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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.

Alan Sorrell Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 216
ISBN: 9781785707407
Pub Date: 31 Jan 2018
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w and colour
Description:
Alan Sorrell’s archaeological reconstruction drawings and paintings remain some of the best, most accurate and most accomplished paintings of their genre that continue to inform our understanding and appreciation of historic buildings and monuments in Europe, the Near East and throughout the UK. His famously stormy and smoky townscapes, especially those of Roman Britain, were based on meticulous attention to detail borne of detailed research in collaboration with archaeologists such as Sir Mortimer Wheeler, Sir Cyril Fox and Sir Barry Cunliffe, who excavated and recorded his subjects of interest. Many of his reconstructions were commissioned to accompany visitor information and guidebooks at historic sites and monuments where they continue to be displayed.
Care or Neglect? Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 300
ISBN: 9781785708893
Pub Date: 31 Jan 2018
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Description:
Animals have always been integral to culture. Their interaction with humans has intensified since the onset of domestication resulting in higher incidences of animal disease due to human intervention. At the same time, human care has counter-balanced pressures of natural selection, reducing morbidity among wild animals.
Communities in Transition Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 656
ISBN: 9781785707209
Pub Date: 23 Jan 2018
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w and colour
Description:
Communities in Transition brings together scholars from different countries and backgrounds united by a common interest in the transition between the Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age in the lands around the Aegean. Neolithic community was transformed, in some places incrementally and in others rapidly, during the 5th and 4th millennia BC into one that we would commonly associate with the Bronze Age. Many different names have been assigned to this period: Final Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Eneolithic, Late Neolithic [I]-II, Copper Age which, to some extent, reflects the diversity of archaeological evidence from varied geographical regions.
RRP: £70.00
Slave-Wives, Single Women and “Bastards” in the Ancient Greek World Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 224
ISBN: 9781785708633
Pub Date: 17 Jan 2018
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w
Description:
Greek scholars have produced a vast body of evidence bearing on nuptial practices that has yet to be mined by a professional economist. By standing on their shoulders, the author proposes and tests radically new interpretations of three important status groups in Greek history: the pallakē, the hetaira, and the nothos. It is argued that legitimate marriage – that is ‘marriage by loan of the bride to the groom’ – was not the only form of legal marriage in classical Athens and the ancient Greek world generally.
The Bioarchaeology of Ritual and Religion Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 232
ISBN: 9781785708282
Pub Date: 10 Jan 2018
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w and colour
Description:
The Bioarchaeology of Ritual and Religion is the first volume dedicated to exploring ritual and religious practice in past societies from a variety of ‘environmental’ remains. Building on recent debates surrounding, for instance, performance, materiality and the false dichotomy between ritualistic and secular behaviour, this book investigates notions of ritual and religion through the lens of perishable material culture. Research centring on bioarchaeological evidence and drawing on methods from archaeological science has traditionally focused on functional questions surrounding environment and economy.
Understanding Ancient Fortifications Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 192
ISBN: 9781785707483
Pub Date: 03 Jan 2018
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w
Description:
In many regions of Europe and beyond fortifications belong to the most impressive of archaeological remains. Their study has a long tradition and today a multitude of aspects about architecture, function or symbolism has been explored. However, fortifications are generally examined in a temporally, regionally or culturally limited context.
Caves and Ritual in Medieval Europe, AD 500–1500 Cover Caves and Ritual in Medieval Europe, AD 500–1500 Cover
Format: 
Hardback Paperback
Pages: 376
ISBN: 9781785708329
Pub Date: 31 Dec 2017
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w and colour
Pages: 324
ISBN: 9781789258073
Pub Date: 28 May 2022
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: B/w and colour
Description:
Caves and rockshelters in Europe have traditionally been associated with prehistory, and in some regions cave archaeology has become synonymous with the Palaeolithic. However, there is abundant evidence that caves and rockshelters were important foci for activities in historic times. During the medieval period (here taken as AD 500–1500) caves were used for short-term shelter, habitation, specialised craft activities, storage, as hideaways and for tending animals.
RRP: £38.00
Cityscapes and Monuments of Western Asia Minor Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 304
ISBN: 9781785708367
Pub Date: 21 Dec 2017
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w and colour
Description:
Cityscapes consist of houses, streets, civic buildings, sanctuaries, tombs, monuments and inscriptions created by multiple generations of citizens and foreigners with an interest in the city; they are interpreted and reinterpreted as expressions of past lives, changing relations of power, memories and various identities. The present volume publishes 25 contributions written by scholars specializing in the history and archaeology of western Asia Minor. New and well-known material – literary, epigraphical, numismatic, and archaeological – is presented and analyzed through the twin lenses of memory and identity.
RRP: £60.00
Prehistoric Pottery from Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 144
ISBN: 9781785708244
Pub Date: 21 Dec 2017
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Dakhleh Oasis Project Monographs
Illustrations: b/w and colour
Description:
As one of the few surviving artefacts from the late prehistory of north-east Africa, pottery serves as an essential material category by which to explore long-term human development. This book presents a major study on the ceramics recovered from early and mid-Holocene sites in Egypt’s Dakhleh Oasis, which come from 96 registered sites and five other findspots and comprise more than 10,000 sherds. In addition, there is little proxy evidence to support the manufacture of pottery in the form of kilns, clay firedogs, and other firing equipment.
RRP: £45.00
The Parthian and Early Sasanian Empires Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 160
ISBN: 9781785709623
Pub Date: 15 Dec 2017
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: British Institute of Persian Studies Archaeological Monograph Series
Description:
Although much of the primary information about the Parthian period comes from coins, there has been much new research undertaken over the past few decades into wider aspects of both the Parthian and Sasanian Empires including the Arsacid Parthians, and their material culture. Despite a change of ruling dynasty, the two empires were closely connected and cannot be regarded as totally separate entities. The continuation of Parthian influence particularly into the early Sasanian period cannot be disputed.
Public Archaeology and Climate Change Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 208
ISBN: 9781785707049
Pub Date: 31 Oct 2017
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w and colour
Description:
Public Archaeology and Climate Change promotes new approaches to studying and managing sites threatened by climate change, specifically actions that engage communities or employ ‘citizen science’ initiatives. Researchers and heritage managers around the world are witnessing severe challenges and developing innovative mechanisms for dealing with them. Increasingly archaeologists are embracing practices learned from the natural heritage sector, which has long worked with the public in practical recording projects.
RRP: £38.00
Stories from Ancient Greece and Rome Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 108
ISBN: 9781785707650
Pub Date: 31 Oct 2017
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Description:
In a companion book to the best-selling Stories from Ancient Egypt, Joyce Tyldesley re-tells some of the most interesting and entertaining myths and legends from the Classical world. These stories tell us how the spider spun the first web, how a simple ball of string defeated the fearsome minotaur, and how Romulus founded the mighty city of Rome. The “this book belongs to” introduction teaches the reader how to write their name using ancient Greek letters, and their age using Roman numerals.
A Lake Dwelling in Its Landscape Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 304
ISBN: 9781785703737
Pub Date: 13 Oct 2017
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w and colour
Description:
Cults Loch, at Castle Kennedy in Dumfries & Galloway, Scotland, lies within a landscape rich in prehistoric cropmark sites and within the loch itself are two crannogs, one of which has been the focus of this study. A palisaded enclosure and a promontory fort on the shores of the loch have also been excavated. The Cults Loch crannog is only the second prehistoric site in Scotland to be dated by dendrochronology and analysis has revealed the very short duration of activity on the crannog in the middle of the 5th century BC.
RRP: £36.00
Made for Trade Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 320
ISBN: 9781785708121
Pub Date: 13 Oct 2017
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: colour and b/w
Description:
The Late Iron Age coinage of England has long been recognised as an invaluable potential source of information about pre-Roman Britain, although its purpose has been much debated and never clearly established. Most research using this source material has been either detailed numismatic studies, which seek to categorise and tabulate the types of coin and order them chronologically based on stylistic change, or more general attempts to draw out meaning from the imagery or inscriptions on the coins. In Made for Trade, John Talbot presents the findings of a decade-long investigation that has challenged many pre-conceptions about the period.
North Meets South Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 176
ISBN: 9781785708206
Pub Date: 13 Oct 2017
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Swedish Rock Art Research
Illustrations: b/w and colour
Description:
This latest volume in the Swedish Rock Art series bridges the gap between analysis and interpretation of rock art imagery, location and chronology in the northern and southern regions of Scandinavia. Long viewed as belonging to distinctive regional traditions, there are many underlying similarities, themes and formats in common, overlain by regional complexities and variations. The authors explore new approaches and methods of analysis.
RRP: £20.00
Appropriating Innovations Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 296
ISBN: 9781785707247
Pub Date: 30 Sep 2017
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w and colour
Description:
The question of how to conceptualize the role of technological innovations is of crucial importance for understanding the mechanisms and rhythms of long-term cultural change in prehistoric and early historic societies. The changes that have come about have often been modelled as gradual and linear, innovations have been considered positively as a progress in the development of humankind and the focus has been on the localisation of the origin of innovations and the routes of their spread. Appropriating Innovations goes beyond the current discussion by shedding light on condition that may facilitate the rapid spread of technological innovation and on processes involved in the integration of new technologies into the life world of the appropriating societies.
RRP: £48.00
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