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.

Beyond Thalassocracies Cover
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
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
Bones and Identity Cover
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.
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.
People with Animals Cover
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
Roman Crete: New Perspectives Cover
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
The Archaeology of Darkness Cover
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
Carchemish in Context Cover
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.
RRP: £48.00
Focus on Fortifications Cover
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.
TRAC 2015 Cover
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?
Creating Material Worlds Cover
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
Moving on in Neolithic Studies Cover
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.
The Archaeology of the Lower City and Adjacent Suburbs Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 550
ISBN: 9781782978527
Pub Date: 29 Feb 2016
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Lincoln Archaeology Studies
Illustrations: b/w illustrations
Description:
This volume contains reports on excavations undertaken in the lower walled city at Lincoln, which lies on sloping ground on the northern scarp of the Witham gap, and its adjacent suburbs between 1972 and 1987, and forms a companion volume to LAS volumes 2 and 3 which cover other parts of the historic city. The earliest features encountered were discovered both near to the line of Ermine Street and towards Broadgate. Remains of timber storage buildings were found, probably associated with the Roman legionary occupation in the later 1st century AD.
RRP: £55.00
Wild Harvest Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 368
ISBN: 9781785701238
Pub Date: 29 Feb 2016
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: black/white & colour images
Description:
Plants are fundamental to life; they are used by all human groups and most animals. They provide raw materials, vitamins and essential nutrients and we could not survive without them. Yet access to plant use before the Neolithic can be challenging.
RRP: £32.00
Decoding Neolithic Atlantic and Mediterranean Island Ritual Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 304
ISBN: 9781785700507
Pub Date: 31 Jan 2016
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: black/white illustrations
Description:
What constitutes an island and the archaeology contained within? Is it the physicality of its boundary (between shoreline and sea)? Does this physical barrier extend further into a watery zone?
RRP: £50.00