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Archaeology & Ancient History

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In September 2022 Oxbow's bookshop and distribution buisness merged with Pen & Sword Books, a family run independent publisher of history books. The  book distribution aspect of our business will continue to bring you some of the best books in the field of archaeology and related disciplines as Casemate UK. The Oxbow Books publishing imprint remains as a separate entity, still sold and distributed exclusively by us.

The Neolithic of Europe Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 340
ISBN: 9781785706547
Pub Date: 31 May 2017
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: bw and colour
Description:
The Neolithic of Europe comprises eighteen specially commissioned papers on prehistoric archaeology, written by leading international scholars. The coverage is broad, ranging geographically from south-east Europe to Britain and Ireland and chronologically from the Neolithic to the Iron Age, but with a decided focus on the former. Several papers discuss new scientific approaches to key questions in Neolithic research, while others offer interpretive accounts of aspects of the archaeological record.
RRP: £48.00
Antiquarianisms Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 232
ISBN: 9781785706844
Pub Date: 26 May 2017
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Joukowsky Institute Publication
Description:
Antiquarianism and collecting have been associated intimately with European imperial and colonial enterprises, although both existed long before the early modern period and both were (and continue to be) practiced in places other than Europe. Scholars have made significant progress in the documentation and analysis of indigenous antiquarian traditions, but the clear-cut distinction between “indigenous” and “colonial” archaeologies has obscured the intense and dynamic interaction between these seemingly different endeavours. This book concerns the divide between local and foreign antiquarianisms focusing on case studies drawn primarily from the Mediterranean and the Americas.
RRP: £35.00
Economic Zooarchaeology Cover Economic Zooarchaeology Cover
Format: 
Pages: 296
ISBN: 9781785704451
Pub Date: 26 May 2017
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w
Pages: 320
ISBN: 9781789253405
Pub Date: 25 Jul 2019
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w
Description:
Economic archaeology is the study of how past peoples exploited animals and plants, using as evidence the remains of those animals and plants. The animal side is usually termed zooarchaeology, the plant side archaeobotany. What distinguishes them from other studies of ancient animals and plants is that their ultimate aim is to find out about human behaviour – the animal and plant remains are a means to this end.
Winchester: Swithun's 'City of Happiness and Good Fortune' Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 416
ISBN: 9781785704499
Pub Date: 26 May 2017
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Urban Archaeological Assessment
Illustrations: b/w and colour
Description:
This critical assessment of the archaeology of the historic city of Winchester and its immediate environs from earliest times to the present day is the first published comprehensive review of the archaeological resource for the city, which as seen many major programmes of archaeological investigation. There is evidence for activity and occupation in the Winchester area from the Palaeolithic period onwards, but in the Middle Iron Age population rose sharply with settlement was focused on two major defended enclosures at St Catherine’s Hill and, subsequently, Oram’s Arbour. Winchester became a Roman ‘civitas’ capital in the late 1st century AD and the typical infrastructure of public buildings, streets and defences was created.
Death as a Process Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 272
ISBN: 9781785703232
Pub Date: 25 May 2017
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w
Description:
The study of funerary practice has become one of the most exciting and rapidly developing areas of Roman archaeology in recent decades. This volume draws on large-scale fieldwork from across Europe, methodological advances and conceptual innovations to explore new insights from analysis of the Roman dead, concerning both the rituals which saw them to their tombs and the communities who buried them. In particular the volume seeks to establish how the ritual sequence, from laying out the dead to the pyre and tomb, and from placing the dead in the earth to the return of the living to commemorate them, may be studied from archaeological evidence.
RRP: £38.00
The Interactive Past Cover The Interactive Past Cover
Format: 
Pages: 220
ISBN: 9789088904370
Pub Date: 17 May 2017
Imprint: Sidestone Press
Illustrations: ca 40 fc
Pages: 220
ISBN: 9789088904363
Pub Date: 17 May 2017
Imprint: Sidestone Press
Illustrations: ca 40 fc
Description:
Video games, even though they are one of the present’s quintessential media and cultural forms, also have a surprising and many-sided relation with the past. From seminal series like Sid Meier’s Civilization or Assassin’s Creed to innovative indies like Never Alone and Herald, games have integrated heritages and histories as key components of their design, narrative, and play. This has allowed hundreds of millions of people to experience humanity’s diverse heritage through the thrill of interactive and playful discovery, exploration, and (re-)creation.
Treasures in Trusted Hands Cover Treasures in Trusted Hands Cover
Format: 
Pages: 230
ISBN: 9789088904400
Pub Date: 15 May 2017
Imprint: Sidestone Press
Series: CLUES
Illustrations: 0
Pages: 230
ISBN: 9789088904394
Pub Date: 15 May 2017
Imprint: Sidestone Press
Series: CLUES
Illustrations: 0
Description:
This pioneering study charts the one-way traffic of cultural and historical objects during five centuries of European colonialism. It presents abundant examples of disappeared colonial objects and systematises these into war booty, confiscations by missionaries and contestable acquisitions by private persons and other categories. Former colonies consider this as a historical injustice that has not been undone.
Pudding Pan Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 202
ISBN: 9780861592029
Pub Date: 30 Apr 2017
Series: British Museum Research Publications
Illustrations: 80 colour illus.
Description:
For more than 300 years commercial fishermen working in the outer Thames estuary have recovered Roman pottery in their oyster dredgers and fishing nets from the seabed in the vicinity of Pudding Pan. However, despite numerous attempts to locate the source of the material, this elusive site has remained undiscovered beneath the waves. This book assesses the recovered assemblage from Pudding Pan to determine the nature and location of the site.
Treasures from the Sea Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 224
ISBN: 9781785704352
Pub Date: 15 Apr 2017
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w and colour
Description:
This interdisciplinary volume presents a collection of 17 papers which treat the current state of research on two marine resources used in ancient textile manufacture, shellfish purple dye and sea silk. Purple dye is extracted from the glands of the molluscs Hexaplex trunculus, Bolinus Brandaris and Stramonita Haemastoma which through a chemical reaction of photosynthesis produces hues ranging from dark red to bluish purple colour. The importance of purple dye since ancient times as a status symbol, a sign of royal and religious power is well documented.
RRP: £38.00
Sailors, Musicians and Monks Cover Sailors, Musicians and Monks Cover
Format: 
Pages: 200
ISBN: 9789088904165
Pub Date: 14 Apr 2017
Imprint: Sidestone Press
Illustrations: 150+ full colour illus.
Pages: 200
ISBN: 9789088904158
Pub Date: 14 Apr 2017
Imprint: Sidestone Press
Illustrations: 150+ full colour illus.
Description:
This volume describes, illustrates, and analysis the finds from the excavations at Dra Abu el-Naga, an important necropolis on the east bank of the Nile in Luxor (Egypt), which was in use from Middle Kingdom times until the early Christian era. Excavations of the site have been conducted by the German Archaeological Institute (DAI). A wide variety of leather objects or objects with leather parts have been discovered, including footwear, musical objects, loincloths as well as parts of furniture.
Painting Pots – Painting People Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 272
ISBN: 9781785704390
Pub Date: 31 Mar 2017
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w and colour
Description:
Archaeologists have recently made tremendous advances in understanding the early ceramic traditions of the prehistoric Near East. Over the past decade there has been a huge increase in research focusing on various aspects of ceramic production, its origins and evolution, distribution and consumption in the Late Neolithic (ca. 7000–5000 cal.
RRP: £45.00
Romans and Barbarians Beyond the Frontiers Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 164
ISBN: 9781785706042
Pub Date: 31 Mar 2017
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: TRAC Themes in Archaeology
Illustrations: b/w
Description:
This first thematic volume of the new series TRAC Themes in Roman Archaeology brings renowned international experts to discuss different aspects of interactions between Romans and ‘barbarians’ in the north-western regions of Europe. Northern Europe has become an interesting arena of academic debate around the topics of Roman imperialism and Roman–‘barbarian’ interactions, as these areas comprised Roman provincial territories, the northern frontier system of the Roman Empire (limes), the vorlimes (or buffer zone), and the distant barbaricum. This area is, today, host to several modern European nations with very different historical and academic discourses on their Roman past, a factor in the recent tendency towards the fragmentation of approaches and the application of post-colonial theories that have favoured the advent of a varied range of theoretical alternatives.
RRP: £40.00
With Alexander in India and Central Asia Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 304
ISBN: 9781785705847
Pub Date: 29 Mar 2017
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w and colour
Description:
Alexander conquered most parts of the Western World, but there is a great deal of controversy over his invasion of India, the least known of his campaigns. In BC 327 Alexander came to India, and tried to cross the Jhelum river for the invasion, but was then confronted by King Porus who ruled an area in what is now the Punjab. According to Indian history he was stopped by Porus at his entry into the country, but most of the world still believes that Alexander won the battle.
RRP: £40.00
Arsacids, Romans and Local Elites Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 184
ISBN: 9781785705922
Pub Date: 21 Mar 2017
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w
Description:
For almost 500 years (247 BCE–224 CE), the Arsacid kings of Parthia ruled over a vast multi-cultural empire, which encompassed much of central Asia and the Near East. The inhabitants of this empire included a complex patchwork of Hellenized Greek-speaking elites, Iranian nobility, and semi-nomadic Asian tribesman, all of whom had their own competing cultural and economic interests. Ruling over such a diverse group of subjects required a strong military and careful diplomacy on the part of the Arsacids, who faced the added challenge of competing with the Roman empire for control of the Near East.
RRP: £36.00
Artisans versus nobility? Cover Artisans versus nobility? Cover
Format: 
Pages: 222
ISBN: 9789088903977
Pub Date: 20 Mar 2017
Imprint: Sidestone Press
Illustrations: 80bw/20fc
Pages: 222
ISBN: 9789088903960
Pub Date: 20 Mar 2017
Imprint: Sidestone Press
Illustrations: 80bw/20fc
Description:
In prehistoric Europe hierarchic societies arose and developed technological systems and processes in the production of objects related to everyday use, on the one hand, and items of religious and symbolic character emulating prestige and luxury, on the other, while both types of objects may not always be clearly distinguishable. This volume deals with questions of how artisans and other social groups, involved in these productive processes and social practices, reacted to and interacted with the demands connected with elites identities formation, affirmation reconfirmation practices. Innovations and the development of new technologies designed to satisfy the needs of ostentatious behaviour and achieving prestige are key issues of this volume.
After the deluge Cover After the deluge Cover
Format: 
Pages: 210
ISBN: 9789088904073
Pub Date: 15 Mar 2017
Imprint: Sidestone Press
Illustrations: 11bw & 55fc
Pages: 210
ISBN: 9789088904066
Pub Date: 15 Mar 2017
Imprint: Sidestone Press
Illustrations: 11bw & 55fc
Description:
After World War II huge land consolidation projects measuring thousands of hectares were carried out in West-Frisia. Large scale excavations of Bronze Age settlement sites were carried out resulting in a convincing model for the Bronze Age habitation of West-Frisia. This model envisaged settlement sites situated on creek ridges in an open almost treeless landscape.