"The desert margins of North Africa are extremely rich in archaeological ruins of the Roman period, evidence of dense settlement 2,000 years ago in what are now arid and hostile environments. Historians, geographers and archaeologists have long debated the significance of these sites, explaining the 'Greening of the Desert' variously in terms of environmental change, colonization, external market forces or combinations of factors. The debate so far has been characterized by the lack of scientific data from any one region concerning, on the one hand, the nature of settlement, society and land-use and, on the other, the contemporary climate and environment; this has made it impossible to compare rigorously the strengths and weaknesses of the alternative theories. The two volumes of Farming the Desert present the results of the alternative approach taken by the UNESCO Libyan Valleys Archaeological Survey: a detailed inter-disciplinary study by archaeologists, geographers and historians of a single region, i.e. the basins of the Wadis Sofeggin and ZemZem in Tripolitania, northwest Libya. The project's methodologies for studying the archaeology of arid-zone agriculture have been recognized internationally, and the results of their application to the study area have transformed our understanding of how the desert margins of North Africa were farmed in antiquity, with important implications for modern agricultural planning.'A particular triumph. It marshals a wide variety of skills and techniques, transforms our understanding of ancient pre-desert farming, and is as vital a contribution to modern needs as it is to scholarship.' (Tim Potter, British Museum)

This is the first study of goldsmiths who were apprenticed and/or worked in the City of Oxford. Manuscripts in both Oxford and London reveal an enormous amount of information regarding not only their work, but also their personal lives, relationships and politics.

A transcription of a day-long seminar held at the British Museum in 1995 to discuss aspects of display at the museum. Invited guests examined specific displays and were joined by many of the staff and other curators. A stimulating discussion ensued which makes fascinating reading for all involved with heritage management.

This volume is largely composed of a report of excavations in St. Peter Port in 1980-83, which revealed a later Iron Age settlement with a smithy and stone covered graves. Not only Iron Age material was discovered, Bronze Age pottery also appeared, as well as later finds from Medieval and Roman times. The rest of the study is devoted to the Iron Age cist burials, a special feature of the island, which exist in considerable numbers and have not been fully discussed since the 1920s. A gazetteer of Iron Age sites and finds in Guernsey, Herm and Sark is followed by a brief discussion on the Iron Age occupation of Guernsey and its place in the trade between Armorica and Britain.

Ships and shipbuilding were important elements of Viking culture and a precondition for trade, warfare and conquest. The important excavations at the Viking towns of Hedeby and Schleswig-Holstein revealed a rich body of finds of wrecks and parts of ships. This is a report on this material and also examines the role of the towns as ports and the role of trading in their development.

Basing this study of South Scandinavia's Maglemosian economy on a selection of the faunal assemblages of the period, this book uses spatial analysis and multivariate correspondence analysis to draw together theories on human movements of the time.

Sparse Iron Age occupation was followed by extensive rural occupation, building up over three phases in the Roman period to a large 2nd-4th AD farmstead. In the late 4th century AD this was abandoned for no archaeologically discernible reason to lay the ground for the famous Anglo-Saxon cemetery. Ecofactual evidence for crop-processing (including flax) and artefactual evidence for many craft activities are presented. The large collection of Roman pottery is the first from an excavation in Central Norfolk to receive detailed analysis and indicates fineware flows mostly from the Nene valley. This report fills the gap between Spong Hill 6 (prehistoric occupation) and the cemetery reports, most of which are still available.

The North Shoebury Project was mounted in response to the accumulating evidence for settlement in the Southend Peninsula during virtually all periods from the prehistoric to the present day, especially widespread and possibly continuous from the Neolithic. The site itself lay on a brickearth covered gravel terrace, whose calcareous nature resulted in the preservation of bone and shell. This excavation report includes discussion of the evidence for occupation in each period, and a gazetteer of antiquities of the region.

This is the first report to be published on the Biblical kingdom of Eden, the Iron Age site of Tawilan. Particular attention is paid to the cuneiform tablet and gold jewellery hoard, the first to be discovered in Jordan. The stratigraphy, ceramics and other finds are also comprehensively analysed by Piotr Bienkowski and other specialists, and an overview of the development and nature of the site is provided.

Archaeology is a diverse discipline, it operates through a number of institutional arrangements, each of which has a particular agenda and set of agreed working practices. Diversity might be regarded as a strength, reflecting the dynamism with which archaeological concerns have become a widely used currency in our modern world. But if we accept that diversity exists in a single discipline we might also wonder what defines the common ground; what is it that, at the end of the day, continues to make us all archaeologists? ' The second Oxbow Lecture' presents the text of a lecture delivered in 1995 at the Institute of Field Archaeologist's annual Archaeology in Britain Conference , and explores the current state and priorities of British archaeology.

^Aby Brian S. Ayers ^DReport on excavations undertaken off Norwich's Fishergate to the north of the River Wensum, the first to reach Saxon deposits in this important southern end of the city. The site produced the largest single assemblage of Ipswich-type ware from Norwich, imported pottery of Middle Saxon and Saxo-Norman date, a range of 8th-century finds, as well as quantities of later Saxon and Saxo-Norman material. The report examines the excavation sequence; the artefacts; the environmental evidence, detailing knowledge of the river and its environs; the documentary evidence, drawing on material from the Enrolled Deeds and other sources, outlining the development of the area; post-medieval industrial buildings on the site.

^Aby Martyn Waller ^DVolume Number 9 from the Fenland Project details the results from the palaeoenvironmental programme completed between 1983 and 1989. It contains the database and reconstructions of past environmental conditions derived from the study of the recent (Flandrian) deposits of Fenland, and helps place the archaeological sites discovered by the field survey within their contemporary landscape. The first part of the book discusses previous studies and methodology, interpretative models and data synthesis, pollen analysis and radiocarbon dating, whilst the second contains details of the stratigraphic information collected from over 40 sites in the Fenland.

The sixteen papers in this volume demonstrate the active role of European museums and museum staff in archaeology, with examples from all over Europe showing active participation in excavations, conservation, and museum display. Based on a conference held at the British Museum in 1992, contributors include: I Longworth (Museums and archaeology) ; J Warren (The European Community and heritage protection) ; J Verwers (Archaeology and the National Museum of Antiquities, The Netherlands) ; J Baart (Archaeology in Dutch town-museums) ; G Krause (Museum rescue-archaeology in Duisburg, the Lower Rhineland) ; H Lidén (Archaeology and the Museum of National Antiquities, Stockholm) ; I Billberg (Excavations in the medieval centre of Malmö) ; J-Y Marin (L'acquisition des objets archéologiques par les musées en France) ; B Dunning (A new archaeological museum at Neuchâtel, Switzerland) ; W Brzezínski (Museum archaeology in Poland) ; L Pekarskaya (Archaeology in the Kiev History Museum) ; B Kirigin (Archaeological museums in Croatia) ; A Saville (Artefact research in the National Museums of Scotland) ; M Biddle (Curatorship and the archaeological explosion) .

^Aby R. Bradley, P. Chowne. R. Cleal, F. Healy and I. Kinnes ^DCurrent research in the prehistory of the East Anglian Fens, centred on the Fenland Project, attaches new significance to complementary work on the upland surrounding the basin. This volume brings together the very different results of two area excavations, at Tattershall Thorpe in Lincolnshire on the north-western edge of the Fens, and at Hunstanton in Norfolk, on the north-eastern edge. Both sites are the cumulative result of intermittent activity spread over hundreds of years, and both provide examples of apparently structured Later Neolithic pit deposits. Hunstanton fills out an already extensive picture of clearance, enclosure and land division in prehistory; and the largest structure uncovered there, a so far unparalleled trapezoid enclosure, is a reminder that whole classes of monument may yet remain unrecognised, even in relatively well-explored regions such as East Anglia.

The Roman defended site at Caister, hitherto viewed as a small town, can now be seen as an early coastal fort probably contemporary with Reculver and Brancaster, both of which appear in the Notitia Dignitatum as forts of the Saxon shore. The Caister fort is of earlier Roman type, with a defensive wall backed up by an earthen rampart. Finds indicate occupation by cavalry from the early 3rd century to later 4th century, although specifically late military equipment is absent. The site was unoccupied until the Middle Saxon period, when outside the walls an extensive cemetery developed which was in use from the 8th to 11th centuries. Several burials containing rows of clench nails indicate that parts of boats were used as coffin lids or biers. Further burials were recorded within the fort itself, and both cemeteries exhibit Christian characteristics. It is likely that they were associated with a church, perhaps a minster. Was Caister, rather than Burgh Castle, Fursa's monastery of Cnobheresburg?

^Aby Carolyn Dallas ^DReport on the excavations of Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Thetford carried out between 1964 and 1970, including Brandon Road (1964-66) and the Kilnyard (1966), with reports on the finds, zoological and botanical evidence, documentary evidence, and a general discussion. Important discoveries included six related Late Saxon pottery kilns and the complete plan of a pre-Conquest timber church which was replaced in stone.