"Bioarchaeology. An introduction to the archaeology and anthropology of the dead." Archaeological Journal, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print), pp. 1–2
In this paper, we draw attention to several regions of England where the knowledge of Iron Age and Roman settlement has reached a level of ‘abundance’ such that what we can say about the past goes beyond simply creating a gazetteer of ‘sites’, or discussing the presence or absence of particular settlement types. We explore how this level of ‘abundance’ has come about, and what the wider implications are interpretatively and for future work.
Scotland’s corpus of Early Medieval carved stone monuments is a rich dataset for explorations of cultural connections, power and ideology. This article explores how meaning and significance might be interpreted from the reuse of prehistoric stone monuments in the Pictish period via close examination of the materiality, landscape and transformation processes of one case study from Nether Corskie, Aberdeenshire. Technologies of transformation of the existing stone are considered and contextualized as evidence of contemporary concerns and manipulations of concepts and memories of genealogy, ancestry and place.
The origins of the first post-Roman pottery industries to utilize wheel-throwing that emerged in eastern England around the middle of the ninth century is a subject that has caused a divergence of opinion amongst archaeologists for many years. Many regard the earliest industries to have been based in Stamford, Ipswich and Thetford and that they started around AD 850, before the invasion of the Viking Great Army. Others maintain that the catalyst for the start and/or the growth of the industries was the arrival of the Scandinavian invaders in AD 865 and the subsequent settlement phase of the mid-870s. The article examines the current state of knowledge regarding the origin and development of these pottery-making centres, concentrating on the three potentially earliest. This is set in the context of recently-obtained evidence from the excavation of settlement sites in eastern England and a re-examination of older evidence from the manufactories. The 'new' wheel-thrown pottery will also be situated within the hitherto under-investigated cultural and economic systems of their time.
Two small votive plates from York, recorded as RIB 662 and 663, represent unique examples of the Greek language in Roman Britain. Though traditionally attributed to Plutarch's Demetrius of Tarsus, the authorship of these artefacts is disputed, due to the relative ambiguity of the contents and the lack of stratigraphic and dating information associated with their recovery. However, by analysing the metatextual features of the objects, it is possible to derive a comparative cultural background which can remedy the missing archaeological context. This article addresses the ansate shape of the plates, their punched-dot inscription style, and their use of the Greek language to reconnect the objects with a cultural context that helps to resolve the existing disputes regarding their contents.
"A cult centre on Rome’s North-West frontier. Excavations at Maryport, Cumbria 1870-2015." Archaeological Journal, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print), pp. 1–2
Design and Connectivity. The Case of Atlantic Rock Art, by Joana Valdez-Tullett, Oxford, BAR International Series S2932, 2019, 286 pp., Illus. 172, £55.00 (Paperback), ISBN: 9781407316628 Houses of the dead? edited by Alistair Barclay, David Field and Jim Leary, Oxford, Oxbow Books (Neolithic Studies Group Seminar Papers 17), 2020, xiv and 195 pp., Illus. 55, £40.00 (Paperback), ISBN 9781789254105 New light on the Neolithic of northern England, edited by Gill Hey and Paul Frodsham, Oxford, Oxbow Books, 2021, xii and 236 pp., Illus. 109, £38.00 (Paperback), ISBN 9781789252668 La parure en métal de l’âge du Bronze moyen atlantique. (XVe – XIVe siècles avant notre ère), by Marilou Nordez, Paris, Mémoires de la Société Préhistorique Française 65, Société préhistorique française, 2019, 405 pp., Illus. 260 and plates 86, €30.00 (Paperback), ISBN: 2–913745-77-6 The Arras Culture of Eastern Yorkshire – celebrating the Iron Age: proceedings of ‘Arras 200 – celebrating the Iron Age’, Royal Archaeological Institute Annual Conference, 2017, edited by Peter Halkon, Oxford, Oxbow, 2020, xii and 216pp. £38.00 (Paperback). ISBN 9781784917012 Living off the land: agriculture in Wales, c. 400–1600 AD, edited by R. Comeau and A. Seaman, Oxford, Windgather Press, 2019, xii and 236 pp., Illus. and plates 16, £35.00 (Paperback), ISBN 978–1911188391 Contact, Concord and Conquest: Britons and Romans at Scotch Corner, by David W Fell, Barnard Castle, Northern Archaeological Associates (Monograph Series Volume 5), 2020, xliv and 790 pp., Illus. 423, Free online download, ISBN: 978-1-910794-180 (PDF) A Cult Centre on Rome’s North-West Frontier. Excavations at Maryport, Cumbria 1870– 2015, by Ian Haynes and Tony Wilmott, Kendal, Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society (Research Series 12), 2020, xxviii and 252 pp., Illus. 220, £35.00 (Paperback), ISBN 978187312464 Crownthorpe: a Boudican hoard of bronze vessels from Early Roman Norfolk, by Paul R. Sealey and Karen V. Wardley, Norfolk, East Anglian Archaeology Report no. 175, 2021, x and 65 pp., Illus. 49, £20.00, ISBN 9780905594569 Life, Death and Rubbish Disposal in Roman Norton, North Yorkshire. Excavations at Brooklyn House 2015–16, by Janet Phillips and Pete Wilson, Oxford, Archaeopress (Roman Archaeology 77), 2021, viii and 288 pp., Illus. 209, £48.00 (Paperback), ISBN 9781789698381 ARCHAEOLOGICAL JOURNAL 2022, VOL. 179, NO. 2, 478–480 https://doi.org/10.1080/00665983.2022.2066379
drinking customs. Based on its local context the authors propose that the hoard was deposited between c.AD 45–60/61, perhaps by a member of the local native elite. Various theories for its deposition have been proposed previously, some more plausible than others, with the authors leaning towards a votive explanation, which does seem likely given the proximity of the temple. Here they suggest that this act may have been conceived as a deliberate repudiation of the newly emerged cultural practices of the immediate postConquest period in the aftermath of the Boudiccan rebellion, a convincing theory given the deliberately fragmented condition in which it was deposited. It is a credit to the original finder of the hoard that we know so much about its discovery and it is good to finally see this publication as there has been little easily accessible information available previously. Although slim in size and limited in its scope the study nonetheless makes a worthwhile contribution to the study of the fascinatingly complex cultural transitions of the mid-first century AD in south-east Britain and the developing material culture of this period.
number of completely excavated examples. Ray and Thomas describe different buildings at Dorstone Hill which in turn develop into different forms of long mounds. They interpret this as evidence of different lineages coming together to create different versions of the shift from house to mound. Kenny, in her contribution, provides a specific example of direct connection between the evolving architecture of Trefignath chambered tomb and the house at Parc Cybi. House and tomb were connected in ongoing relationship as they both shared an alignment related to spring sunrise. By contrast, Smyth describes a different example of connections between an earlier house and a long mound at Ballyglass. Here there was no common alignment and it is likely that the ultimate form of the court tomb was related to the needs of the living rather than being a house for the dead. Healy uses her final discussion chapter to make the point that the variety of ways that the earlier chapters find to evaluate the differences and connections between houses and tombs may be the result of underlying principles of communal labour, communal gatherings and indeed common technologies. More broadly, connections of form or practice between tombs and houses can be seen to be meaningful but were rarely formulaic. The strength of this volume lies in the way that these local, contingent histories are brought out so that the kind of principles to which Healy refers can be appreciated.
