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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.

Medicine, Healing and Performance Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 176
ISBN: 9781782971580
Pub Date: 13 Feb 2014
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: B/w illustrations
Description:
Whether it is the binding of shattered bones or the creation of herbal remedies, human agency is a central feature of the healing process. Both archaeological and anthropological research has contributed much to our understanding of the performative aspects of medicine. The papers contained in this volume, based on a session conducted at the 2010 Theoretical Archaeology Conference, take a multi-disciplinary approach to the topic, addressing such issues as the cultural conception of disease; the impact of gender roles on healing strategies; the possibilities afforded by syncretism; the relationship between material culture and the body; and the role played by the active agency of the sick.
A Corpus of Roman Pottery from Lincoln Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 544
ISBN: 9781842174876
Pub Date: 31 Jan 2014
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Lincoln Archaeology Studies
Illustrations: b/w illus throughout, 16 pages of colour illus
Description:
This is the first major analysis of the Roman pottery from excavations in Lincoln (comprising more than 150,000 sherds). The pottery is presented in seven major ware groups. Fine wares include a modest range of imports and are dominated by Nene Valley products.
Puspika: Tracing Ancient India Through Texts and Traditions Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 224
ISBN: 9781782974154
Pub Date: 31 Jan 2014
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Puspika: Tracing Ancient India through Texts and Traditions
Description:
Puspika 2 is the outcome of the second International Indology Graduate Research Symposium and presents the results of recent research by young scholars into pre-modern South Asian cultures with papers covering a variety of topics related to the intellectual traditions of the region. Focusing on textual sources in the languages in which they were composed, different disciplinary perceptions are offered on intellectual history, linguistics, philosophy, literary criticism and religious studies.
The Proto-Elamite Settlement and Its Neighbors Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 350
ISBN: 9781782974192
Pub Date: 27 Jan 2014
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: American School of Prehistoric Research Monograph
Description:
The site of Tepe Yahya in southeastern Iran is famous, among other important aspects, for the Proto-Elamite complex dated to around 3000 BC (Period IVC). The material culture of Period IVC is not exclusively limited to its Proto-Elamite component, but is also characterized by the presence of elements from other Middle-Asian cultural ceramic traditions. In addition to a synthesis of the Proto-Elamite period and the material assemblage at Tepe Yahya, The Proto-Elamite Settlement and Its Neighbors provides an updated review and comprehensive discussion of the Proto-Elamite sphere, its relations to Mesopotamia, and its eastern Middle Asian neighbors.
RRP: £35.00
Violence and Civilization Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 160
ISBN: 9781782976202
Pub Date: 01 Jan 2014
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Joukowsky Institute Publication
Illustrations: b/w and col. illustrations
Description:
This collection of essays begins with the premise that violence, in its relationship to order, is a central element of history. Taking a broad definition of violence, including structural and symbolic violence, the contributions move beyond the problematic of civilization’s mitigating or foundational role, instead seeing violence as inherently social, and, perhaps, socially inherent (if variable). The question then becomes what forms of harm are authorized or banned in which social orders and how they change over time.
Locating the Sacred Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 144
ISBN: 9781782976165
Pub Date: 01 Jan 2014
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Joukowsky Institute Publication
Illustrations: b/w and col. illustrations
Description:
Ritual happens in distinct places – in temples, in caves, along pilgrimage routes – and religious activities there incorporate a diverse set of objects such as holy water, cult statues, and sacred texts. Understanding religious ritual requires viewing it not as a disembodied event, but as emplaced, grounded in both built and natural surroundings, and integrated with its associated material objects. Here authors examine various religious practices in the Greco-Roman world and pilgrimage routes in contemporary Israel.
RRP: £25.00
Gristhorpe Man. Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 256
ISBN: 9781782972075
Pub Date: 31 Dec 2013
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w and col. illustrations
Description:
In July 1834 excavation of a barrow at Gristhorpe, near Scarborough, Yorkshire, recovered an intact, waterlogged, hollowed-out oak coffin containing a perfectly preserved Bronze Age skeleton that had been wrapped in an animal skin and buried with worked flints, a bronze dagger with a whalebone pommel, and a bark vessel apparently containing food residue. Gristhorpe Man became the centrepiece of the Scarborough Philosophical Society’s museum display.In 2004, planned refurbishment of the renamed Rotunda Museum provided the opportunity for a scientific re-examination of the burial and grave goods in order to eluciate the life and death of this extraordinary survival of the British Early Bronze Age.
Ancient Iran and Its Neighbours Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 400
ISBN: 9781782972273
Pub Date: 23 Dec 2013
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: British Institute of Persian Studies Archaeological Monograph Series
Illustrations: b/w and col. illus
Description:
The fourth millennium BC was a critical period of socio-economic and political transformation in the Iranian Plateau and its surrounding zones. This period witnessed the appearance of the world’s earliest urban centres, hierarchical administrative structures, and writing systems. These developments are indicative of significant changes in socio-political structures that have been interpreted as evidence for the rise of early states and the development of inter-regional trade, embedded in longer-term processes that began in the later fifth millennium BC.
Puspika: Tracing Ancient India Through Texts and Traditions Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 486
ISBN: 9781842173855
Pub Date: 23 Dec 2013
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Puspika: Tracing Ancient India through Texts and Traditions
Illustrations: b/w halftones
Description:
It is perhaps commonplace to say that India is one of the world's richest and most enticing cultures. One thousand years have passed since Albiruni, arguably the first "Indologist", wrote his outsider's account of the subcontinent and two hundred years have passed since the inception of Western Indology. And yet, what this monumental scholarship has achieved is still outweighed by the huge tracts of terra incognita: thousands of works lacking scholarly attention and even more manuscripts which still await careful study whilst decaying in the unforgiving Indian climate.
From These Bare Bones Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 256
ISBN: 9781782972112
Pub Date: 19 Dec 2013
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w illustrations
Description:
A fundamental component of the study of worked osseous objects is the identification of the raw materials chosen to make them. In archaeological contexts many objects become degraded to the point where identification is very difficult and the way in which these materials decay during burial and upon excavation can vary greatly. Correct identification is crucial to the investigation of objects, their conservation and future curation.
Modelling archaeology and palaeoenvironments in wetlands Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 216
ISBN: 9781782971740
Pub Date: 19 Dec 2013
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w and col. illus
Description:
The measurement and analysis of space is central to archaeological study, such as through the recording of site plans and sections and the interpretation of spatial relationships between artefacts and features. Modelling Hidden Landscapes details a different approach to the study of past patterns of environmental change within the broader framework of landscape archaeology. It utilizes a range of quantitative and qualitative methodologies and GIS modelling to investigate spatial and temporal patterns of Holocene landscape change for two raised mires in south Yorkshire: Hatfield and Thorne Moors.
RRP: £30.00
A Maritime Archaeology of Ships Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 272
ISBN: 9781842172971
Pub Date: 11 Dec 2013
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w & col illus
Description:
In the last fifty years the investigation of maritime archaeological sites in the sea, in the coastal zone and in their interconnecting locales, has emerged as one of archaeology's most dynamic and fast developing fields. No longer a niche interest, maritime archaeology is recognised as having central relevance in the integrated study of the human past. Within maritime archaeology the study of watercraft has been understandably prominent and yet their potential is far from exhausted.
RRP: £29.95
The Neolithisation of Iran Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 272
ISBN: 9781782971900
Pub Date: 11 Dec 2013
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: BANEA monograph Series
Description:
The period c. 10,000-5000 BC witnessed fundamental changes in the human condition with societies across the Fertile Crescent shifting their alignment from millennia-old practices of seasonally mobile hunting and foraging to year-round sedentism, plant cultivation and animal herding. The significant role of Iran in the early stages of this transition was recognised more than half a century ago but has not been to the fore of academic consciousness in recent decades.
RRP: £40.00
Landscape and Interaction, Troodos Survey Vol 2 Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 296
ISBN: 9781782971887
Pub Date: 30 Nov 2013
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Levant Supplementary Series
Illustrations: b/w and col. illus
Description:
The TAESP Landscape, the second of two volumes, presents an area-by-area analysis of the fieldwork and research undertaken by the Troodos Archaeological and Environmental Survey Project (TAESP) in the Troodos Mountains of Cyprus. Covering four regions of the survey area (The Plains, Karkotis Valley, Upper Lagoudhera Valley and The Mountains) the volume focuses on explicit research questions appropriate to each region. Organised geographically, chronologically and thematically, each region is investigated from the Neolithic to the present day and, through ‘Intensive Survey Zones’ – selected to give a representative range of the physical and cultural terrain – many notable new discoveries are made.
RRP: £38.00
Landscape and Interaction: Troodos Survey Vol 1 Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 400
ISBN: 9781782971870
Pub Date: 30 Nov 2013
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Levant Supplementary Series
Illustrations: b/w and col. illus
Description:
The Troodos Mountain range in central Cyprus is a region of great physical and cultural diversity. The landscapes range from fertile, cultivated plains to narrow, dry valleys and forested mountain regions and this physical topography is overlain by a rich human cultural landscape of farming, mining, industry, settlement, burial and ritual behaviour. Over six field seasons, a team of specialists and fieldwalkers from the Troodos Archaeological and Environmental Survey Project (TAESP) investigated the northern edge of this region and explored the complex and dynamic relationship between landscape and people over 12,000 years.
RRP: £48.00
Constantinople Cover Constantinople Cover
Format: 
Hardback Paperback
Pages: 208
ISBN: 9781782971719
Pub Date: 29 Nov 2013
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w and col. illus
Pages: 224
ISBN: 9781789258066
Pub Date: 15 Mar 2022
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: B/w and colour
Description:
Istanbul, Europe's largest city, became an urban centre of exceptional size when it was chosen by Constantine the Great as a new Roman capital city. Named ‘Constantinople' after him, the city has been studied through its rich textual sources and surviving buildings, but its archaeology remains relatively little known compared to other great urban centres of the ancient and medieval worlds. Constantinople: Archaeology of a Byzantine Megapolis is a major archaeological assessment of a key period in the development of this historic city.
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