggests continued activity well into the 5th century.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 195
ISBN: 9781852811648
Pub Date: 31 Dec 1999
Series: East Anglian Archaeology Monograph
Illustrations: 30 pls, 114 b/w figs, tbs
Description:
When mechanical ploughing was introduced on Felix Eriths farm in the 1950s, fragments of Bronze Age pottery were brought to the surface. Wherever this occurred, Erith excavated, and in 1960 he published an account of his discoveries which clearly established the importance of the Ardleigh cemetery. The pottery, with its flamboyant decoration, became the classic Deverel-Rimbury ceramic of southern East Anglia.
A prolonged campaign of aerial photography revealed an extensive cropmark landscape of ring-ditches, trackways and enclosures. Further excavations in the 1960s by Erith with the Colchester Archaeological Trust revealed an Iron Age round-house, 'Belgic burials and Roman kilns. In the 1970s investigations by the Central Excavation Unit were designed to examine the nature of the cropmark complex and to place the earlier work in context. This book describes the results of both these campaigns. It provides an illustrated corpus of Ardleigh style Deverel-Rimbury ceramics, and an account of the evidence for a rural Roman pottery production centre in the hinterland of Colchester. The nature of the cropmark landscape, and the present condition and potential of the archaeology of Ardleigh are considered.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 120
ISBN: 9781900188937
Pub Date: 01 Dec 1999
Series: Bournemouth Conservation
Description:
A volume of essays on communicating archaeology by every imaginable means provides an excellent tribute to the work of Bill Putnam - always a communicator. Learning by doing (Philip Rahtz), field archaeology in the 70s and 80s (John Hinchliffe), ignore good communication at your peril (Andrew Lawson), the IFA: what it means to be a member of a professional body (Timothy Darvill), talking to ourselves (Ellen McAdam), commissioning knowledge or making archaeology for books (Peter Kemmis Betty), arcane to ARC: the York experience (Andrew Jones), the National Curriculum (Mike Corbishley), past experience: the view from teacher education (Tim Copeland), child's play: archaeology out of school (Kate Pretty), university archaeology: ivory tower or white elephant? (Kevin Andrews) , liberal adult education in the second half of the twentieth century (Trevor Rowley), the local societies (John Manley) , archaeology in museums (Roger Peers).
Format: Paperback
Pages: 61
ISBN: 9781900188975
Pub Date: 01 Dec 1999
Illustrations: b/w figs and pls
Description:
A collection of short papers and abstracts from the 4th, 5th and 6th proceedings of the Osteological Research Group, held in April and November 1996 and June 1997. The papers cover a wide range of subjects including technical information, evidence derived from bone assemblages and specific individual examples. Studies are presented on archaeozoology, domesticated animal bone assemblages, evidence of violence and stress indicators, measurement and statistical analysis and current research in the field of osteoarchaeology.
Format: Hardback
ISBN: 9781900188760
Pub Date: 01 Dec 1999
Description:
These essays, in honour of John Coles, reflect his interests in experimental archaeology and in the exploration of wetland sites. Contents include: Palaeolithic Archaeology: Radiocarbon dating and the origins of anatomically modern populations in Europe ( P Mellars ); The Chauvet cave dates ( J Clottes ); The archaeology of Scotland: The Hidden landscape: the Neolithic of Tayside ( G J Barclay ); The stony limits - rock carvings in passage graves and in the open air ( R Bradley ); Evidence, North and South, in the earlier Neolithic ( R J Mercer ); The birth of the Scottish Bronze Age ( J N Graham Ritchie ); Drinking, driving, death and display: Scottish Bronze Age artefacts since Coles ( A Sheridan ). Bronze Age archaeology: Bronze Age landscapess in Southern Europe ( G Barker ); From Skåne to Scotstown: some notes on amber in Bronze Age Ireland ( G Eogan ); Swords, shields and scholars: Bronze Age warfare, past and present ( A Harding ); Gold reflections ( J J Taylor ); Rise and fall: the deposition of Bronze Age weapons in the Thames valley and the Fenland ( R Thomas ); Bronze Age settlement in south Scandinavia - territorality and organisation ( H Thrane ); Experimental Archaeology: Getting to grips with music's prehistory: experimental approaches to function, design and operational wear in excavated musical instruments ( G Lawson ); Experimental ship archaeology in Denmark ( O Crumli-Pedersen ); Wood-tar and pitch experiments at Biskupin Museum ( W Piotrowski ); The nature of experiment in archaeology ( P J Reynolds ).
Wetland Archaeology: Somerset and the Sweet conundrum ( B Coles ); Paths, tracks and roads in early Ireland: viewing people rather than the trees ( B Raftery ); Underwater medieval sites on Lake Paladru (Isère, France): from rescue excavations to cultural project ( M Colardelle & E Verdel ). Epilogue: Of weapons and wetlands ( T Champion ). J M Coles - a bibliography.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 276
ISBN: 9781900188746
Pub Date: 01 Dec 1999
Series: Archaeology of Mediterranean Landscapes
Description:
. The fourth book in the Archaeology of Mediterranean Landscapes series
Format: Hardback
Pages: 396
ISBN: 9781900188920
Pub Date: 01 Dec 1999
Illustrations: with illus
Description:
Even before the Mayflower sailed across the Atlantic in 1620, the material and cultural lives of the 'Old' and 'New' worlds were inextricably linked. This book reflects the techniques which archaeologists have used over the last 30 years to try and unravel, from a mass of material evidence, the lives of early Americans, and their English contemporaries. This book discusses the unique methodologies which historical archaeologists (in both Britain and the US) have developed to study early modern and industrial societies and new theoretical approaches focusing on ethnicity and domestic space, and new practical techniques using environmental as well as artifactual evidence.
The book contains forty two essays arranged thematically. Five are concerned with the use and interpretation of evidence; thirteen describe settlements and their communities on both sides of the Atlantic; four are on nautical and military operations; thirteen are concerned with artefacts and pottery and their manufacture and distribution; and seven use environmental evidence to throw new light on the human populations, and the plant and animal worlds of the time.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 246
ISBN: 9781852811600
Pub Date: 31 Dec 1998
Series: East Anglian Archaeology Monograph
Illustrations: 12 pls, 136 figs, 42 tbs
Description:
A report on the excavation of three sites which revealed evidence of change in landscape use. An extensive series was found to run along much of the North side of the Blackwater estuary. Discoveries include Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age and Saxon remains at Slough House, Chigborough and Howell's Farms.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 184
ISBN: 9781852811631
Pub Date: 31 Dec 1998
Series: East Anglian Archaeology Monograph
Illustrations: 106 b/w figs, 2 b/w pls, 2 tbls, microfiche
Description:
The initial occupation of the site dates from the Middle Iron Age, represented by pottery and a single building. In the Late Iron Age an enclosure containing a small building was constructed. During the Conquest period a larger triple-ditched defensive enclosure with a central roundhouse was constructed to the south-east of the initial enclosure.
The ditches were rapidly backfilled but the site continued in use as a farmstead until the late 3rd or early 4th century. Throughout the Romano-British period the enclosure boundaries were altered, and new buildings added. By the late 1st century the roundhouse had been replaced by an aisled domestic building, this in turn being replaced in the 3rd century by a second aisled building. In the mid 3rd century, four pottery kilns producing coarseware were constructed within the enclosure. Occupation of the site in the Early Saxon period is evidenced by five sunken-featured buildings. The archaeological features were well preserved and detailed post-excavation work has identified c.50 structures, including several previously unrecognised types of building. Large quantities of ceramic finds related to the Romano-British pottery kilns were recovered, as well as Late Iron Age and Saxon assemblages. Notable among the finds is a group of Late Iron Age spearheads associated with the backfill of the defensive enclosure.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 44
ISBN: 9781901992052
Pub Date: 01 Dec 1998
Illustrations: many colour photos and illus
Description:
The Jubilee Line extension runs through Westminster and north Southwark, traversing some of the most archaeologically sensitive areas of London. The tunnels themselves are so deep that they pass well below any archaeological remains, but there have to be a myriad of holes connecting the tunnels with the surface. This booklet accompanied by colour photographs gives a basic outline of the archaeological remains uncovered during the construction work, from prehistoric tools to a medieval abbey.
Crafts and Technologies
Some Traditional Craftsmen of the Western Grasslands of Cameroon
Format: Paperback
Pages: 108
ISBN: 9780861591077
Pub Date: 01 Dec 1997
Series: British Museum Press Occasional Paper
Illustrations: 62 b/w plates
Description:
Since time immemorial, inhabitants of the Western Grasslands of Cameroon in west Africa have been evolving an educational system devoid of literacy. Teaching focused on traditional crafts, including weaving, stitching of traditional dress, carving, sculpture, pottery, smelting of materials and smithing. The skills the people learned served them well, as many of them followed trades, vocations and professions that helped in improving the social and economic life of the area.
This book aims to document those crafts in order for the people of Cameroon to have a record of these skills which are gradually dying out and to encourage them to continue to practise these ancient crafts. Each craft is described in some detail; the areas it is practised in, materials used, techniques involved. Photographs document stages of production and examples of the end result.