The King’s Dyke and Bradley Fen excavations occurred within the brick pits of the Fenland town of Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire. The investigations straddled the south-eastern contours of the Flag Fen Basin, a small peat-filled embayment located between Peterborough and the western limits of Whittlesey ‘island’. Renowned principally for its Bronze Age discoveries at sites such as Fengate and Flag Fen, the Flag Fen Basin also marked the point where the prehistoric River Nene debouched into the greater Fenland Basin. A henge, two round barrows, an early fieldsystem, metalwork deposition and patterns of sustained settlement along with metalworking evidence helped produce a plan similar in its configuration to that revealed at Fengate. In addition, unambiguous evidence of earlier second millennium BC settlement was identified together with large watering holes and the first burnt stone mounds to be found along Fenland’s western edge. Genuine settlement structures included three of Early Bronze Age date, one Late Bronze Age, ten Early Iron Age and three Middle Iron Age. Later Bronze Age metalwork, including single spears and a weapon hoard, was deposited in indirect association with the earlier land divisions and consistently within ground that was becoming increasingly wet. The large-scale exposure of the base of the Flag Fen Basin at Bradley Fen revealed a beneath-the-peat or pre-basin landscape related to the buried floodplain of an early River Nene. Above all, the revelation of sub-fen occupation means we can now situate the Flag Fen Basin in time as well as space.

The prehistoric, Roman, and Anglo-Saxon periods were all represented in an excavation carried out in the centre of a Worcestershire village some time ago, but with results that can now be seen in new light because of all the archaeological work that has taken place since. A deep Iron Age ditch can be set in the context of enclosures revealed, mainly by air photography, of the gravel terraces in the river valleys of the Severn and Avon. The Romano-British skeletons form a small, elderly and hard-worked group, providing a contrast to the better-known large urban cemeteries. The growing of crops on an increasingly large scale has been demonstrated for the seventh to ninth centuries A.D., and at Fladbury the complex arrangements made to dry grain on what is known to have been a large and important estate show the resources put into feeding royal, aristocratic, and ecclesiastical households.

The central issues discussed in this new collected work in the highly successful ancient textiles series are the relationships between fiber resources and availability on the one hand and the ways those resources were exploited to produce textiles on the other. Technological and economic practices - for example, the strategies by which raw materials were acquired and prepared - in the production of textiles play a major role in the papers collected here. Contributions investigate the beginnings of wool use in western Asia and southeastern Europe. The importance of wool in considerations of early textiles is due to at least two factors. First, both wild as well as some domesticated sheep are characterized by a hairy rather than a woolly coat. This raises the question of when and where woolly sheep emerged, a question that has not up to now been resolvable by genetic or other biological analyses. Second, wool as a fiber has played a major role both economically and socially in both western Asian and European societies from as early as the 3rd millennium BCE in Mesopotamia, and it continues to do so, in different ways, up to the modern day. Despite the importance of wool as a fiber resource contributors demonstrate clearly that its development and use can only be properly addressed in the context of a consideration of other fibers, both plant and animal. Only within a framework that takes into account historically and regionally variable strategies of procurement, processing, and the products of different types of fibers is it possible to gain real insights into the changing roles played by fibers and textiles in the lives of people in different places and times in the past. With relatively rare, albeit sometimes spectacular exceptions, archaeological contexts offer only poor conditions of preservation for textiles. As a result, archaeologists are dependent on indirect or proxy indicators such as textile tools (e.g., loom weights, spindle whorls) and the analysis of faunal remains to explore a range of such proxies and methods by which they may be analyzed and evaluated in order to contribute to an understanding of fiber and textile production and use in the past.

This third volume in the TRAC Themes in Roman Archaeology series offers a new encounter between posthumanism and Roman archaeology. Posthuman theoretical perspectives have had substantial impacts in various fields, including archaeology, critical studies, and feminist studies, but only recently have emerged in the study of the ancient world. Posthumanism is an umbrella term for a multiplicity of theoretical perspectives that critique humanism, de-centre the human subject, reconsider the boundaries and relations among humans and the natural world, and frame the human condition as non-fixed and variable. Such perspectives also consider the agency of non-humans, their entanglements, interactions, and relations with humans, as well as the ethical implications thereof. The Romans were entangled with other beings and the world around them: they were relational beings, as we are today. With this volume, the editors aim to explore the potential and utility of posthuman theoretical perspectives for Roman archaeology. The contributors to this volume consider a diverse array of themes including posthuman performances of emperors, the agency and relationality of epigraphic funerary markers, the ritual function and agency of votive figurines, the materiality of divine agency in the city of Rome, hybrid chicken-human coins, plant agency, the agency and nature of water in Roman urban infrastructure, and the Anthropocene. Collectively, the contributions demonstrate the numerous possibilities posthumanism offers Roman archaeology and reveal the posthuman nature of the Roman world. Ultimately, the volume stresses that humans and non-humans are entangled and imbricated in larger systems: we are all posthuman.

Norfolk has a rich heritage of prehistoric metalwork from the daggers of the Early Bronze Age to the late pre-Roman Iron Age treasures of Snettisham. In recent years relatively little has been written about the Bronze Age metalwork. Individual classes, such as swords, have been recorded in Prähistorische Bronzefunde while depositional practices have been explored in a number of theses, building on earlier classification of hoards and other assemblages going all the way back to the work of Sir John Evans in the late 19th century. Weapon assemblages and their deposition have more generally been a focus of attention, especially in relation to the ritual use of water and wet places, and regional biases in distribution have been noted when compared with other classes of hoard. More recently particular attention has been paid to the practical use of weapons and their condition at deposition, quantifying combat and other damage. The discovery over a period from the 1950s of three roughly contemporary Late Bronze Age weapon assemblages from north-west Norfolk, provides the opportunity to combine a range of archaeological and technological approaches to their characterisation and interpretation. For the first time the resources were available to link a full compositional, metallographic and radiographic study of the largest of the assemblages, that from Waterden, with an assessment of combat and ritualised damage and with the more traditional archaeological approaches of typology and chronology to enhance our understanding of some important aspects of Late Bronze Age life and society. The results from Waterden are supported by archaeological field investigation, and serve to illuminate the two smaller finds, both from Fincham.

The debasement of coinage, particularly of silver, was a common feature of pre-modern monetary systems. Most coinages were issued by state authorities and the condition of a coinage is often seen (rightly or wrongly) as an indicator of the broader fiscal health of the state that produced it. While in some cases the motives behind the debasements or reductions in standards are clear, in many cases the intentions of the issuing authorities are uncertain. Various explanations have been advanced: fiscal motives (such as a desire to profit or a to cover a deficit caused by the failure to balance expenditure and revenues); monetary motives (such as changing demand for coined money or a desire to maintain monetary stability in the face of changing values of raw materials or labour costs); pressure from groups within society that would profit from debasement; misconduct at the mint; or the decline of existing monetary standards due to circulation and wear of the coinage in circulation. Certain explanations have tended to gain favour with monetary historians of specific periods, partly reflecting the compartmentalization of scholarship. Thus the study of Roman debasements emphasizes fiscal deficits, whereas medievalists are often more prepared to consider monetary factors as contributing to debasements. To some extent these different approaches are a reflection of discrepancies in the amount of documentary evidence available for the respective periods, but the divide also underlines fundamentally different approaches to the function of coinage: Romanists have preferred to see coins as a medium for state payments; whereas medievalists have often emphasized exchange as an important function of currency. The volume is inter-disciplinary in scope. Apart from bringing together monetary historians of different periods, it also contains contributions from archaeometallurgists who have experience with the chemical and physical composition of coins and technical aspects of production of base alloys.

New Guinea, and especially Papua New Guinea, is the last country in the world where ethnologists were able to closely observe, film and photograph the whole manufacturing chaînes opératoires of polished stone felling tools, from quarry extraction to finished tool use. Research on the polished blades of PNG has evolved over the years, following changing philosophies and research agendas. While it is clear that an exceptional sum of information has been gathered, it remains centered on that small part of the Highlands where conditions for field research were more pleasant than elsewhere. Our presentation of Irian Jaya axes therefore tackles a topic that remains mostly unexplored. Until now, stone tool research in New Guinea has followed an anthropocentric approach, in which tools are seen more as vectors for social exchanges than as means of acting on the environment. This monograph will take a different approach. Here, polished stone blades are placed at the center of the world, between, on one side, the transformed natural environment, and, on the other, the social and economic environment. This approach will allow us to suggest new avenues of inference in archaeology, as well as to test and abandon existing ones.In this volume, the stone blade is considered as a living being, existing in balance within its biotope. This idea is not far removed from the beliefs of Irian Jaya farmers, for whom life animates certain objects of their material culture. Following a brief presentation of Irian Jaya, we will describe the function of polished stone blades in Irian Jaya societies and the distribution of hafting styles, define and study the quarrying zones and the areas of diffusion and use of their production, and, if possible, the different trends noted in each area of polished blade production and exchanges. Finally, we will conclude with a discussion of the ethnoarchaeological potential of these contemporary observations.

The book delivers a history from below for the first half of Egyptian history covering the earliest settlements, state formation and the pyramid age. The focus is on the Wadjet province, about 350 km south of modern Cairo in Upper Egypt. Here archaeological records provide an especially rich dataset for the material culture of farmers. Histories of Ancient Egypt have focussed heavily on the kings, monuments and inscriptions, while the working population is hardly mentioned. The book investigates the life of people far from the centres of power. One main aim of the book is the interaction between farmers and the ruling classes at the centres of power and locally. How did decisions at the royal centre affect the life of ordinary people? The Introduction offers a critical survey of Egyptologists and their attitudes towards the working class. The social and cultural background of these researchers is analysed to assess how heavily they are influenced by time and their political and cultural background. The First chapter then describes the location and gives a history of previous research and excavations. The archaeological sites and the recorded ancient place names of the province are presented to provide a geographical framework for the book. The following chapters are arranged in chronological order, mainly according to the archaeological phases visible in the province. It appears that in phases of a weak central government, people in the provinces were much better off, while in phases of a strong central government burials of poorer people are almost absent. The reasons for this are discussed. A substantial part of the book comprises descriptions of single burials and the material culture in the province. The archaeology of the poorer people is the main focus. Burial customs and questions of production are discussed. For a fuller picture, evidence from other parts of Egypt is also taken into account. Thus settlement sites in other regions are presented to provide contemporary evidence for living conditions in particular periods. As the book will focus on the lower classes, the Tributary Mode of Production will be used as the main theoretical framework. The Tributary Mode of Production (previously known as the Asiatic Mode of Production) is a term that goes back to Karl Marx, but was mainly used in the 20th century to describe ancient societies whose economies were not based on slaves. A constant question will be the status of the working population. Were they slaves, serfs or free citizens? It will be argued that they were most often in a dependent position comparable to that of serfs, while there is little evidence for slavery. The numerous burials presented in the volume are important for highlighting the diversity of burials in the different periods. Many will be placed in special subchapters. Readers can skip these chapters when they prefer to concentrate on the main text.

This volume examines the archaeology of the Waithe Valley as it passes through the central Lincolnshire Wolds. It concentrates on fieldwork and finds from the eastern edge of the Wolds and was undertaken as part of the Central Lincolnshire Wolds Research Project. It documents the development of human presence in and use of the valley from prehistory to recent times, reporting on geophysical survey, fieldwalking and excavations. The monograph focusses on the evidence for a late Roman settlement, field system and enclosures. Evidence of corn-drying ovens and faunal remains reflect agricultural regimes and the various finds assemblages recovered provide an understanding of the landscape and economy of a later Roman farming complex.

The chronological disjuncture, LBK longhouses have widely been considered to provide ancestral influence for both rectangular and trapezoidal long barrows and cairns, but with the discovery and excavation of more houses in recent times is it possible to observe evidence of more contemporary inspiration. What do the features found beneath long mounds tell us about this and to what extent do they represent domestic structures. Indeed, how can we distinguish between domestic houses or halls and those that may have been constructed for ritual purposes or ended up beneath mounds? Do so called 'mortuary enclosures' reflect ritual or domestic architecture and did side ditches always provide material for a mound or for building construction? This collection of papers seeks to explore the interface between structures often considered to be those of the living with those for the dead.

The book draws on the evidence of landscape archaeology, palaeoenvironmental studies, ethnohistory and animal tracking to address the neglected topic of how we identify and interpret past patterns of movement in the landscape. It challenges the pessimism of previous generations which regarded prehistoric routes such as hollow ways as generally undatable. The premise is that archaeologists tend to focus on ‘sites’ while neglecting the patterns of habitual movement that made them part of living landscapes. Evidence of past movement is considered in a multi-scalar way from the individual footprint to the long distance path including the traces created in vegetation by animal and human movement. It is argued that routes may be perpetuated over long timescales creating landscape structures which influence the activities of subsequent generations. In other instances radical changes of axes of communication and landscape structures provide evidence of upheaval and social change. Palaeoenvironmental and ethnohistorical evidence from the American North West coast sets the scene with evidence for the effects of burning, animal movement, faeces deposition and transplantation which can create readable routes along which are favoured resources. Evidence from European hunter-gatherer sites hints at similar practices of niche construction on a range of spatial scales. On a local scale, footprints help to establish axes of movement, the locations of lost settlements and activity areas. Wood trackways likewise provide evidence of favoured patterns of movement and past settlement location. Among early farming communities alignments of burial mounds, enclosure entrances and other monuments indicate axes of communication. From the middle Bronze Age in Europe there is more clearly defined evidence of trackways flanked by ditches and fields. Landscape scale survey and excavation enables the dating of trackways using spatial relationships with dated features and many examples indicate long-term continuity of routeways. Where fields flank routeways a range of methods, including scientific approaches, provide dates. Prehistorians have often assumed that Ridgeways provided the main axes of early movement but there is little evidence for their early origins and rather better evidence for early routes crossing topography and providing connections between different environmental zones. The book concludes with a case study of the Weald of South East England which demonstrates that some axes of cross topographic movement used as droveways, and generally considered as early medieval, can be shown to be of prehistoric origin. One reason that dryland routes have proved difficult to recognise is that insufficient attention has been paid to the parts played by riverine and maritime longer distance communication. It is argued that understanding the origins of the paths we use today contributes to appreciation of the distinctive qualities of landscapes. Appreciation will help to bring about effective strategies for conservation of mutual benefit to people and wildlife by maintaining and enhancing corridors of connectivity between different landscape zones including fragmented nature reserves and valued places. In these ways an understanding of past routeways can contribute to sustainable landscapes, communities and quality of life.

Excavations in Wandsworth along the riverfront to the east of the Thames (which here trends roughly south to north), have revealed details of the diverse history of this part of the borough and its fluctuating fortunes. This monograph details the results of excavations at three sites along that stretch of riverfront at Price’s Candle Factory, Regent and Groves Wharves and Bridges Wharf. A ditch and associated Middle and Late Bronze Age pottery are the only evidence for prehistoric activity here. It was not until the later 15th Century that development of the area began in earnest, with construction of a moated manor house, known as Bryggecourt, or Bridge Court, which later came to be known as York House. Initially constructed as an episcopal residence, this manor house provided a country retreat for the pleasure and relaxation of bishops of York, yet was close enough to allow a visit to London and the Royal Court whenever necessary. At Bridges Wharf evidence for the revetments which controlled and modified the waterfront was revealed, whilst at Regent and Groves wharves an 18th-century sugar plant gave way to a turpentine factory. York House suffered changing fortunes. Variously used as a prison, private residence and industrial premises, by the mid-19th century the site had become the location of one of the country’s foremost candle manufactories. Amongst various industries the site was home to the Battersea Enamelling Manufactory; only in existence for three years, between 1753 and 1756, this operation was short but highly innovative and influential. Recent development has seen the area turn full circle and return once more to residential housing.

The crannog on Llangorse Lake near Brecon in mid Wales was discovered in 1867 and first excavated in 1869 by two local antiquaries, Edgar and Henry Dumbleton, who published their findings over the next four years. In 1988 dendrochronological dates from submerged palisade planks established its construction in the ninth century, and a combined off- and on-shore investigation of the site was started as a joint project between Cardiff University and Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales. The subsequent surveys and excavation (1989-1994, 2004) resulted in the recovery of a remarkable time capsule of life in the late ninth and tenth century, on the only crannog yet identified in Wales. This publication re-examines the early investigations, describes in detail the anatomy of the crannog mound and its construction, and the material culture found. The crannog’s treasures include early medieval secular and religious metalwork, evidence for manufacture, the largest depository of early medieval carpentry in Wales and a remarkable richly embroidered silk and linen textile which is fully analysed and placed in context. The crannog’s place in Welsh history is explored, as a royal llys (‘court’) within the kingdom of Brycheiniog, as well as its subsequent significance of the crannog in local traditions and its post-medieval occupation during a riotous dispute in the reign Elizabeth I. The cultural affinities of the crannog and its material culture is assessed, as are their relationship to origin myths for the kingdom, and to probable links with early medieval Ireland. The folk tales associated with the lake are explored, in a book that brings together archaeology, history, myths and legends, underwater and terrestrial archaeology.

Industrialisation is a notoriously complex issue in terms of the hazards and benefits it has brought to human beings in our endeavours to improve our lives. This is never more evident than in the field of health and medicine, where there are many questions about the causes and treatments of diseases we commonly encounter today, such as cancer, diabetes and degenerative age-related conditions. Are there genetic predispositions to these conditions? Are they a mirror of our modern lives driven by our fast-paced lifestyles or have they always existed but gone undetected? The archive of human skeletal remains at the Museum of London provides a large bank of evidence that has been explored here, along with other skeletal collections from around England, to investigate how far some of these diseases go back in time and what we can tell about the influence of living environments past and present on human health. The Industrial Period was a key period in human history where substantial change occurred to the population’s lifestyles, in terms of occupations, housing and diet as well as leisurely past-times, all of which would have impacted on their health. London had become the most densely populated metropolis in the world, the beating heart of trade and consumerism, an unambiguous example of the urban experience in the Industrial age. Using up-to-date medical imaging technologies in addition to osteoarchaeological examination of human skeletal remains, we have been able to establish the presence of modern day diseases in individuals living in the past, both before and during Industrialisation, to compare to rates in UK populations today. By re-examining the skeletal evidence, we have traced how the perils of unregulated rural and urban lives, changing food consumption, transport, technologies as well as improving medical treatment and life expectancy, have all altered health patterns over time.

In which chronological, spatial, and social contexts is gender a relevant social category that is noticeable in the archaeological material? How can transformations in social gender relations and identity be recognized archaeologically? Is the identity of prehistoric people defined by gender? If so, what is the accompanying cultural context? What about gender equality among the scientists working in archaeology? In what degree are research teams, as well as their scientific approaches, biased today? These and other burning questions are intensively discussed in this volume, which comprises 25 contributions presented at the international workshop ‘Gender Transformations in Prehistoric and Archaic Societies’, organised by the Collaborative Research Centre 1266 of Kiel University funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The workshop offered a platform to discuss a broad range of approaches on the inter-dependencies between gender relations and socio-environmental transformation processes. Beyond a focus on the archaeology of women, gender archaeology offers a variety of possibilities to reconstruct the contribution of social groups differentiated e.g. by age, gender, and activities related to cultural transformation, based on the archaeological material. Thus, this volume includes papers dealing with different socio-economic units, from south-western Europe to Central Asia, between 15,000 and 1 BCE, paying particular attention to the scale of social reach. Since gender archaeology, and in particular feminist archaeology, also addresses the issue of scientific objectivity or bias, parts of this volume are dedicated to equal opportunity matters in archaeological academia across the globe. This is realised by bringing together feminist and female experiences from a range of countries, each with its own specific individual, cultural, and social perspectives and traditions. The papers are organised along three central topics: ‘Gendering fieldwork’, ‘Tracing gender transformations’, and ‘Gendering and shaping the environment’. By gendering the archaeological discussion on transformation processes, the contributions aim to more firmly embed gender-sensitive research in the archaeological agenda, not just in Europe, but world-wide.

Maritime archaeologist Honor Frost (1917-2010) was a pioneer in her field. She left a rich legacy through her innovative research conducted in the eastern Mediterranean on the remains of ports and harbours, sea-level change, shipwrecks and ship construction, and ancient anchors. This volume provides an appreciation of Frost's work and gives a point-in-time assessment of current projects in the region that are in effect a continuity of Frost’s work. As such, it provides an insight into the development of the discipline of maritime archaeology in the region from its infancy to the present day. The subjects covered include Frost’s long-term research into the port infrastructures of the Levantine coast, particularly at Byblos, Tyre, Sidon, and Arwad, which heralded harbour geo-archaeology by addressing sea-level change and maritime paleo-landscapes. Also, her excavation and analysis of the ships relating to the archaeological remains of the Punic wars that she excavated from 1971 off the coast of Marsala, Sicily. This work is examined both through her underwater investigation at the time, the creation of a museum in Marsala to house the remains, and through a recent discovery in Frost’s archives. Frost’s survey of the lighthouse at Alexandria, on which all later work has been based, is also included. Her contribution to the establishment of research into stone anchors is examined within the context of current projects. Two seminal articles are offered. One with respect to Frost’s life before she became a maritime archaeologist: as artist and set and costume designer for ballet productions. The other one provides a detailed overview of her maritime archaeological career.