Pottery was at the heart of the ‘Neolithic package’ appearing in Britain with the first farmers around 4000 BC. It arrived as a mature technology and was essential to the new, largely sedentary, lifestyle and economy. It transformed storage and cooking practices, and the earliest ceramics seem to have been essential equipment in the new practice of dairying. The pottery changed over time and, as a result, ceramics have been fundamental to the construction of relative chronologies since the early days of modern archaeology. Even with the development of absolute dating techniques, the role of pottery as a dating tool has not diminished but instead has become refined and more accurate.But pottery is not just a tool to dating the past – it also represents a facet of prehistoric art and expression. Starting simply, ceramics became arguably the main medium for display with designs often of great complexity. Simple techniques, motifs and panels are combined to create highly decorated vessels often of great individuality. The use of inlays, pastes and slips added contrasting colors to these vibrant designs.By the end of the Neolithic, ceramics became one of the major grave goods of British Prehistory, acting as accompaniments to those that warranted formal burial whether by inhumation or cremation. This practice continued throughout the Early Bronze Age to the extents that, lacking contemporary domestic sites, most of the corpora of Early Bronze Age ceramics are largely sepulchral in context. As we increasingly realize that burial rituals may have been varied and complex, so the roles of these ceramics are becoming increasingly questioned.This book traces the 3000 years of ceramic use and development in Britain, charting the changing forms and decorative techniques and the differing and changing roles that pottery played within its contemporary society.

The valley of the western Rother lies within the South Downs National Park but has a special character based on its Cretaceous geology of sandstones and clays. These give rise to soils that are ideal for agriculture but are extremely erodible. Over the centuries the area has been exploited by humans and partially cleared of forest. In this book, the archaeological history of the Rother Valley is summarized, with particular emphasis on the evidence for Mesolithic, Bronze Age and Roman occupation. Analysis of sediments in ponds adds to the evidence for changes that have happened over the last few hundred years. A notable feature of the cultural landscape is the network of sunken lanes.The Rother Valley contains unique chalk-aquifer fed streams with rare and protected species, such as sea trout and otter. Heathland, floodplain, wet meadows and woodlands are interspersed with agriculture, linked together by hedgerows and ditches. The health of the river is threatened by polluting inputs from farming and sewage. Past weather and hydrological records show the potential impact of climate change on the functioning of the river. The impact of recent changes on water availability for irrigation and human consumption are explored in relation to ecosystem requirements. Soil erosion is a significant problem, with the resulting high river sediment concentrations requiring expensive cleaning for the water to be fit for human consumption and the runoff often causes flooding of roads and properties. Mitigation measures aim to reduce the loss of soil on fields and interrupt connectivity between fields and the river system. We identify sediment sources contributing eroded soil to the river, the function of field-edge sediment traps, in-stream weirs and major reservoirs on sediment storage and connectivity.Finally, the book considers the future of the unique landscape that is the Rother Valley, including plans for restoration of the flood plain. Contributors include planners, researchers and managers of the large estates that are an integral part of the Rother landscape.

The date of the Cerne Giant has long been a matter for debate, as exemplified by a public and televised debate of March 1996, published as The Cerne Giant: An Antiquity on Trial (1999, Oxbow Books). Excavations were conducted in 2020 by the National Trust in the centenary year of its ownership of the Giant. The excavations were limited and targeted in extent and scope, the aim was to date the actual construction of the iconic figure by absolute dating methods (OSL). As the 1999 publication explained, the jury was still out – with advocates for a prehistoric origin, one connected to the period of the Civil War or a more modern one. In the event, the dates were a complete surprise, falling within the Anglo-Saxon period.The research has provided an accurate, scientifically verified date for the Cerne Giant. These unexpected results, together with the land-use history and ominous ‘disappearance’ of the Giant for six centuries, provide the platform for reconsideration and new discussion and debate.Part 1 deals with new research: the historical background and aims, the excavation results, stratigraphic finds, geoarchaeological interpretation, land-use history (environmental/land snails), and discussion. Part 2 is the wider discussion and implications derived from the results and places the Giant in his local and Saxon context. Part 3 begins with summaries of the other two excavated hill figures (the Long Man of Wilmington and the Uffington White Horse) followed by a series of essays from leading archaeologists, historians and experts in early medieval iconography.

Northwold Manor is a multi-period listed building (grade II*), about which almost nothing was known. Uninhabited since 1955, it had fallen into a state of extreme dereliction, and was beyond economic repair when the author purchased the property in 2014. He and his wife, Diane Gibbs, embarked on a major restoration that ran for nine years. The restoration was carried out as a quasi-archaeological operation, revealing that the building complex had Tudor origins, followed by the construction of a Stuart house, with Georgian improvements, and a new entertaining suite added in 1814. The Manor, with its fine drawing room, ballroom and orangery, was the grandest house in Northwold, and research into the families that occupied it revealed unexpected connections to the French Bourbon Court. From the 17th to the 20th century, the Carters were the principal owners, and a local branch of the family included Howard Carter, discoverer of Tutankhamen’s tomb.This account begins with a topographical study of Northwold and its three medieval manors, followed by an exploration of the decline of the Carter family in the late 19th century. That triggered the break-up of the Northwold Estate in 1919. Passing through several ownerships, the Manor was earmarked for demolition in 1961; reprieved, it became a furniture store in the 1970s, and every room was solidly packed. As the roofs failed and water poured in, ceilings and floors collapsed, carrying with them the stacks of rotting furniture. By the late 1990s, walls and gables were collapsing too, and the local authority attempted to intervene. A long struggle to save the Manor ensued, finally ending with compulsory purchase in 2013.Although manor houses occur in most English parishes, they have received surprisingly little archaeological study. Every year, hundreds are restored or altered, but rarely accompanied by detailed recording or scholarly research; and popular television programs reveal the shameful level of destruction that takes place in the name of ‘restoration’. This is a book like no other: the holistic approach to the rehabilitation of Northwold’s derelict manor house – involving history, archaeology, architecture and genealogy – demonstrates how much can be learned about a building that had never before been studied. The project has received several awards.

In 1979, a pipe trench at the military airbase RAF Lakenheath in the historic parish of Eriswell, Suffolk, revealed the presence of possible inhumation graves of the Early Anglo-Saxon period not far from the group of 33 burials excavated in the 1950s and published as the cemetery of Little Eriswell. Extensive redevelopment starting in the late 1990s led to the excavation of what appears to be a remarkable group of three discrete but contemporary burial grounds in close proximity, here labelled the West, Central and East sites — the latter including the Little Eriswell graves. While it is not certain that the Central and East burial grounds are fully separate, these two areas do differ markedly in layout and focus and in aspects of grave furnishing. Burial began in the West site with cremation around the middle of the 5th century. All three burial grounds were used for inhumation from the second half of the 5th to the late 6th century. For a further century, only the West site remained in use; this site was abandoned in the late 7th century when burial commenced at a ‘Middle Anglo-Saxon’ cemetery 300m to the south at Lord’s Walk. By the late 6th century the size of the burying population had apparently fallen by as much as 80%, from a hundred or more to maybe only twenty. The quality of the archaeological evidence allows for detailed examination and reconstruction of burial practice in terms of grave structure and how the bodies were laid in them. Soil conditions create some variance in skeletal preservation, but generally good survival reveals a naturally structured community, and allows for observation of its pathologies. Isotope and pioneering aDNA analyses identify an essentially local population but with one early female grave that is credibly that of a 5th-century immigrant from across the North Sea, and also demonstrating cross-generational descent within the community. The grave goods illustrate social differentiation, primarily by sex and age although exceptionally richly furnished and elaborately constructed graves such as the horse and ‘warrior’ burial embody additional status differentials. A series of expert scientific analyses have been targeted at revealing how this community made use of the principal resources available to it; how it could live and function in this topographical niche at this period. It is clearly demonstrated that there is a very solid foundation in all of the evidence from this site for continuing specialised research, not least as new techniques of analysis and research perspectives develop.

In the second millennium BC, mining for copper ore on the Great Orme, Wales, created one of Europe’s largest surviving prehistoric copper mines. The ore from the mine was smelted into metal that was cast and worked into the rich variety of copper and bronze objects synonymous with the Bronze Age in Britain and Europe.This book presents an original synthesis and reinterpretation of the complex prehistoric archaeology of the Great Orme mine. It uses previously unpublished data in a novel and comprehensive analysis to determine where, when and how mining took place at this landmark site during the Bronze Age.The author draws on a wealth of information on the archaeology of the contemporary landscape and practices of metal production and working to examine the social nature of prehistoric mining. Observations are offered and conclusions drawn about who participated in mining; the character of social relations at the mine; the relationship between mining and identity; and how mining for copper ore shaped the miners’ worldview.Well supported by the evidence and embedded in contemporary theoretical discussions of Bronze Age social life, this significant study establishes an important research agenda for ongoing work at the Great Orme mine and makes a substantial contribution to broader debates about the nature of Bronze Age society. It offers for the first time a fully contextualised interpretation of Bronze Age mining in Britain from the perspective that it was a fundamentally social activity. Community, Technology and Tradition is for anyone interested in prehistoric mining and metallurgy, the British Bronze Age and the archaeology of past lives.

Excavations in advance of gravel extraction on a 10ha site revealed a landscape occupied from the Later Bronze Age to the early Roman period, with later use in the Medieval period. The site published here complements a significant excavation to the south which had produced evidence for the earliest iron working in Britain. The results help to set the south site into its local landscape context, and also cover a longer timespan. A single Middle Bronze Age pit was followed by numerous Late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age pits, best classed as a dispersed open settlement. Finds of smelting slag from this period confirm the early dating for the iron working found to the south. Middle and Later Iron Age features also mostly comprised pits and postholes with no clear structural associations, although a ring ditch and up to a dozen post-built roundhouses can be projected and the continuation of a large enclosure from the earlier site. An area of industrial activity included more iron production from the 6th century BC onwards. Three pit alignments were also identified, one containing a density of iron slag. One pit also contained a quantity of acorns, a rarity on British sites.Two late Iron Age urned cremations were identified, and one Roman, and several deposits of pyre debris may be of either period. Late Iron Age to early Roman ditches represented three phases of an enclosure, likely part of a wider organization of the landscape at this time. Two iron-smelting hearths were identified, one of which contained in situ slag from the last firing of the furnace. All of the Roman deposits dated from the mid-1st to 2nd century AD. This early abandonment is in contrast to the later Roman date for the few Roman features to the south, so that a southwards shift in the focus of activity seems to be indicated rather than outright abandonment.The Medieval period was represented by a small isolated farm dated to the 11th to 12th centuries AD, although economic evidence was very sparse.The site's chronology is supported by an extensive radiocarbon dating programme and this volume includes reports on substantial assemblages of pottery (mostly prehistoric), metallurgical residues, and charred plant remains, but soil conditions were not favourable to the survival of most other classes of finds.

Silchester (Calleva) experienced major disruption in the late first century A.D. as the Iron Age oppidum was transformed into the Roman city responsible for the administration of the civitas of the Atrebates. Aligned on the cardinal points, a rectilinear street grid was laid across the settlement replacing the late Iron Age network of streets and lanes oriented north-west/south-east and north-east/south-west. While the pre-existing property boundaries within Insula IX were retained there was a total re-build within them. The excavated area contained one complete property and fragments of three of its neighbours. Rather than conform to the new grid all the buildings were constructed at 45 degrees to it, reasserting the late Iron Age orientations. The timber-framed buildings within the complete property consisted of a row of three — a rectangular kitchen, a town-house and a roundhouse — separated by a yard from a re-built taberna, also diagonal to the street on which it fronted. The surgical and writing instruments associated with the circular building suggested it functioned as a healer’s and/or teacher’s house. This volume completes the publication of the excavations in Insula IX, 1997–2014.

The Hadrian’s Wall Community Archaeology Project (WallCAP) conducted a series of fieldwork projects along the Hadrian’s Wall corridor between 2019 and 2021. The work focused on sites that were poorly understood or under particular threat and aimed to improve understanding of them so they could be better managed in future. At several sites excavation was followed by conservation and consolidation work. This volume brings together the final reports of these excavations, at seven Roman sites in the Wall corridor. As the sites were spread along the length of the Wall the character and afterlife of the Wall in very different landscape locations could be compared. An assessment of the Vallum at Heddon on the Wall identified how earthwork archaeology survived in a sloped, heavily ploughed landscape. Three excavations investigated the condition of the stone Wall curtain at Port Carlisle, Walltown Crags, and Steel Rigg and Cats Stairs. At each site the Wall builders had responded to the demands of the local terrain and made use of local resources. It is also clear how at each site the Wall had a different post-Roman history. Excavations at the bridging point of the Cam Beck revealed for the first time how the Wall was carried over a ‘minor’ watercourse, and discovered traces of the Turf Wall. Small buildings were also identified just south of the Wall as it approached the bridge. At Corbridge Roman town, excavations on the northern periphery of the settlement demonstrated that from early in its history the most northerly town in Europe was of considerable extent. The area investigated showed that, even at the edge of town, shops lined the roads alongside well-appointed houses with bustling yards. Later on in the Roman period the town contracted behind walls and cremation burials were inserted by the road.Each site is reported on independently, presenting the primary data for each investigation. The volume concludes with a synthetic analysis of what the results of these excavations together reveal about Hadrian’s Wall, considering, amongst other things, construction details and the decay and destruction of the monument in the centuries following Roman occupation.

Initial remote sensing survey at Tlachtga, Co. Meath in 2011–12 highlighted the presence of multiple, partially overlapping phases of enclosure at the site. Three subsequent seasons of excavation provided critical interpretive evidence, with over 15,000 fragments of animal bone, human remains, charred plant material, evidence of metalworking, and a hoard of Anglo-Saxon silver coins dating to the late 10th century AD. The main activity at the site spans four broad periods and two main phases of monumental construction: a late Bronze Age to early Iron Age ‘Hillfort Phase’ (1100–400 BC) and a late Iron Age to early medieval (AD 400–600) ringfort phase associated with a smaller foundation enclosure – the ‘Southern Enclosure’. This ringfort phase was remodelled later in the early medieval period (9th–10th century AD) and augmented by a phase of mound construction in the mid-10th century AD. This is contemporary with the deposition of the coin hoard east of the main complex in an apparent craft-working area. The final phase of the central mound indicates the construction of a timber stockade, most likely in the 12th century, again with significant craft activity.This volume represents the excavation of at least four loci within the broader monumental landscape of Tlachtga, charting its progression from Bronze Age hillfort to pre-Anglo Norman power display mound.The excavations at the Hill of Ward and this publication were made possible through funding by the National Monuments Service via the Royal Irish Academy archaeological research excavation grants, and by Meath County Council, with additional support by the Office of Public Works and the Heritage Council.

A few scatters of Mesolithic and Neolithic flint were found across the development area. Slightly more extensive evidence for Neolithic occupation was represented by a small number of pits from which flint-tempered Neolithic pottery, worked flint, charred plant remains and animal bone were recovered. During the later Bronze Age and Iron Age the first permanent settlements were established. They were characterized by post-built circular structures, pits and cremation burials. Settlement began in the river valley and the western edge of the clay plateau but during the Iron Age settlement shifted onto the clay plateau with eh creation of a five-sided enclosure. By the Late Iron Age and Roman period a farmstead and managed fields were established. This farmstead has been defined as a complex-type farmstead and seems to have been involved in the large-scale production of spelt. Limited evidence was identified for Saxon activity but a few features, including the remains of a tree-lined avenue, may have been associated with the 17th century Hadham and Wickham Halls which were owned by the Capel family. This volume describes the archaeological remains as well as the artefacts and ecofactual material recovered from the excavations.

This book is concerned with the origins, uses and subsequent histories of monuments. It emphasises the time scales illustrated by these structures, and their implications for archaeological research. It is concerned with the archaeology of Western and Northern Europe, with an emphasis on structures in Britain and Ireland, and the period between the Mesolithic and the Viking Age. It begins with two famous groups of monuments and introduces the problem of multiple time scales. It also considers how they influence the display of those sites today – they belong to both the present and the past. Monuments played a role from the moment they were created, but approaches to their archaeology led in opposite directions. They might have been directed to a future that their builders could not control. These structures could be adapted, destroyed, or left to decay once their significance was lost. Another perspective was to claim them as relics of a forgotten past. In that case they had to be reinterpreted.The first part of this book considers the rarity of monumental structures among hunter-gatherers, and the choice of building materials for Neolithic houses and tombs. It emphasises the difference between structures whose erection ended the use of significant places, and those whose histories could extend into the future. It also discusses ‘megalithic astronomy’ and ancient notions of time. Part Two is concerned with the reuse of ancient monuments and asks whether they really were expressions of social memory. Did links with an ‘ancestral past’ have much factual basis? It contrasts developments during the Beaker phase with those of the early medieval period. The development of monumental architecture is compared with the composition of oral literature.

Following its appearance, arguably in Orkney in the 32nd century cal BC, Grooved Ware soon became widespread across Britain and Ireland, seemingly replacing earlier pottery styles and being deposited in contexts as varied as simple pits, passage tombs, ceremonial timber circles and henge monuments. As a result, Grooved Ware lies at the heart of many ongoing debates concerning social and economic developments at the end of the 4th and during the first half of the 3rd millennia cal BC.Stemming from the 2022 Neolithic Studies Group autumn conference, and following on from Cleal and MacSween’s 1999 NSG volume on Grooved Ware, this book presents a series of papers from researchers specializing in Grooved Ware pottery and the British and Irish Neolithic, offering both regional and thematic perspectives on this important ceramic tradition. Chapters cover the development of Grooved Ware in Orkney as well as the timing and nature of its appearance, development, and subsequent demise in different regions of Britain and Ireland. In addition, thematic papers consider what Grooved Ware can contribute to understandings of inter-regional interactions during the earlier 3rd millennium cal BC, the possible meaning of Grooved Ware’s decorative motifs, and the thorny issue of the validity and significance of the various Grooved Ware sub-styles.The book will be of great value not only to archaeologists and students with a specific interest in Grooved Ware pottery but also to those with a more general interest in the development of the Neolithic of Britain and Ireland.

Now hard to believe, Eilean Donan Castle was once one of the largest castles in the west Highlands, known to have featured seven towers, the remains of which lie buried on the island. This book provides a refreshed view of the lost medieval guise of the castle, of its 13th-century origins and form, and of who was responsible for building it, allowing the castle to be positioned accurately in the complex dynamics of powerholding and display of the earls of Ross and associated militarised kindreds of the west Highlands during six centuries of change up to the castle’s destruction in 1719. A new history and the details of the below-ground archaeology allow us to see the lost medieval castle in our mind’s eye 500 years after it vanished. Focusing on the wealth of archaeological material unearthed during the campaign shows the castle hosted master craftspeople including goldsmiths, shipwrights and hereditary swordsmiths. Exquisite personal items, decorative mail armour and weapons, musical instruments, gaming pieces, imported pottery and animal bones bring the castle and its inhabitants back to life.

Excavations between 2016–2018 revealed a series of structures that were re-organised and rebuilt over time, which culminated in a stone-built winged corridor villa in the mid to late 4th century AD. Wings were added to the buildings and a portico at the front opened out onto a courtyard. The outer courtyard was flanked by ancillary buildings, one of which contained a hypocaust and another a small bath suite. Finds included a rare copper alloy figurative lamp with probable foreign origins, a lion mask and a range of pottery, glass worked stone and bone. Environmental remains indicate a mixed arable and pastoral agricultural economy that supported its inhabitants and may have produced a surplus. Wood for fuel and other purposes was obtained from surrounding hedges and copses.

Despite extensive archaeological investigations in Norwich over many decades, its Middle Saxon origins as Norvic/Northwic remain obscure and elusive, and its Anglo-Scandinavian aspects have seen relatively little recognition until recently. This report focuses on five excavations in the historic core of the settlement. Lying on either side of the River Wensum, linked by a crossing, they revealed archaeological remains of the 7th to 11th centuries. The excavations were significant in revealing in-situ archaeological features of Middle Saxon date, along with a range of contemporary finds including a dispersed ‘coin hoard’ of the late 7th or early 8th century, sufficient to add weight to the hypothesis of an early trading centre. Triggered by the Danish invasion of East Anglia of AD 865, a burh to the north of the river enclosed the earlier mercantile centre and its river crossing during the early 10th century. Sites further south lay within Conesford – again, an area with Middle Saxon origins. It formed part of Norwich’s second burh which was enclosed in the 10th or early 11th century. Much of the archaeological evidence finds parallels at other Anglo-Scandinavian centres of the period. Of particular note are the different techniques of building construction exhibited on either side of the river, including sunken-floored buildings of urban form, one of which held the remains of a fishing net.This new analysis provides the opportunity to review the pre-Norman settlement at Norwich and its relationship to the river, trade and overseas contacts, agricultural activity and the fishing industry.