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.

Fortified Settlements in Early Medieval Europe Cover

Format: Hardback

Pages: 352

ISBN: 9781785702358

Pub Date: 17 Jul 2016

Imprint: Oxbow Books

Description:

Twenty-three contributions by leading archaeologists from across Europe explore the varied forms, functions and significances of fortified settlements in the 8th to 10th centuries AD. These could be sites of strongly martial nature, upland retreats, monastic enclosures, rural seats, island bases, or urban nuclei. But they were all expressions of control - of states, frontiers, lands, materials, communities - and ones defined by walls, ramparts or enclosing banks.

RRP: £50.00

Format: Paperback

Pages: 282

ISBN: 9781785702396

Pub Date: 30 Jun 2016

Imprint: Oxbow Books

Illustrations: b/w and colour

Description:

Quests for cod, herring and other sea fish had profound impacts on medieval Europe. This interdisciplinary book combines history, archaeology and zooarchaeology to discover the chronology, causes and consequences of these fisheries. It crosscuts traditional temporal and geographical boundaries, ranging from the Migration Period through the Middle Ages into early modern times, and from Iceland to Estonia, Arctic Norway to Belgium.

Format: Hardback

Pages: 240

ISBN: 9781785702037

Pub Date: 13 Jun 2016

Imprint: Oxbow Books

Description:

Beyond Thalassocracies aims to evaluate and rethink the manner in which archaeologists approach, understand, and analyse the various processes associated with culture change connected to interregional contact, using as a test case the world of the Aegean during the Late Bronze Age (c. 1600–1100 BC). The 14 chapters compare and contrast various aspects of the phenomena of Minoanisation and Mycenaeanisation, both of which share the basic underlying defining feature of material culture change in communities around the Aegean.

RRP: £45.00

Format: Paperback

Pages: 400

ISBN: 9781785702310

Pub Date: 13 Jun 2016

Imprint: Oxbow Books

Series: Sheffield Studies in Aegean Archaeology

Description:

Of Odysseys and Oddities is about scales and modes of interaction in prehistory, specifically between societies on both sides of the Aegean and with their nearest neighbours overland to the north and east. The 17 contributions reflect on tensions at the core of how we consider interaction in archaeology, particularly the motivations and mechanisms leading to social and material encounters or displacements. Linked to this are the ways we conceptualise spatial and social entities in past societies (scales) and how we learn about who was actively engaged in interaction and how and why they were (modes).

RRP: £38.00

Dakhleh Oasis and the Western Desert of Egypt under the Ptolemies Cover

Format: Hardback

Pages: 504

ISBN: 9781785701351

Pub Date: 12 Jun 2016

Imprint: Oxbow Books

Series: Dakhleh Oasis Project Monographs

Description:

Through an analysis of recently discovered Ptolemaic pottery from Mut al-Kharab, as well as a re-examination of pottery collected by the Dakhleh Oasis Project during the survey of the oasis from 1978–1987, this book challenges the common perception that Dakhleh Oasis experienced a sudden increase in agricultural exploitation and a dramatic rise in population during the Roman Period. It argues that such changes had already begun to take place during the Ptolemaic Period, likely as the result of a deliberate strategy directed toward this region by the Ptolemies.This book focuses on the ceramic remains in order to determine the extent of Ptolemaic settlement in the oases and to offer new insights into the nature of this settlement.

RRP: £75.00

Format: Paperback

Pages: 352

ISBN: 9781785701726

Pub Date: 31 May 2016

Imprint: Oxbow Books

Description:

Seventeen papers demonstrate how zooarchaeologists engage with questions of identity through culinary references, livestock husbandry practices and land use. Contributions combine hitherto unpublished zooarchaeological data from regions straddling a wide geographic expanse between Greece in the West and India in the East and spanning a time range from the latest part of the Palaeolithic to the Middle Ages. The vitality of a hands-on approach to data presentation and interpretation carried out primarily at the level of the individual site – the arena of research providing the bread and butter of zooarchaeological work conducted in southwest Asia – is demonstrated.

RRP: £38.00

Current Research in Egyptology 16 (2015) Cover

Format: Paperback

Pages: 160

ISBN: 9781785703638

Pub Date: 08 May 2016

Imprint: Oxbow Books

Series: Current Research in Egyptology

Illustrations: b/w

Description:

The sixteenth Current Research in Egyptology (CRE) conference was held from the 15–18 April 2015 at the University of Oxford and once again provided a platform for postgraduates and early career Egyptologists, as well as independent researchers, to present their research. These proceedings for CREXVI represent the wide range of themes that were offered by delegates during the conference. Papers focus on the theme of travel in ancient Egypt from a wide range of perspectives such as concrete or abstract travels, travel in space and time, travel inside, to, or from Egypt, travel in literature, travel of beliefs and ideas or travel of objects.

Format: Paperback

Pages: 144

ISBN: 9781785701917

Pub Date: 31 Mar 2016

Imprint: Oxbow Books

Description:

Through time people have lived with darkness. Archaeology shows us that over the whole human journey people have sought out dark places, for burials, for votive deposition and sometimes for retreat or religious ritual away from the wider community. Thirteen papers explore Palaeolithic use of deep caves in Europe and the orientation of mortuary monuments in the Neolithic and Bronze Age.

RRP: £34.00

Format: Paperback

Pages: 156

ISBN: 9781785702471

Pub Date: 31 Mar 2016

Imprint: Oxbow Books

Description:

People with Animals emphasises the interdependence of people and animals in society, and contributors examine the variety of forms and time-depth that these relations can take. The types of relationship studied include the importance of manure to farming societies, dogs as livestock guardians, seasonality in pastoralist societies, butchery, symbolism and food. Examples are drawn from the Pleistocene to the present day and from the Altai Mountains, Ethiopia, Iraq, Italy, Mongolia and North America.

RRP: £38.00

Format: Hardback

Pages: 288

ISBN: 9781785700958

Pub Date: 31 Mar 2016

Imprint: Oxbow Books

Description:

The last several decades have seen a dramatic increase in interest in the Roman period on the island of Crete. Ongoing and some long-standing excavations and investigations of Roman sites and buildings, intensive archaeological survey of Roman areas, and intensive research on artefacts, history, and inscriptions of the island now provide abundant data for assessing Crete alongside other Roman provinces. New research has also meant a re-evaluation of old data in light of new discoveries, and the history and archaeology of Crete is now being rewritten.

RRP: £50.00

Castles and the Anglo-Norman World Cover

Format: Hardback

Pages: 336

ISBN: 9781785700224

Pub Date: 31 Mar 2016

Imprint: Oxbow Books

Description:

Castles and the Anglo-Norman World draws together a series of 20 papers by 26 French and English specialists in the field of Anglo-Norman studies. It includes summaries of current knowledge and new research into important Norman castles in England and Normandy, drawing on information from recent excavations. Sections consider the evolution of Anglo-Norman castles, the architecture and archaeology of Norman monuments, Romanesque architecture and artefacts, the Bayeux Tapestry and the presentation of historic sites to the public.

Format: Hardback

Pages: 288

ISBN: 9781785701115

Pub Date: 18 Mar 2016

Imprint: Oxbow Books

Series: BANEA monograph Series

Illustrations: b/w and colour images

Description:

The city of Carchemish in the valley of the Euphrates river can be regarded as one of the iconic sites in the Middle East, a mound complex known both for its own intrinsic qualities as the seat of later Hittite power and Neo-Hittite kings, but also because its history of excavations included well known historical figures such as Leonard Woolley and T. E. Lawrence. However, because of its location within the military zone of the Turkish-Syrian border the site itself has been inaccessible to archaeologists for more than 90 years. Carchemish in Context summarises the results of regional investigations conducted within the Land of Carchemish Project in Syria, as well as other archaeological surveys in the region, in order to provide a regional, historical and archaeological context for the development of the city. A synthesis of the history of Carchemish is presented and a regional overview of the Land of Carchemish as it is defined by archaeological features and key historical references through to the early Iron Age. Insightful snapshots of the dynamics of an ancient state are revealed which can now be seen to have fluctuated dramatically in size throughout 700-800 years, in part depending upon the power of the king of Carchemish or the aggressions of external powers.The results from the Project provide an overview of the main trends of settlement in the region over 8000 years, using a combination of survey databases to both north and south of the Syrian-Turkish border and with a focus on the earlier phases of settlement from the Neolithic until the end of the Bronze Age when Carchemish became an outpost of the Hittite empire. The Iron Age is a period blessed by numerous historical records some of which can be traced in the modern landscape. Further chapters explore site-specific aspects of the regional archaeology, including a series of important sites on the Sajur river, some of which were positioned along the main campaign routes of the Assyrian kings. The close relationship between the nearby Early Bronze Age site of Tell Jerablus Tahtani and Carchemish are examined and the results from the 40 ha Carchemish Outer Town survey described, providing important new data sources regarding the layout, defences and dates of occupation of this significant part of the city. The Classical, Roman, Byzantine and Early Islamic occupations are also discussed in relation to what is known of occupation in the surrounding region.

RRP: £48.00

Format: Hardback

Pages: 624

ISBN: 9781785701313

Pub Date: 14 Mar 2016

Imprint: Oxbow Books

Series: Fokus Fortifikation Studies

Description:

With a collection of 57 articles in English, French and German, presenting the most recent research on ancient fortifications, this book is the most substantial publication ever to have issued on the topic for many years. While fortifications of the ancient cultures of the middle east and ancient Greek and Roman worlds were noticed by travellers and scholars from the very beginning of research on antiquity from the late 18th century onwards, the architectural, economic, logistical, political, urban and other social aspects of fortifications have been somewhat overlooked and underestimated by scholarship in the 20th century. The book presents the research of a new generation of scholars who have been analysing those aspects of fortifications, many of them with years of experience in field-work on city walls.

Format: Paperback

Pages: 210

ISBN: 9781785702877

Pub Date: 06 Mar 2016

Imprint: Oxbow Books

Series: TRAC

Illustrations: b/w

Description:

The 2015 TRAC proceedings feature a selection of 14 papers summing up some of the key sessions presented at the conference held at the University of Leicester in March 2015, which drew over 180 delegates of 17 nationalities from a variety of universities, museums, and research institutions in the UK, Europe, and North America. As this conference marked the 25th anniversary of TRAC, the volume opens with a preface commemorating the last 25 years with an eye toward the future direction of both conference and community. The proceedings begin with Dr Andrew Gardner’s keynote paper on the topic of ‘Debating Roman Imperialism: Critique, Construct, Repeat?

Format: Paperback

Pages: 192

ISBN: 9781785701801

Pub Date: 29 Feb 2016

Imprint: Oxbow Books

Description:

Despite a growing literature on identity theory in the last two decades, much of its current use in archaeology is still driven toward locating and dating static categories such as ‘Phoenician’, ‘Christian’ or ‘native’. Previous studies have highlighted the various problems and challenges presented by identity, with the overall effect of deconstructing it to insignificance. As the humanities and social sciences turn to material culture, archaeology provides a unique perspective on the interaction between people and things over the long term.

RRP: £36.00

Format: Paperback

Pages: 256

ISBN: 9781785701764

Pub Date: 29 Feb 2016

Imprint: Oxbow Books

Series: Neolithic Studies Group Seminar Papers

Description:

Mobility is a fundamental facet of being human and should be central to archaeology. Yet mobility itself and the role it plays in the production of social life, is rarely considered as a subject in its own right. This is particularly so with discussions of the Neolithic people where mobility is often framed as being somewhere between a sedentary existence and nomadic movements.