This volume presents the results of a number of excavations undertaken in Cirencester in the last decade which have examined houses, shops, public buildings (including the forum), town defences and cemeteries. Excavations within insula IX found a previously unrecorded corridor mosaic, while work within the western cemetery has revealed interesting evidence for early Roman cremation ritual, along with later Roman inhumation burials. The publication of this volume marks the fiftieth anniversary of the formation of the Cirencester Excavation Committee, and an introductory essay charts the changing circumstances in which archaeology has been practiced in the town over the last fifty years.

Excavations carried out from 1984-1985 at Ditches in Gloucestershire identified a large, late Iron Age enclosure which contained a remarkably early Roman villa. This long awaited excavation report reinterprets this evidence in the light of more recent studies of the late Iron Age-Roman transition. It extends our understanding of the Ditches-Bagendon-Cirencester oppida complex, and corroborates the latest thinking on the nature of Romanisation. New conceptions are challenging the significance of the Claudian invasion of AD 43, suggesting that Roman political influence in southern Britain was much more important than commonly thought decades before this. The Roman take-over was a long drawn-out process, which began especially with intimate links between Caesar and his successors and the dynasts they supported or implanted in Britain on the other. High status archaeological sites are central to these relations, including the so-called oppida , developed in southern Britain in the decades between Caesar's raids and the Claudian occupation. Ditches provides further corroborative evidence. Several phases of Romano-British building were uncovered, revealing an unusual sequence of development for a villa in the region and representing an exceptionally early villa beyond south-east England. Discoveries included a well-preserved cellar and a range of finds, including Gallo-Belgic wares, Iron Age coins, coin moulds, Venus figurines and brooches indicating high-status occupation. The form and date of the villa also provides evidence of connections between the late Iron Age elites and communities of southern England and Gaul. Further evidence suggests the villa was abandoned in the later second century AD, emphasising the unusual sequence of the site.

From 1997 to 2006 the Danebury Trust, under the direction of Barry Cunliffe, excavated seven sites on the chalk downland of eastern Hampshire to explore the rural settlement of the region in the Roman period. The project was designed to build upon our knowledge of the area following the excavation of the Iron Age hillfort of Danebury and of eight Iron Age settlements in the region. The results of the present project are published in two volumes. Volume 1 offers an overview of the programme together with a series of studies exploring the results in their wider contexts. Volume 2 is presented in seven separate parts each dealing with the results of one specific excavation. The sites covered include the Early Iron Age settlement of Flint Farm, the Early Iron Age and Roman site of Rowbury Farm and the Roman villa establishments at Houghton Down, Grateley South, Fullerton, Thruxton and Dunkirt Barn. Together the sites enliven our understanding of the development of the Iron Age and Roman rural landscape especially corn production and processing, the use of water power for milling, status and Romanness, ancestor cults, lineages and land-holding, and the social implications of the great aisled halls which dominated the Hampshire landscape. The volumes make a major contribution to our understanding of Iron Age and Roman Britain.

Until now the old religions of Britain have only been looked at in a piecemeal way. This book presents a detailed and focused investigation of the religion of the Dobunni and the Hwicce peoples who occupied the Severn valley and the Cotswolds immediately before and after the Roman occupation. It uncovers some secrets of the old religion of Britain that have lain hidden in reams of unconnected and largely forgotten information, from a variety of sources. The first part of the book concerns the deification of the natural world; the second, the deities of the tribal groups. It explores the deities of the different areas of the Dobunnic/Hwiccan territory; identifying the goddess of the Cotswolds, and describes how the worship manifested itself. Yeates demonstrates how the deification of rivers was important and how this has led to the location of a number of ancient river shrines as well as the identification of a number of monumental arrangements used by the peoples in their religious activities and folk-group identity; numerous recognisably pre-Old English folk-names are also shown to relate specifically to river-names, town-names, and folk-group-names. The religious use of the hill-forts, of which there are so many dotted over the landscape, and their shrines is discussed. These are connected with mineral extraction, warfare, nemetons, and sacred groves. The use for standing totems and burial practices is also covered. Once the associations are made between deity, river, and folk-group, and all other aspects of religion have been discussed the deity who resided over the Dobunni is revealed. Her cult, which was evident in the major Roman towns, can be traced back into the Iron Age, and can be identified as the inspiration for the tribal name Hwicce . This shows an element of continuity in British culture, not recognised previously because of the assumed obliteration of British culture due to the extent, success, and longevity of the Roman occupation and Anglo-Saxon migration. Understanding the tribal goddess also explains why this people were "the tribe of witches". Finally, it is recognised that these gods did not perish but persisted in medieval legends, traditions and place-names. Although at its core this is a study of two British tribes, the work will have a major impact on the understanding of pre-Christian religion not only in Britain but also in Western Europe generally.

Two 1998 excavations provide important new evidence of Roman and later development on the terraced ground north of the Thames and south of Cornhill. The Monument House site lay just north-east of the Roman bridgehead, immediately behind river quays and warehouses. First-century landscaping and gravel quarries were followed by timber buildings. Early 3rd-century redevelopment included a substantial masonry building and a subterranean drainage culvert which carried dirty water south from Cornhill to the Thames. It remained in use until the mid 4th century AD and has been preserved in situ beneath the new development. At 13-21 Eastcheap early buildings were sealed by Hadrianic fire debris. Rebuilding included timber drains and fragmentary masonry buildings. Later reoccupation at Monument House included a 10th-century AD sunken-floored building and medieval properties. A large 15th-century tenement east of Botolph Lane and north of Cat Lane was remodelled before destruction in the Great Fire. The finds assemblage includes rare ironwork, an ornate fireplace and decorated tiles. At 13-21 Eastcheap isolated medieval pits contained animal bone possibly related to Eastcheap's role as a centre of butchery.

Roman and later activity was recorded north of Newgate, with the Roman defensive wall and a medieval bastion preserved in the new development. Stream channels gave way to early Roman settlement, with the city's defensive wall built in the late 2nd century AD. The defensive ditch was redug in the Late Saxon period and the Roman wall repaired, with the area becoming the site of the Greyfriars Friary in 1225. The City's growth saw the ditch built over by the mid 16th century and the friary was suppressed at the Dissolution. By the mid 18th century most of the city wall had been demolished and the Giltspur Street Compter prison was constructed in 1787-91. Later buildings included St Bartholomew's Hospital and the General Post Office.

Archaeological excavations at 12 Arthur Street in 2001-2 produced new evidence for the Roman riverfront development which constitutes an important addition to our knowledge of Roman London's foreshore, its waterfront, quays and buildings. This study brings to light new evidence for the Claudian waterfront and construction of the terracing along the natural slope of the riverbank. Post-Boudican and Hadrianic developments included the construction of two, more solid, timber quays built in c. AD 70-80/3 and subsequently AD 120 as tidal regression generally hastened the decline of the port. The remains of major buildings include a possible early bathhouse as well as 1st- to mid 3rd-century AD high-status buildings with hypocausts, paved floors, mosaics and painted wall plaster. One of these may be a part of a building previously recorded at the adjacent site of Suffolk House, where it was interpreted as a goldsmith's premises. Other buildings at Arthur Street are interpreted as high-status residential complexes or townhouses. Alongside the buildings was a large well containing the remarkably well-preserved elements of an elaborate rotary water-lifting device consisting of the wooden buckets and iron linking chain. Undertaken as part of a mitigation strategy, the excavations left many important Roman remains in situ for future generations of archaeologists to explore further.

To his contemporaries, Francis John Haverfield was the 'father of Romano-British studies', and his death on September 30th 1919 was greeted with widespread lamentation. In the decades immediately following his death, Haverfield's reputation survived largely undiminished, in fact his view of the Romanisation of Britain became so widely accepted that it held sway for almost a century, and is only now being re-examined by both positive and negative interpreters of his views. What is clear however, is that his immense contribution to the study of Roman Britain is worthy of attention.

An area of 6 ha just east of Kempsford was examined in 2000-2001 in advance of gravel extraction. The earliest features belonged to a field system defined by ditches probably dug in the late Iron Age. This was replaced in the early Roman period by a very regular layout of trackways linking field systems to settlements lying just outside the excavated area, all part of a programme of radical landscape reorganisation in the wider region. The nearby settlements probably went out of use in the 3rd century, but the fields probably remained in use for pasture. The main trackway was re-established in the later Roman period and a substantial timber stockade built alongside it. Occasional human and animal burials made both in the fields and at trackway junctions are an interesting aspect of the use of this landscape.

Excavation between 1983-5 at Barrow Hills, Radley, Oxfordshire recorded three distinct phases of activity: a prehistoric monument complex (already published in Volume 1), a Romano-British cemetery and an early Anglo-Saxon settlement. The Romano-British cemetery consisted of 69 burials dating to the 3rd and 4th centuries and occurring as distinct burial groups and isolated graves; both inhumations and cremations were found. The report considers the evidence for the organisation of the cemetery, orientation, age and sex, body position, decapitation, coffins, inhumation versus cremation, grave goods, chronology and location. The Anglo-Saxon settlement was composed of post-built structures, sunken-featured buildings, two inhumations, pits, debris dumped into the prehistoric barrow ditches and various other features. The settlement is dated by finds evidence to the 4th - early 7th centuries. The Anglo-Saxon features at the nearby site of Barton Court Farm may have been part of the same settlement. The finds and archaeological deposits are described in a series of gazetteers.

The gravel terraces of the river Thames have revealed a wealth of archaeological information about the evolution of the landscape of the region, the development of the settlement pattern, and past human occupation. Much of this has come to light in the course of gravel quarrying, which has been so extensive that the Thames Valley now provides one of the richest resources of archaeological data in the country. This volume provides an up to date overview of the archaeological evidence from the valley for the late Iron Age, Roman and Anglo-Saxon periods, broadly speaking the first millennium AD. The area studied in detail comprises the Upper Thames Valley, from the source of the river to the Goring Gap, and the Middle Thames Valley, from the Goring Gap to the start of the tidal zone at Teddington Lock. A summary of evidence for the character of the river and the vegetation and environment of its floodplain is followed by a detailed account of the evolving settlement pattern as currently understood from archaeological evidence. The authors then consider what archaeology can reveal about the late Iron Age, Roman and Anglo-Saxon populations of the valley, and their changing lifestyles, culture, identities and beliefs. This is followed by a review of the evidence for production, trade, transport and communication, and the archaeology of power and politics. The volume concludes with a discussion of the state of knowledge today and its limitations, and emerging themes and problem areas for future research.

The Cotswold Water Park Project is a landscape study centred upon parts of the Upper Thames Valley within what is now the Cotswold Water Park. The report is based upon four key excavated rural settlements, the most extensive being that at Claydon Pike, which dated primarily from the middle Iron Age to the late Roman period. A number of middle Saxon burials were also found. The other Water Park settlements dated to the late Iron Age-Roman period and the 2nd to 3rd century AD. The report has incorporated the results of these excavations into a wider synthesis of landscape development in the region, including aspects of material culture, environment and the economy.

Oxbow says: From 1993, the North Somerset Levels Project sought to investigate the origins and development of this area of reclaimed coastal marshland during the first and second millennia AD. The inter-disciplinary approach taken has added archaeological (survey and excavation) data, palaeoenvironmental evidence, studies of documentary sources, architecture, cartography and field- and place-names, to what was already known about the historic landscape. This report, which publishes the findings of the project, examines local and regional changes and variations in the landscape, focusing on two major phases of exploitation, modification and transformation during the Roman and medieval periods. Factors such as agriculture, grazing, salt production, fishing, draining, flood defence, and the establishment of settlements, roads, commons, field systems, as well as cultural factors, are all discussed, as evidence from the local area is placed within a wider regional context. An excellent study which exemplifies all that is new and exciting in landscape study.

Twenty-five years is a long time in the study of prehistory and these papers, given at a conference in Cheltenham in 2004, seek to review the excavations, surveys, chance finds and serious investigations carried out over two and a half decades.

Occupation along the east side of the Ouzel valley included a Late Iron Age field system and a cremation cemetery, with Catuvellauni funerary traditions continuing into the Roman post-conquest period. Later 1st-century AD fields, timber structures and a large enclosure were associated with farming near Roman Watling Street. The enclosure, relocated to the valley floor, was expanded in the late Roman period to include masonry corn driers or malting ovens, with an enlarged enclosure established on the valley ridge. The farm, which produced wheat, livestock and some metalwork, was abandoned in the late 4th century. Medieval ridge and furrow cultivation was identified within fields associated with Milton Keynes village.

The Raunds Area Survey forms part of the Raunds Area Project - a major programme of archaeological research into landscape development in Northamptonshire and the wider midland region of England. The Project includes extensive open area excavations of early prehistoric ritual and burial monuments beside the River Nene, Iron Age and Roman settlement at Stanwick, and Saxon and medieval settlement in north Raunds and West Cotton, as well as complementary landscape, historical and biological studies. A series of monographs are planned to cover each aspect of the study. The present volume gathers the results of a detailed fieldwalking survey, cropmark analysis, magnetometer surveys and excavations, accompanied by allied environmental and documentary researches to provide a dynamic picture of landscape development. The study considers the distribution of worked flint scatters and has identified favoured locations for prehistoric activity. A model for the gradual intensification of settlement and land-use throughout the Iron Age and Roman period including greater exploitation of the Boulder Clay plateau is suggested. Good survival of early-middle Saxon pottery in the plough soil indicates that settlement at this time was mostly confined to the flanks of the Nene valley and tributary streams. The Survey, aided by documentary research, complements the open area excavations and provides a comprehensive model for the creation and early development of villages and open fields.