Archaeological work in advance of pipeline construction culminated in excavation at four sites on the Gloucestershire/Worcestershire border by the Carrant Brook and River Isbourne. Geophysical and cropmark evidence has been used to enhance interpretation of the excavated 'slices' across these sites, revealing a changing pattern of human activity and density of settlement from the Mesoltihic to the medieval period. Early features, including a possible Early Neolithic flat grave, suggest that activity in the area prior to the Middle Iron Age was largely ritual in nature. From the Middle Iron Age onwards substantial settlement enclosures were constructed and remained in use to the end of the 1st century AD, when an increased level of activity saw some enlarged and others abandoned and replaced. All four sites were typical of low status Iron Age and Roman rural settlement in southern England, and all were abandoned by the 4th century AD, but with some evidence for later Anglo-Saxon and medieval activity. These excavations add considerably to our understanding of life and death in the late prehistoric and Roman periods, and of the distribution of archaeological remains of all periods, in an area of known archaeological significance close to the confluence of two major rivers: the Severn and Avon.

Twenty-five years is a long time in the study of prehistory and these papers, given at a conference in Cheltenham in 2004, seek to review the excavations, surveys, chance finds and serious investigations carried out over two and a half decades.

Two reports are published in this volume: excavations in 2004 at Henbury School, Bristol (by Derek Evans, Neil Holbrook and E.R. McSloy) and excavations in 2005 at Hewlett Packard, Filton, South Gloucestershire (by Kate Cullen, Neil Holbrook, Martin Watts, Anwen Caffell and Malin Holst). Excavations in 2004 at Henbury School, Bristol, revealed the truncated remains of 21 inhumation burials, making a total of 28 burials recorded at the site since 1982. Of these, 24 burials formed a dispersed cemetery of crouched inhumations, the vast majority of which were aligned north/south and lay on their left sides, with equal numbers of males and females (where sex could be determined) and only one child. Poor bone survival rendered radiocarbon dating invalid, and the cemetery is dated by only one grave good: a finger ring from the mid to late Iron Age. However, the cemetery clearly pre-dated a later rectangular enclosure of very late Iron Age (early 1st-century AD) date. Crouched inhumations from the later Iron Age are known from the region but usually from pits or scattered, so the presence of this cemetery at Henbury is significant. Inhumation cemeteries of this date are rare in Western Britain, although they may have been quite widespread. Despite the dearth of surviving features within the subsequent enclosure, the scale of the ditches suggests it was a farmstead, and environmental evidence hints at both livestock rearing and cereal cultivation. Subsequent Roman activity was clearly intensive, and included a further four burials; although difficult to interpret, it adds to a substantial amount of evidence for Roman activity to the north-west of Bristol. Excavations in 2005 at Hewlett Packard, Filton, revealed the truncated remains of 51 inhumation burials within an isolated post-Roman cemetery. All of the burials were extended and east-west aligned, and were arranged in rows and groups. The tradition of east/west-aligned graves is a common late Roman and post-Roman practice, and these were not necessarily Christian. The largest group comprised 24 burials clustered around a central grave that contained an unusual skeleton and evidence for a distinctive burial rite. Overall there were slightly more females than males (where sex could be determined) and ten children. Adult stature could only be calculated in a few cases; males were generally taller that the early medieval average, females shorter. No grave goods were recovered, but four radiocarbon dates obtained from human bone suggest a period of use sometime between the 5th and 7th centuries AD. There was no evidence for contemporary settlement within the immediate vicinity. Other post-Roman cemeteries that are culturally distinct from Anglo-Saxon influenced burials are known from the region. The absence of Anglo-Saxon cemeteries in South Gloucestershire suggests this area remained under British control in the 5th and 6th centuries. The abandonment of this cemetery may have been the result of changes in the religious landscape once the area finally came under Saxon control in the late 7th century.

As early as the 19th century discoveries of groups of large axes puzzled those confronted with them. The fact that most were found in waterlogged places increased the speculation as to the nature of the deposits. This thesis is concerned with the character and significance of TRB flint axe depositions. The first part is mainly concerned with the question of selective deposition and how it was structured. By means of metrical, spatial and functional analysis, patterns are explored that can shed light on the actions performed by people in the past. The second part deals with the meaning and significance of TRB flint axe depositions. Why did people in the past do the things they did, how were these actions meaningful and important? Using sociological theory and ethnographic evidence an interpretation is presented based on the empirically observed patterns.

This volume reports on the excavation of a series of six Iron Age cemeteries in Champagne, France: Ménil-Annelles, Ville-sur-Retourne, Juniville, Alincourt, Saulces-Champenoises and Quilly. All the Champagne cemeteries were located via their distinctive ditched enclosures which served as the focus of each burial group. The excavations were conducted by an Anglo-French team of archaeologists between 1971 and 1982. In this report they describe the spatial arrangement of each cemetery and its burials, and consider the relative chronology of the series, from Hallstatt and La Tène to the Gallo-Roman period. They compare the cemeteries with other known burial sites from the region, and discuss the local evidence for changing funerary rituals. Specialist chapters deal with the Celtic coins, pottery and petrographic analyses, glass vessels, metalwork (including weapons and jewellery), Roman artefacts, human and animal bones, and the Iron Age and Roman landscape. All pots from each burial are further described and illustrated in a complete inventory at the end of the volume.

Set in the context of this project's innovative landscape surveys, four extraordinary sites excavated at Haddenham, north of Cambridge chart the transformation of Neolithic woodland to Romano-British marshland, providing unrivalled insights into death and ritual in a changing prehistoric environment. The highlight of Volume I is the internationally renowned Foulmire Fen long barrow, with its preserved timber burial chamber and façade. The massive individual timbers allow detailed study of Neolithic wood technology and the direct examination of a structure that usually survives only as a pattern of post holes.

Set in the context of this project's innovative landscape surveys, four extraordinary sites excavated at Haddenham, north of Cambridge chart the transformation of Neolithic woodland to Romano-British marshland, providing unrivalled insights into death and ritual in a changing prehistoric environment. Volume II moves on to later periods, and reveals how Iron Age and Romano-British communities adapted to the wetland environment that had now become established.

The Raunds Area Survey forms part of the Raunds Area Project - a major programme of archaeological research into landscape development in Northamptonshire and the wider midland region of England. The Project includes extensive open area excavations of early prehistoric ritual and burial monuments beside the River Nene, Iron Age and Roman settlement at Stanwick, and Saxon and medieval settlement in north Raunds and West Cotton, as well as complementary landscape, historical and biological studies. A series of monographs are planned to cover each aspect of the study. The present volume gathers the results of a detailed fieldwalking survey, cropmark analysis, magnetometer surveys and excavations, accompanied by allied environmental and documentary researches to provide a dynamic picture of landscape development. The study considers the distribution of worked flint scatters and has identified favoured locations for prehistoric activity. A model for the gradual intensification of settlement and land-use throughout the Iron Age and Roman period including greater exploitation of the Boulder Clay plateau is suggested. Good survival of early-middle Saxon pottery in the plough soil indicates that settlement at this time was mostly confined to the flanks of the Nene valley and tributary streams. The Survey, aided by documentary research, complements the open area excavations and provides a comprehensive model for the creation and early development of villages and open fields.

This book examines the landscape in southwestern Crete from AD 1000-2000, using a phenomenological approach. Specifically, the positioning of outlying churches (exokklisia) and icon stands (eikonostasia) around Sphakia is looked at, in terms of spatial and social reasoning. What is certainly clear, is that people choose the location of sacred buildings particularly carefully, so the locations themselves cannot be seen as random. Routes, resources and boundaries are all factors but primarily these locations are symbolic: such monuments mark, protect and preserve the memory of significant locations in the landscape.

The Prehistoric Periods is the first volume in a series of publications where the results of the Danish/ Greek excavations 1995 to 2001 in Ancient Chalkis in Aetolia, are published. For the first time ever, stratigraphically excavated deposits from the Final Neolithic, the Early Helladic, Middle Helladic and the Late Helladic periods in Northwestern Greece are published and presented in their proper scientific contexts. In addition to the archaeological contexts geological surveys in the area and studies in the fauna of marine shells and animal bones from the prehistoric layers are submitted. The results are supported by a series of C14 dates.

This book deals with the interrelationship between society and war seen through the analytical eyes of anthropologists and archaeologists. War is a ghastly thing, which unfortunately thrives almost everywhere in the world today. We need, therefore, to have a better understanding of what war does to people and their societies. War produces change, and archaeologists and anthropologists are analytically equipped to pinpoint its direction, patterning, scale and content. The perspective -- and filter -- of time provides one important tool, while context and comparison provide other tools. Looking at the history of war studies, war is quite often perceived of and treated as something set aside from other practices; almost personified. However, the results published in this book allow us to say that it is never autonomous and self-regulating. War always forms part of something else. Numerous questions arise, and at least some answers -- often tentative and multifaceted -- are provided in the twenty-eight studies included in the book. They certainly add to an ongoing debate, hopefully qualifying it as well.

Archaeoacoustics focuses on the role of sound in human behaviour, from earliest times up to the development of mechanical detection and recording devices in the 19th century. Recent calls for an `archaeology of the senses' have served as a timely, even overdue reminder that the past which we experience - and which others have experienced before us - is multisensory, drawing not only upon the primary field of vision, but also on touch, smell and hearing. Megalithic tombs, Palaeolithic painted caves, Romanesque churches and prehistoric rock shelters all present specific sound qualities which offer clues as to how they may have been designed and used. Voices resonate, external noises are subdued or eliminated, and a special aural dimension is accessed which complements the evidence of our other senses. The present volume, arising from a conference held at the McDonald Institute in 2003, brings together archaeologists and specialists in early musical instruments and acoustics in an attempt to unlock some of the meaning latent in the acoustics of such early structures and spaces. It will be essential reading for all who are concerned to seek a broader understanding of human sensory experience from prehistory up to historical times.

Evolutionary ('phylogenetic') trees were first used to infer lost histories nearly two centuries ago by manuscript scholars reconstructing original texts. Today, computer methods are enabling phylogenetic trees to transform genetics, historical linguistics and even the archaeological study of artefact shapes and styles. But which phylogenetic methods are best suited to retracing the evolution of languages? And which types of language data are most informative about deep prehistory? In this book, leading specialists engage with these key questions. Essential reading for linguists, geneticists and archaeologists, these studies demonstrate how phylogenetic tools are illuminating previously intractable questions about language prehistory. This innovative volume arose from a conference of linguists, geneticists and archaeologists held at Cambridge in 2004.

The site at Whitecross Farm, including timber structures located on the edge of the eyot, and a substantial midden and occupation deposit has been securely radiocarbon-dated to the late Bronze Age. The late Bronze Age artefact assemblages are suggestive of a high-status site, with a range of domestic and ritual activities represented. The bank of the Grim's Ditch earthwork was found to have preserved evidence of earlier settlement, dating to the Neolithic and Bronze Age, and a sequence of cultivation, including ard marks and 'cord-rig' cultivation ridges. Pottery and radiocarbon analysis dated the earthwork to the end of the late Iron Age or the early Roman period. A multi-period settlement, consisting of pits, a waterhole, postholes, gullies and field systems, was identified at Bradford's Brook, Cholsey. The main periods represented are late Bronze Age and Romano-British, while a small quantity of Saxon pottery indicates limited Saxon activity. A large pit containing late Bronze Age pottery, a cattle skull, waterlogged wood and plant remains, a complete loomweight and flint flakes has been interpreted as a waterhole. A series of radiocarbon dates were obtained for deposits within this feature. All three sites are discussed individually as well as within their local, regional and national contexts. Chapter 7 provides an overall discussion of later Bronze Age themes that have arisen through the excavation and analysis of these sites.

This book presents a short history of human habitation in East London, based on archaeological findings at gravel sites between 1963 and 1999. To find the beginning of this story we have to go back half a million years, to the time when advancing ice sheets pushed the Thames southwards to its present course, depositing the river gravels that exist across East London today. Archaeological work on the East London gravels began when finds from gravel pits were given to local collectors and museums. Many spectacular discoveries were made in the era when gravel was dug by hand; they include a Roman stone coffin found near Dagenham in 1928 and the rich Early Saxon cemetery with glass drinking horns from Gerpin's Pit, Rainham, uncovered in 1937. The archaeological sites which make up this story have names which speak of a time before London's urban sprawl reached eastwards: Manor Farm, Great Sunnings Farm, Whitehall Wood, Great Arnold's Field and Fairlop Quarry, to name but a few. Discoveries have revealed the ancient landscapes of East London and a history of human occupation from the third millennium BC right up to the 19th century. The finds include evidence of where people lived, and how they made a living and viewed themselves. These settlement patterns, economic systems and cultural identities changed over time and contributed to the form of today's East London.

British Iron Age swords and scabbards are here catalogued in detail for the first time. They are grouped on the basis of typologies of components and are discussed with special reference to their decoration, context and chronology. Artefact studies have been neglected for many years, and this subject was last tackled in a paper published in 1950. Since then, the material available for study has tripled, from 93 to 274 items, and new archaeological discoveries include several elaborately decorated scabbards. Illustrations include 71 full pages of line drawings, while additional contributions examine the technology of some of the swords and provide a discussion of their enamelled decoration. Contents: Introduction; Typology and terminology; Group A: Swords of medium length and scabbards with open chape ends; Group B: Swords of medium length and scabbards with closed chape ends; Group C: Long swords and scabbards with campanulate mouths; Group D: Long swords and scabbards with straight mouths; Group E: Earlier swords and scabbards in the north; Group F: Later swords and scabbards in the north; Group G: Short swords in the south and the north; Group H: Swords and scabbards of mixed traditions; Discussion; Appendices; The technology of some of the swords; Weapons and fittings with enamelled decoration; The Isleworth sword: a note on the brass foils; A technical report on the Orton Meadows scabbard; The scientific examination of the Asby Scar sword and scabbard; The extraction of swords from their scabbards; Catalogue; Bibliography.