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.

The Cities of Pamphylia Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 288
ISBN: 9781842173343
Pub Date: 15 Nov 2016
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: 41 b/w illus
Description:
Pamphylia, in modern Turkey, was a Greek country from the early Iron Age until the Middle Ages. In that land there were nine cities which can be described more or less as Greek, and this book is an investigation of their history. This was a land at the margins of other great empires - Hellenistic, Roman, Arab and Byzantine - and is still off the beaten track, though Aspendos, Perge and Phaselis are all visited for their archaeology.
Socialising Complexity Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 248
ISBN: 9781842172940
Pub Date: 15 Nov 2016
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w illus
Description:
Socialising Complexity introduces the concept of complexity as a tool, rather than a category, for understanding social formations. This new take on complexity moves beyond the traditional concern with what constitutes a complex society and focuses on the complexity inherent in various social forms through the structuring principles created within each society. The aims and themes of the book can thus be summarised as follows: to introduce the idea of complexity as a tool, which is pertinent to the understanding of all types of society, rather than an exclusionary type of society in its own right; to examine concepts that can enhance our interpretation of societal complexity, such as heterarchy, materialisation and contextualisation.
Roman Finds Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 254
ISBN: 9781842171639
Pub Date: 15 Nov 2016
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Description:
Studies on finds in Roman Britain and the Western Provinces have come to greater prominence in the literature of recent years. The quality of such work has also improved, and is now theoretically informed, and based on rich data-sets. Work on finds over the last decade or two has changed our understanding of the Roman era in profound ways, and yet despite such encouraging advances and such clear worth, there has to date been little in the way of a dedicated forum for the presentation and evaluation of current approaches to the study of material culture.
Enclosures in Neolithic Europe Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 136
ISBN: 9781842170687
Pub Date: 15 Nov 2016
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: many b/w illus
Description:
These papers come from a conference on Neolithic Causewayed Enclosures in Europe held in London in 1999. They present a series of snapshots of some of the sites and regions at the forefront of current research on causewayed enclosures in Europe, and as such are a complement to the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England (RCHME) project which has systematically recorded all known Neolithic enclosures in England by both analytical topographic survey techniques and aerial transcription. The detailed regional data collected by the RCHME project has allowed a radical reinterpretation of these sites and the recognition that there are regional groups of enclosures.
Prehistoric Britain Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 200
ISBN: 9781842170717
Pub Date: 15 Nov 2016
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Prehistoric Ceramics Research Group Occasional papers
Illustrations: (Andrew Fitzpatrick & Jane Timby). c.200p, illus
Description:
Pottery has become one of the major categories of artefact that is used in reconstructing the lives and habits of prehistoric people. In these 14 papers, members of the Prehistoric Ceramics Research Group discuss the many ways in which pottery is used to study chronology, behavioural changes, inter-relationships between people and between people and their environment, technology and production, exchange, settlement organisation, cultural expression, style and symbolism.
Monastic Archaeology Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 208
ISBN: 9781785705670
Pub Date: 15 Nov 2016
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w illus.
Description:
The study of monasteries has come a long way since late the late 19th century. The emphasis has shifted away from reconstructing the layouts of monastic buildings to a better understanding of the wider monastic environment. The papers in this volume, partly based on a conference held in Oxford in 1994, are written by some of today's foremost scholars and reflect the diversity of research now being carried out.
Forces of Transformation Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 236
ISBN: 9781842175033
Pub Date: 15 Nov 2016
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: BANEA monograph Series
Illustrations: 149 illus
Description:
The volume is the first in nearly a decade to focus a wide range of scholarship on one of the most compelling periods in the antiquity of the Mediterranean and Near East. It presents new interpretive approaches to the problems of the Bronze Age to Iron Age transformation, as well as re-assessments of a wide range of high profile sites and evidence ranging from the Ugaritic archives, Hazor, the Medinet Habu reliefs, Tiryns and Troy. Implications for a changing climate are also explored in the volume.
Colonisation, Migration, and Marginal Areas Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 128
ISBN: 9781785705151
Pub Date: 15 Nov 2016
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Proceedings of the 9th ICAZ Conference
Description:
Human migration tends to involve more than the odd suitcase or two - we often carry other organisms on our travels, some are deliberately transported, others move by accident. This volume of 12 papers offers a zooarchaeological approach to questions surrounding the nature and extent of human colonisation and migration, and the adaptation of humans to new and sometimes extreme or challenging environments. The volume is divided into two parts: Part 1 takes up the theme of Human and Animal Migration and Colonisation.
Bronze Age Landscapes Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 250
ISBN: 9781842170625
Pub Date: 15 Nov 2016
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: 92 b/w illus
Description:
This volume is a collection of essays, which exemplify the range and diversity of work currently being undertaken on the regional landscapes of the British Bronze Age and the progress which has been made in both theoretical and interpretive debate. Together these papers reflect the vibrancy of current research and promote a closer marriage of landscape, site and material culture studies. CONTENTS: Settlement in Scotland during the Second Millennium BC (P Ashmore) ; Place and Space in the Cambridgeshire Bronze Age (T Malim) ; Exploring Bronze Age Norfolk: Longham and Bittering (T Ashwin) ; Ritual Activity at the Foot of the Gog Magog Hills, Cambridge (M Hinman) ; The Bronze Age of Manchester Airport: Runway 2 (D Garner) ; Place and Memory in Bronze Age Wessex (D Field) ; Bronze Age Agricultural Intensification in the Thames Valley and Estuary (D Yates) ; The 'Community of Builders': The Barleycroft Post Alignments (C Evans and M Knight) ; 'Breaking New Ground': Land Tenure and Fieldstone Clearance during the Bronze Age (R Johnston) ; Tenure and Territoriality in the British Bronze Age: A Question of Varying Social and Geographical Scales (W Kitchen) ; A Later Bronze Age Landscape on the Avon Levels: Settlement: Settlement, Shelters and Saltmarsh at Cabot Park (M Locock) ; Reading Business Park: The Results of Phases 1 and 2 (A Brossler) ; Leaving Home in the Cornish Bronze Age: Insights into Planned Abandonment Processes (J A Nowakowski) ; Body Metaphors and Technologies of Transformation in the English Middle and Late Bronze Age (J Bruck) ; A Time and a Place for Bronze (M Barber) ; Firstly, Let's get Rid of Ritual (C Pendleton) ; Mining and Prospection for Metals in Early Bronze Age Britain - Making Claims within the Archaeological Landscape (S Timberlake) ; The Times, They are a Changin': Experiencing Continuity and Development in the Early Bronze Age Funerary Rituals of Southwestern Britain (M A Owoc) ; Round Barrows in a Circular World: Monumentalising Landscapes in Early Bronze Age Wessex (A Watson) ; Enduring Images?
Behaviour Behind Bones Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 350
ISBN: 9781785705717
Pub Date: 15 Nov 2016
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: 265 b/w figs
Description:
This book is the first in a series of volumes which form the published proceedings of the 9th meeting of the International Council of Archaeozoology (ICAZ), held in Durham in 2002. The 35 papers present a series of case studies from around the world. They stretch beyond the standard zooarchaeological topics of economy and ecology, and consider how zooarchaeological research can contribute to our understanding of human behaviour and social systems.
An Archaeology of Prehistoric Bodies and Embodied Identities in the Eastern Mediterranean Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 248
ISBN: 9781785702914
Pub Date: 31 Oct 2016
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w
Description:
In the long tradition of the archaeology of the eastern Mediterranean bodies have held a prominent role in the form of figurines, frescos, or skeletal remains, and have even been responsible for sparking captivating portrayals of the Mother-Goddess cult, the elegant women of Minoan Crete or the deeds of heroic men. Growing literature on the archaeology and anthropology of the body has raised awareness about the dynamic and multifaceted role of the body in experiencing the world and in the construction, performance and negotiation of social identity. In these 28 thematically arranged papers, specialists in the archaeology of the eastern Mediterranean confront the perceived invisibility of past bodies and ask new research questions.
RRP: £48.00
The Excavations at Dura-Europos conducted by Yale University and the French Academy of Inscriptions and Letters 1928 to 1937. Final Report VII Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 336
ISBN: 9781842173718
Pub Date: 15 Oct 2016
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Description:
This is a paperback reprint of the first edition, which appeared in 2004, published by British Museum Press. The ancient city of Dura-Europos, destroyed by a Sasanian Persian siege in the AD 250s, was an important regional centre of commerce, government and military control under the Seleucid, Parthian and Roman empires. During excavations in the 1920s and 1930s it became famous for finds such as a painted synagogue and early Christian chapel.
The Early Roman Empire in the West Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 256
ISBN: 9781842170694
Pub Date: 15 Oct 2016
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w figs
Description:
Digital reprint of this important collection of papers which form the companion to ' Early Roman Empire in the East' (Oxbow 1997) . Fourteen contributions examine the interaction of Roman and native peoples in the formative years of the Roman provinces in Italy, Gaul, Spain and Portugal, Germany and Britain. Contents: Introduction ( Thomas Blagg and Martin Millett ); The creation of provincial landscape: the Roman impact on Cisalpine Gaul ( Nicholas Purcell ); Romanization: a point of view ( Richard Reece ); Romanization: historical issues and archaeological interpretation ( Martin Millett ); The romanization of Belgic Gaul ( Colin Haselgrove ); Lower Germany: proto-urban settlement developments and the integration of native society ( J.
Side-by-Side Survey Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 270
ISBN: 9781785701580
Pub Date: 15 Oct 2016
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: 114 b/w figs, 35 tbs
Description:
more than twenty-five years ago, John Cherry looked forward to the day when archaeological survey projects working around the Mediterranean region (the 'Frogs round the pond') would begin to compare and synthesize the information they had collected. He anticipated researchers tackling big questions of inter-regional scope in new and interesting ways, working at a geographical scale considerably larger than that of the individual survey. Was his optimism misplaced?
The Impact of the Edwardian Castles in Wales Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 240
ISBN: 9781785704697
Pub Date: 15 Oct 2016
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Description:
The Impact of the Edwardian Castles in Wales publishes the proceedings of a conference held in 2007 a year that marked the seventh centenary of the death of King Edward I which set out to review recent scholarship on castles that he built in north Wales after two wars, in 1277 and 1282-83 and a Welsh uprising in 1294-95, and to rethink the effect that their building had upon Wales in the past, present and future. Building upon the seminal work of Arnold Taylor, whose study of the buildings and documentary evidence has been pivotal to Edwardian castle studies for more than fifty years, the volume includes papers which call into question the role of Master James of St George as the architect of the kings new castles; the role of Richard the Engineer, the nature of royal accommodation in the thirteenth century and a detailed look at how households worked, especially in the kitchen and accounting departments. New approaches to castle studies are encouraging a more holistic understanding of the Edwardian castles and their context and to this end papers consider their impact on Welsh society and its princes in the thirteenth century, notably Llywelyn ab Iorwerth ( Fawr , the Great) and his grandson, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, prince of Wales.
Image and Power in the Archaeology of Early Medieval Britain Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 192
ISBN: 9781785704659
Pub Date: 15 Oct 2016
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Description:
Rosemary Cramp's influence on the archaeology of early Medieval Britain is nowhere more apparent than in these essays in her honour by her former students. Monastic sites, Lindisfarne and Whithorn, are the inspiration for Deirdre O'Sullivan's and Peter Hill's papers; Chris Loveluck discusses the implications of the findings from the newly-discovered settlement at Flixborough in Lincolnshire; Nancy Edwards describes the early monumental sculpture from St David's in South Wales; Martin Carver reviews the politics of monumental sculpture and monumentality; and Catherine Hills reassesses the significance of imported ivory found in graves. Richard Bailey, Christopher Morris and Derek Craig top and tail the book with tributes to Rosemary Cramp and a bibliography of her work.