Oxbow Books
Oxbow Books is a leading publisher in the fields of archaeology, ancient history and medieval studies, with an international reputation for quality and affordability. Oxbow's archaeology publishing covers all periods from earliest prehistory through classical archaeology, the ancient Near East, Egyptology, the Middle Ages and post-medieval archaeology. They publish a wide variety of books including scholarly monographs, edited collections of papers, and excavation and research reports in related fields such as archaeological practice and theory, archaeozoology, and environmental, landscape and maritime archaeology.
Founded in Oxford in 1983 by academic and museum archaeologist, David Brown, Oxbow Books has evolved and expanded significantly over the years. Now celebrating their 40th anniversary, Oxbow remains dedicated to the quality of their publishing for readers, and the contribution their books bring to the scholarly and professional communities more broadly.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 176
ISBN: 9781785706448
Pub Date: 30 Jun 2017
Description:
Understanding Relations Between Scripts: The Aegean Writing Systems arises from a conference held in Cambridge in 2015. The question of how writing systems are related to each other, and how we can study those relationships, has not been studied in detail and this volume aims to fill a gap in scholarship by presenting a number of case studies focused on the writing systems of the Bronze Age Aegean. These include Cretan Hieroglyphic, Linear A and Linear B, used predominantly in Crete and mainland Greece, as well as the Cypro-Minoan script of Cyprus.
Most of these systems (the only major exception being Linear B) remain undeciphered to some degree but we nevertheless have considerable evidence for their development and use. Each contributor focuses on a different theoretical problem and/or set of scripts. Important questions include: How and why did writing emerge in Crete in the Middle Bronze Age? What is the relationship between writing and art? Why did different writing systems co-exist with each other? What changes were made when a new system was developed from an old one? Can our understanding of how different systems are related to each other help us to reconstruct the values of script signs? The contributors tackle such questions by employing a variety of methods, from epigraphic and palaeographic analysis to typological comparison and contextual study. The result is a coherent volume that will not only enrich our understanding of the ancient Aegean writing systems in particular, but will also provide an important example for future studies of writing across the world.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 112
ISBN: 9781785706363
Pub Date: 23 Jun 2017
Illustrations: b/w and colour
Description:
In recent decades, study of the ancient Egyptian natural world and its classification has adopted innovative approaches involving new technologies of analysis and a multidisciplinary general view. This collection of papers focuses on one particularly important aspect of foreign trade: the importation of aromatic products. Contributors present the results of the latest researches into the origin and meaning of foreign aromatic products imported in Egypt from the south (Nubia, Punt, Arabia, Horn of Africa) from the beginning of the Dynastic period.
The quest for aromata has been of a crucial importance in Egypt, since it was closely connected with economic, political, ideological, religious and mythic spheres. Through archaeological research, epigraphic analysis and iconographic investigations new evidence is explored supporting the most likely hypothesis about the sources of these raw materials. The study of related documents has revealed possible linguistic links between ancient Egyptian and other African ancient languages, and a strong link between aromata and the divine world through the creation of many Egyptian myths. The references to some specific aromatic products (ti-shepes, snetjer, antyw, hesayt) have been subject to careful lexicographic analysis, with special reference to Old Kingdom occurrences. Iconographic and field investigations documented here seek to better define the Egyptian way of representing the 'foreign' world and the value of its products in the spheres of Egyptian religiosity and rising Pharaonic ideology.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 154
ISBN: 9781900188425
Pub Date: 31 May 2017
Series: Neolithic Studies Group Seminar Papers
Illustrations: figs & pls
Description:
A review of the most recent evidence from cursuses, and ideas on their interpretation, with contributions as follows: Introduction (J Harding and A Barclay) , the radiocarbon problem (A Barclay and A Bayliss) , symbolic territories (J Harding) , processions, memories and the Dorset cursus (R Johnston) , Dorchester on Thames - ritual complex or ritual landscape (R Loveday) , cattle, cursus monuments and the river ..
Format: Hardback
Pages: 340
ISBN: 9781785706547
Pub Date: 31 May 2017
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.
Thematically, the main foci are on Neolithisation; the archaeology of Neolithic daily life, settlements and subsistence; as well as monuments and aspects of worldview. A number of contributions highlight the recent impact of techniques such as isotopic analysis and statistically modelled radiocarbon dates on our understanding of mobility, diet, lifestyles, events and historical processes. The volume is presented to celebrate the enormous impact that Alasdair Whittle has had on the study of prehistory, especially the European and British Neolithic, and his rich career in archaeology.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 650
ISBN: 9780977409464
Pub Date: 31 May 2017
Description:
Unavailable for too long, this new edition reprints the original text of Renfrew's groundbreaking study, supplemented with a new introduction by the author and a foreword by John Cherry, in order to make this landmark publication available once again.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 240
ISBN: 9781785705960
Pub Date: 31 May 2017
Illustrations: b/w
Description:
A recent surge of interest in network approaches to the study of the ancient world has enabled scholars of the Roman Empire to move beyond traditional narratives of domination, resistance, integration and fragmentation. This relational turn has not only offers tools to identify, map, visualize and, in some cases, even quantify interaction based on a variety of ancient source material, but also provides a terminology to deal with the everyday ties of power, trade, and ideology that operated within, below, and beyond the superstructure of imperial rule. Thirteen contributions employ a range of quantitative, qualitative and descriptive network approaches in order to provide new perspectives on trade, communication, administration, technology, religion and municipal life in the Roman Near East and adjacent regions.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 82
ISBN: 9781842170496
Pub Date: 31 May 2017
Series: Journal of Roman Pottery Studies
Illustrations: b/w pls
Description:
Rossington Bridge lies next to the Roman road between Doncaster and Lincoln. Excavations between 1956-1961 discovered eight pottery kilns, a site of considerable significance. The kilns and material from the waster heaps excavated lie on a site with at least fifteen other unexcavated kilns and ancillary structures lying either side of the Roman road.
The bulk of the finds clearly belong to the main period of activity on the site during the mid-2nd century when the mortarium potter Sarrius and his associates were involved in the production of mortaria, 'parisian' fine wares, black-burnished and grey wares intended for the military markets on the Northern frontier.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 180
ISBN: 9781900188234
Pub Date: 31 May 2017
Illustrations: pls
Description:
These papers examine the ongoing relationship between numismatic research and archaeology in Greece; they are based on a 1995 conference organised by the Athens National Museum and the Australian Archaeological Institute at Athens in honour of Dr Mando Oeconomodies.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 324
ISBN: 9781785707766
Pub Date: 31 May 2017
Description:
London's archaeology is as complex and varied as the city is today. These seventeen papers survey twenty-five years of London archaeology in the city and its environs, exploring the history of the city from prehistory to 1800 and touching on art, landscape, mortuary archaeology, roads, buildings and artefacts.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 368
ISBN: 9781785707834
Pub Date: 31 May 2017
Description:
These thirty essays were presented to Alan L Boegehold, a distinguished philologist and an inspirational teacher, on the occasion of his retirement and his seventy-fifth birthday. The contributions fall into two categories, each one reflecting Boegehold's diverse interests in classical studies: the first section includes essays on literary and philosophical topics, several of which pick up on the theme of "gestures"; the second section is representative of Boegehold's more specialised research in Greek epigraphy, history and law.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 278
ISBN: 9780946897230
Pub Date: 31 May 2017
Illustrations: figs and photos. ISBN 0 946897 22 0. Pb
Description:
Eighteen papers and six abstracts from the ninth symposium of the Association of Environmental Archaeology held at Roskilde, Denmark, in 1988.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 352
ISBN: 9781785707964
Pub Date: 31 May 2017
Illustrations: 37 b/w illus
Description:
The violence and neglect suffered by children today is a common subject of media attention and much political hand-wringing, not just in Britain but in other parts of the western world. As yet, however, there has been no attempt to explore this concern historically and look at how the boundary between good and bad parenting may have changed across time. This book attempts to fill the gap by examining the role of violence and neglect in the relations between parents/carers and children from the Bronze Age to the present.
By demonstrating how the boundary between acceptable and unacceptable forms of childrearing has shifted through the ages, and not necessarily in a linear direction, it will emphasise how relatively recent our contemporary understanding of good and bad parenting is, and hence the high likelihood that that understanding has not been completely digested. The book is divided into six, multi-authored chapters. The first four deal with different manifestations through the centuries of what would be today considered violence and neglect: 1) child sacrifice; 2) infanticide and abandonment; 3) physical and mental cruelty; and 4) exploitation. The fifth and sixth chapters look at the various violent and non-violent strategies used by children as coping mechanisms in what to us seems a very harsh world. Each chapter consists of a number of short chronologically or thematically specific extracts, written by nearly 40 historians, sociologists, anthropologists, literary scholars and theologians, and knitted together into a coherent narrative by the editors.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 264
ISBN: 9781785705762
Pub Date: 31 May 2017
Illustrations: b/w and colour
Description:
In this major, highly illustrated, new study Tim Perttula explores the cultural and social landscape of the Caddo Indian peoples (hayaanuh) for about 1000 years between ca. A.D.
850-1850. There were continual changes in the character and extent of ancestral landscapes, through times of plenty, risk, and hardship, as well as in relationships between different communities of Caddo peoples dispersed or concentrated across the landscape at different points in time. These ancestral peoples, in all their diversity of origins, material culture, subsistence, and rituals and religious beliefs, actively created their societies by establishing connected places on the land that became home and lead to the formation of social networks across environments with a diverse mosaic of resources. Established places lent order to the chaotic worlds of people and nature, and they embodied history and the cosmos here on earth. Caddo Landscapes explores the ancestral Caddo constructed landscape, providing detailed information on earthen mounds, specialized non-mound structures, domestic settlements and their key facilities as well as associated gardens and fields, and places where salt, clay, lithic raw materials, and other materials were obtained and the social ties that linked communities in numerous ways. The character and key sequences of ceramics are discussed and radiometric dating evidence provided.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 232
ISBN: 9781785706844
Pub Date: 26 May 2017
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.
Both regions host robust pre-modern antiquarian traditions that have continued to develop during periods of colonialism. In both regions, moreover, colonial encounters have been mediated by the antiquarian practices and preferences of European elites. The two regions also exhibit salient differences. For example, Europeans claimed the “antiquities” of the eastern Mediterranean as part of their own, “classical,” heritage, whereas they perceived those of the Americas as essentially alien, even as they attempted to understand them by analogy to the classical world. These basic points of comparison and contrast provide a framework for conjoint analysis of the emergence of hybrid or cross-bred antiquarianisms. Rather than assuming that interest in antiquity is a human universal, this book explores the circumstances under which the past itself is produced and transformed through encounters between antiquarian traditions over common objects of interpretation.
Pages: 296
ISBN: 9781785704451
Pub Date: 26 May 2017
Illustrations: b/w
Pages: 320
ISBN: 9781789253405
Pub Date: 25 Jul 2019
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.
The 33 papers present a wide array of topics covering many areas of archaeological interest. Aspects of method and theory, animal bone identification, human palaeopathology, prehistoric animal utilisation in South America, and the study of dog cemeteries are covered. The long-running controversy over the milking of animals and the use of dairy products by humans is discussed as is the ecological impact of hunting by farmers, with studies from Serbia and Syria. For Britain, coverage extends from Mesolithic Star Carr, via the origins of agriculture and the farmers of Lismore Fields, through considerations of the Neolithic and Bronze Age. Outside Britain, papers discuss Neolithic subsistence in Cyprus and Croatia, Iron Age society in Spain, Medieval and post-medieval animal utilisation in northern Russia, and the claimed finding of a modern red deer skeleton in Egypt’s Eastern Desert. In exploring these themes, this volume celebrates the life and work of Tony Legge (zoo)archaeologist and teacher.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 416
ISBN: 9781785704499
Pub Date: 26 May 2017
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.
Following a period of near desertion in the Early Anglo-Saxon period, Winchester became a significant place again with the foundation of a minster church in the mid-7th century. In the Late Anglo-Saxon period it became the pre-eminent royal centre for the Kingdom of Wessex. The city acquired a castle, cathedral and bishop’s palace under norman kings but from the late 12th century onwards its status began to decline to that of a regional market town. The archaeological resource for Winchester is very rich and is a resource of national and, for the Anglo-Saxon and Norman periods, of international importance.
