This book collects recent works on the subjects of sacrificial offerings, ritualised violence and the relative values thereof in the contexts of Scandinavian prehistory from the Neolithic to the Viking era. It provides a detailed re-appraisal of key aspects of prehistoric bog bodies using the latest forensic and material culture analytical techniques to examine questions of sacrifice, execution and ritual behaviour.The volume re-opens investigations into notions of value relating to diverse evidence and suggested evidence for human sacrifice and related ritualised violence. It covers a broad spectrum of issues relating to novel interpretations of the existing archaeological materials, but with a focus on the study of value and value dynamics in these diverse ritual contexts, engaging in questions of identity, cosmology, economics and social relations. Cases span from the Scandinavian Late Neolithic and Nordic Bronze Age, through to the well-known wetland deposits and bog bodies of the Iron Age, to Viking era executions, ‘deviant’ burials and contemporaneous double/multiple graves, exploring the implications for the transformation of sacrificial practices across Scandinavian prehistory.Each contributor untangles the myriad forms of value at play in different incarnations of human offerings, and provide insights into how those values were expressed, for example in the selection and treatment of victims in relation to their status, personhood, identity and life-history.The volume builds on a workshop hosted at the National Museum of Denmark in 2018 which inaugurated the beginning of the research project ‘Human Sacrifice and Value: The limits of sacred violence’ and was supported by the Museum of Cultural History at the University of Oslo. It brings together research and perspectives that go beyond the who, what and where of most archaeological and anthropological investigations of sacrificial violence to address both the underlying and explicit forms of value associated with such events.

Archaeology has gone digital for some time now! Topics such as GIS databases, 3D models, drone photography, meta- and para-data, semantic mapping, text mining, simulation, and social network analysis have become commonplace in archaeological discourse and practice. Digital and technological advancements seemingly offer limitless promises for data recording, analysis and dissemination. Yet, after several decades of innovation, we must ask ourselves which of these promises are actually fulfilled, and which persistent impasses are present. Today, some reflexive questions are more important than ever. In particular, when, how and why do our innovative archaeology tools fail? Do we approach our archaeological projects with a digital wand and (implicitly or explicitly) expect a magical solution? And when there is indeed a digital solution, at what expense does it come?In this volume, scholars and practitioners in the field discuss the state of the art, as well as the promises and impasses that digital approaches to archaeology entail. The authors discuss the current state of teaching digital archaeology, the societal impact of digital innovations, current issues in archaeological data management, promises and limitations of isotopic research and remote sensing techniques, and why subfields such as agent-based modelling and serious gaming struggle to keep momentum.

When Vasa was raised in 1961 a lost world was revealed in astonishing detail. Among the most remarkable finds were the remains of the rigging. Normally shipwrecks offer only a few clues to the structure above the waterline, but on Vasa the lower masts, a myriad of blocks and deadeyes, hundreds of metres of rope and cable and – most astonishingly – nine sails from the ship and its boat survive. The unique finds provide an unparalleled opportunity to reconstruct the rigging in detail and to form an understanding of how ships were sailed in the seventeenth century. With a sail plan, rigging, and steering gear that are substantially different to the classical full-rigged ship of the nineteenth century, the evidence from Vasa paints a vivid picture of ship-handling in the Age of Sail. Vasa II Part 1 presents more than a thousand finds of wood, metal, and cloth from the most complete rig to survive from before 1800, which form the basis for a complete reconstruction of the rig and sailing performance of a large warship of the 1620s.

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.

Economic circularity is the ability of a society to reduce waste by recycling, reusing, and repairing raw materials and finished products. This concept has gained momentum in academia, in part due to contemporary environmental concerns. Although the blurry conceptual boundaries of this term are open to a wide array of interpretations, the scholarly community generally perceives circular economy as a convenient umbrella definition that encompasses a vast array of regenerative and preservative processes. Despite the recent surge of interest, economic circularity has not been fully addressed as a macrophenomenon by historical and archaeological studies. The limitations of data and the relatively new formulation of targeted research questions mean that several processes and agents involved in ancient circular economies are still invisible to the eye of modern scholarship. Examples include forms of curation, maintenance, and repair, which must have had an influence on the economic systems of premodern societies but are rarely accounted for. Moreover, the people behind these processes, such as collectors and scavengers, are rarely investigated and poorly understood. Even better-studied mechanisms, like reuse and recycling, are not explored to their full potential within the broader picture of ancient urban economies. This volume stems from a conference held at Moesgaard Museum supported by the Carlsberg Foundation and the Centre for Urban Networks Evolutions (UrbNet) at Aarhus University. To enhance our understanding of circular economic processes, the contributions in this volume expand the framework of the discussion by exploring circular economy over the longue durée and by integrating an interdisciplinary perspective. Furthermore, the volume gives prominence to classes of material, processes, agents, and methodologies generally overlooked or ignored in modern scholarship.

Writing does not begin and end with the encoding of an idea into a group of symbols. It is practised by people who have learnt its principles and acquired the tools and skills for doing it, in a particular context that affects what they do and how they do it. Nor are these practices static, as those involved exploit opportunities to adapt old features and develop new ones. The act of writing then has tangible and visible consequences not only for the writers but also for those encountering what has been produced, whether they can read its content or not – with potential for a wider social visibility that can in turn affect the success and longevity of the writing system itself.With a focus on the syllabic systems of the Bronze Age Aegean, this book attempts to bring together different perspectives to create an innovative interdisciplinary outlook on what is involved in writing: from structuralist views of writing as systems of signs with their linguistic values, to archaeological and anthropological approaches to writing as a socially grounded practice. The main chapters focus on the concepts of script adoption and adaptation; different methods of logographic writing; and the vitality of writing traditions, with repercussions for the modern world.Contexts of and Relations between Early Writing Systems (CREWS) is a project funded by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 677758), and based in the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge.

Religious heritage has long been within the scope of academia, but very little research has been conducted on the heritagization of Catholic monasteries. This is remarkable considering the longstanding historical presence and social impact of these institutes that, in recent times, have also become well-visited spiritual centers and much-cherished heritage objects. This book addresses this lacuna. It does so through examining the heritagization process of De Heilige Driehoek (The Holy Triangle), a religious site comprised of three living monasteries in the south of the Netherlands. Ever since the turn of the millennium, the monastic communities living there have increasingly experienced the involvement of heritage groups. In this dynamic, the distinctive religious tradition of the monastics has led to a distinctive heritage perception of the area; one in which the spiritual and historical values of this tradition are recognized. However, as these values are translated into a secular heritage discourse, the question arises how this translation relates to the self-understanding and needs of the monastics. The aim of this book is to conceptualize through a historical lens the evolving and differing ways in which the different parties involved envision the meaning, potential, and nature of the monasteries. This study shows the struggle of heritage groups with creating a compelling narrative for their intended audiences and the often problematic impact this has on religious communities. In doing so, it offers a new perspective on the complicated relationship between religion and heritage

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.

People and spaces have always been connected by routes: paths, trails, roads – on land, on water and sometimes even through the air, over hill and dale as well as over wooden planks, pavement and asphalt. Humans and animals followed them. The routes directed the circulation of raw materials and goods. They determined the paths on which humans fled from misery and danger, and they constituted the physical and imagined veins of networks between communities. All these cultural and biological connectivities are the building blocks of reshaping past (and present) societies.In this booklet – the second in the booklet series of the Cluster of Excellence ROOTS at Kiel University – we uncover the roots of these routes: From the earliest stages of the Stone Age to the present day, there have been well-defined routes, which enabled the exchange of things, practices and knowledge between people. Many of these ancient routes are not only still visible today, but even continue to operate: from the Silk Roads spanning the continents to the local routes of the Ox Trail in Schleswig-Holstein, from the waterways of Mesopotamia and the river worlds of the forest zone to the spiritual routes of philosophical contemplation. Moreover, isolation and disruptions of formerly established routes, for example in the Viking diaspora, have also proven to be directional for cultural developments. In a kaleidoscope of perspectives, the roles of landscape and climate are examined. Special attention is given to those routes along which objects, rituals, and therefore also cultural practices were transported. Religious rituals, knowledge, even philosophical insights are shown to have their roots in movement along routes.These and the many other topics in this booklet illustrate to what extent the development of human societies is determined by the routes through which they are connected – or not connected. Modern narratives of a limitless, openly accessible world, grounded in an urban-industrialised experience (or agenda), can get cracks if we look deep enough into the past. It is the paths, the very concrete connections in a material as well as a spiritual sense that influence human lives, their existence and their development. Communication and dialogue along the routes and networks must be maintained, as they were and are the guarantors for a good coexistence of humans in this world.

This monograph comprises the final publication of a study supported by the British Institute of Persian Studies and undertaken by Seth Priestman and Derek Kennet at the University of Durham. The work presents and analyses an assemblage of just under 17,000 sherds of pottery and associated paper archives resulting from one of the largest and most comprehensive surveys ever undertaken on the historic archaeology of southern Iran. The survey was undertaken by Andrew George Williamson (1945–1975), a doctoral student at Oxford University between 1968 and 1971, at a time of great progress and rapid advance in the archaeological exploration of Iran. The monograph provides new archaeological evidence on the long-term development of settlement in Southern Iran, in particular the coastal region, from the Sasanian period to around the 17th century. The work provides new insights into regional settlement patterns and changing ceramic distribution, trade and use. A large amount of primary data is presented covering an extensive area from Minab to Bushehr along the coast and inland as far as Sirjan. This includes information on a number of previously undocumented archaeological sites, as well as a detailed description and analysis of the ceramic finds, which underpin the settlement evidence and provide a wider source of reference. By collecting carefully controlled archaeological evidence related to the size, distribution and period of occupation of urban and rural settlements distributed across southern Iran, Williamson aimed to reconstruct the broader historical development of the region. Due to his early death the work was never completed. The key aims of the authors of this volume were to do justice to Williamson’s remarkable vision and efforts on the one hand, and at the same time to bring this important new evidence to ongoing discussions about the development of southern Iran through the Sasanian and Islamic periods.

How can pottery studies contribute to the study of medieval archaeology? How do pots relate to documents, landscapes and identities? These are the questions addressed in this book which develops a new approach to the study of pottery in medieval archaeology. Utilising an interpretative framework which focuses upon the relationships between people, places and things, the effect of the production, consumption and discard of pottery is considered, to see pottery not as reflecting medieval life, but as one factor which contributed to the development of multiple experiences and realities in medieval England. By focussing on relationships we move away from viewing pottery simply as an object of study in its own right, to see it as a central component to developing understandings of medieval society. The case studies presented explore how we might use relational approaches to reconsider our approaches to medieval landscapes, overcome the methodological and theoretical divisions between documents and material culture and explore how the use of objects could have multiple implications for the formation and maintenance of identities. The use of this approach makes this book not only of interest to pottery specialists, but also to any archaeologist seeking to develop new interpretative approaches to medieval archaeology and the archaeological study of material culture.

Extensive archaeological investigations were undertaken over two decades in Hinxton, south Cambridgeshire by OA East on behalf of the Wellcome Trust. The excavated areas lay in the Cam valley, a ‘borderland zone’ crossed by Icknield Way; the ridgeway route and the River Cam providing natural corridors of movement and communication. Hinxton’s post-glacial valley landscape of indigenous woodland, streams and seasonally flooded pools attracted Palaeolithic and Mesolithic communities to the area. Fills of one pool yielded a Terminal Palaeolithic ‘Long/Bruised Blade’ assemblage of national significance. Tree clearance to permit exploitation of the fertile valley sides began in the Early Neolithic. The increasingly ‘ritual’ or ceremonial significance of the landscape is indicated by a Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age shaft containing a substantial assemblage of worked flint and Beaker pottery. During the later prehistoric and Early Roman periods, two square enclosures – the largest related to mortuary practices – were followed by a small timber shrine. Burial of selected individuals, both in graves and as disarticulated remains, occurred sporadically throughout prehistory. Agricultural exploitation of the valley seems to have been almost continuous from the Early Neolithic until the Middle Roman period, after which the land lay largely fallow. Conquest period large corrals linked to major trackways potentially demonstrate stock management on a scale commensurate with supplying the nearby fort and Roman town at Great Chesterford. The immediate landscape was not resettled until the Anglo-Saxon period. Post-Roman activity at Hinxton is the subject of a companion volume (Part II).

Extensively illustrated report on an excavation in Oxfordshire near the Iron Age hillfort at Segsbury. Ephemeral traces of Mesolithic and Neolithic activity, including a possible Neolithic timber structure, were found. The remains of a probable Late Bronze Age pit alignment were also found. Small Iron Age settlements comprising round houses, pits and other structures, and burials were revealed. One particular burial in a pit had been subjected to unusual treatment that included the removal of the individual’s feet after death. Small Roman and post-Roman cemeteries also were identified. The small Late Roman cemetery included males, females and neonates. This cemetery is typical for the period and the burials were accompanied by a range of artefacts including coins, brooches, a bracelet and rings as well as an unusual fragmentary double-sided bone or antler comb with a horse motif and ring-and-dot decoration. A small undated cemetery was originally believed to be either of Roman or less likely post-Roman date. However, radiocarbon dating revealed the unaccompanied burials to be of late 7th or early 8th century AD date. Innovative scientific techniques including radiocarbon dating and Bayesian modelling, aDNA and isotope analysis have revealed some important details such as familial relationships and dating that would not otherwise have been known. Small assemblages of finds included worked flint and prehistoric pottery, Roman and later pottery, worked bone, glass and metalwork.