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BAR Alerts |
  BAR 516 2010: Scarcewater, Pennance, Cornwall Archaeological excavation of a Bronze Age and Roman landscape by by Andy M. Jones and Sean R. Taylor. ISBN 9781407306452. £40.00. iv+124 pages; illustrated throughout with maps, plans, figures, drawings and photographs.
Following an archaeological assessment, geophysical survey, and evaluation trenching, a large-scale excavation covering some 30 hectares was undertaken by the Historic Environment Service projects team of Cornwall County Council at the site of Imerys Minerals Ltd’s Scarcewater tip, St Stephen-in-Brannel in 2004. The archaeological excavations were focused upon the investigation of three sunken-floored roundhouses of Middle Bronze Age date, together with a range of Bronze Age pits and timber structures, a Late Bronze Age roundhouse and palisade enclosure and pits, a Middle Iron Age ‘cairn’, and Romano-British settlement and funerary activity. The analyses of the information from the excavated sites has provided the opportunity to investigate shifting settlement foci and changes to Bronze Age roundhouse architecture over a period between 1500 and 1000 cal BC, and to examine the relationships between settlement-related and ceremonial activity in the middle of the second millennium cal BC. Importantly, the project has also allowed a study to be made of sites rarely identified in Cornwall. These include structures of the first millennium cal BC and Romano-British activity that was associated with both unenclosed settlement and funerary practice. Overall, the project has enabled relationships, changing patterns of settlement, architectural traditions, and spatial attitudes between the living and the dead to be considered in several key periods.
BAR 515 2010: Medieval Military Monuments in Lincolnshire by by Mark Downing. ISBN 9781407306445. £32.00. vi+124 pages; illustrated throughout with maps, plans, figures, drawings and photographs.
ilitary monuments in Lincolnshire (eastern England) have hitherto received little attention, with only four being the subject of published studies. No attempt has previously been made to produce a corpus of surviving examples. There are 62 military effigies in Lincolnshire, including some of national importance as well as many others of great interest. In the former category are the effigies at Careby, Halton-Holegate, Holbeach, Kirkstead Abbey, Stoke Rochford and Surfleet. The main object of the critical catalogue in this volume is to provide an accurate analytical description of these figures as they appear today; a project that has been long overdue, for what is some of England’s finest extant medieval monumental sculpture. The catalogue is arranged chronologically, with the monuments being divided into four main groups. Every effigy is illustrated and the accompanying catalogue entry gives a description of the effigy and the armour shown and an account as to the person thought to be commemorated by the figure.
BAR 514 2010: Beazley Archive - Studies in Gems and Jewellery 5 Gem Engraving in Britain from Antiquity to the Present With a catalogue of the British engraved gems in The State Hermitage Museum by Julia Kagan. ISBN 9781407305578. £80.00. x+495 pages; illustrated throughout with maps, plans, drawings and photographs in colour and black and white. Catalogue. With CD .
Dr. Julia Kagan, Curator of post-Classical engraved gems in the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, has devoted a lifetime of scholarship to the study of gem-engraving in Britain, in part inspired by the English Brown brothers who carved gems for Catherine the Great during the 18th century. The many articles she published in the 1960s and 1970s covering various aspects of the history of glyptics in Great Britain and the formation of the Hermitage’s collection of British gems, an earlier dissertation which originally formed the basis of this book, and the attached catalogue, comprise a suitable tribute to the immense richness and diversity of gem engraving in Britain from Antiquity to the present. This comprehensive study includes a catalogue of the British engraved gems in The State Hermitage Museum, appendices of archive documents, and a table of British engravers.
BAR 512 2010: The Middle and Upper Ouse Valley in the Late Iron Age and Romano-British periods: Divergent Identities? by Judy Meade. ISBN 9781407306421. £46.00. x+260 pages; illustrated throughout with maps, plans, figures, drawings and photographs; Appendices.
The subject of this research is social change in Roman Britain in the Late Iron Age and the Romano-British period. Evidence from the Middle and Upper Ouse Valley is examined from the perspective of identity, a subject in which there is currently much interest amongst archaeologists. Identity emphasises the diversity of experience of both individuals and communities, and therefore spheres of life that might reveal continuation, discontinuity, or change in identity, are examined. The aim is to discover how Late Iron Age communities saw themselves, how they constructed their identity, and how this was transformed (if at all) with the coming of Rome. A second theme is that of population groups and their boundaries. Both aspects are examined using a landscape approach, drawing on the large corpora of data now available in Sites and Monuments Record Offices, excavation reports and archaeological journals.
BAR 511 2010: Style and Social Competition in the Large Scale Ornamental Landscapes of the Doncaster District of South Yorkshire, c.1680-1840 by Michael Klemperer. ISBN 9781407306414. £73.00. xii+529 pages; illustrated throughout with maps, plans, figures, drawings and photographs; Appendices.
BAR 510 2010: Crannogs and Later Prehistoric Settlement in Western Scotland by Graeme Cavers. ISBN 9781407306407. £51.00. iii+262 pages; illustrated throughout with maps, plans, figures, drawings and photographs in colour and black and white; Appendices and Gazetteer .
The focus of this research is on the later prehistoric period, from the earliest constructional origins of western Scotland crannogs in the late Bronze Age through to their apparent emergence as status dwellings in the Early Historic period after the mid first millennium AD. The aim is to investigate the ways in which crannogs functioned as settlements, both on a practical, economic as well as a symbolic and socio-cultural level. Throughout, the primary concern is with contextualisation, considering crannogs within their correct chronological and cultural context through the critical analysis of dating evidence as well as the identification of the relevant ritual and symbolic themes- i.e. the Iron Age veneration of water. It is argued in this book that the stereotypical view of a crannog that has largely been derived from the results of work carried out on Irish crannogs has been misleading in the case of the Scottish sites, tending towards a view of crannogs as high-status strongholds, often as royal seats. Though crannogs were certainly a significant feature of the Early Historic period in Scotland, there is as yet no evidence of direct connections to royalty in this period and, based on the currently available evidence, the characterisation of crannogs as high status sites is misguided in the context of their late Bronze and Iron Age origins.
BAR 509 : A Study of the Incidence and Origins of Regional Variation within the Historic Landscape of Southern England by Alan Lambourne. ISBN 9781407306391. £37.00. x+176 pages; illustrated throughout with maps, plans, figures, drawings and photographs; Appendices.
This work takes a fresh look at the phenomenon of ‘regional variation’ and at the ways in which it has been depicted and characterised. It looks in particular detail at the exercise undertaken by Roberts and Wrathmell to map regional variation and at the Central Province that has been widely adopted as one of the main outcomes of their work. It then analyses the many and varied factors, both environmental and cultural, that have been held to contribute to regional variation, and then applies this theoretical analysis to a study area in southern England. The English landscape is extremely varied, due to geology, topography and climate, but also to the activities of human communities over several millennia. Scholars have long recognised patterns within this variation, such as the upland and lowland zones and the contrasting patterns of human settlement. The purpose of this research is to investigate the incidence of this patterning and then to suggest possible reasons for it. The study starts with a general introduction, in which some themes are identified and a number of conventions established. Regional variation is then discussed in theoretical terms, and the familiar geographical and cultural subdivisions of the historic landscape reviewed at the national level, leading to the identification of a distinct swathe of countryside which is called the ‘Central Zone’ for the purposes of this work. The various possible causal factors are addressed in the context of a carefully chosen study area, and a number of conclusions are put forward. The existence of a Central Zone is supported, although no definitive delineation is suggested, and its orientation is shown to vary, depending on the period and criteria in question. Conventional explanations for regional variation are examined, and the conventional opposition between environmental and cultural factors is found wanting. Instead a new dynamic is suggested, in which these broad groups of factors are seen to be operating together to create circumstances to which local communities respond by making calculations as to the best strategies to adopt, given their knowledge, resources and traditions. Their decisions determine the detailed development of the landscape, but these are circumscribed in turn by the predisposition of the community itself and of the landscape around it.
BAR 506 2010: The Survey of Kent Documents relating to the survey of the county conducted in 1086 by Colin Flight. ISBN 9781407305417. £51.00. x+314 pages; 25 tables; 20 figures.
BAR 505 2010: Intersections: The Archaeology and History of Christianity in England, 400-1200 Papers in Honour of Martin Biddle and Birthe Kjølbye-Biddle edited by Martin Henig and Nigel Ramsay. ISBN 9781407305400. £49.00. xxviii+266 pages; illustrated throughout with figures, maps, plans, drawings and photographs in colour and black and white.
Papers in Honour of Martin Biddle and Birthe Kjølbye-Biddle. Contents: Preface (Martin Henig and Nigel Ramsay); Martin Biddle and Birthe Kjølbye-Biddle: An Appreciation (Martin Henig, Thomas Beaumont James, Anthony King and Nigel Ramsay); List of Publications of Martin Biddle and of Birthe Kjølbye-Biddle (Compiled by Anthony King); Commendation by Queen Margrethe II of Denmark; 1) A Roman Silver Jug with Biblical Scenes from the Treasure found at Traprain Law (Kenneth Painter); 2) Hand-washing and Foot-washing, Sacred and Secular, in Late Antiquity and the Early Medieval Period (Anthea Harris and Martin Henig); 3) Christian Origins at Gloucester: A Topographical Inquiry (Carolyn Heighway); 4) New Evidence for the Transition from the Late Roman to the Saxon Period at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London (Alison Telfer); 5) Ethnic Identity and the Origins, Purpose and Occurrence of Pattern-Welded Swords in Sixth-Century Kent: The Case of the Saltwood Cemetery (Brian Gilmour); 6) Communities of the Living and the Dead: The Relationship Between Anglo-Saxon Settlements and Cemeteries, c. 450 – c. 850. (Helena Hamerow); 7) The Oliver’s Battery Hanging-Bowl Burial from Winchester, and its Place in the Early History of Wessex (Barbara Yorke); 8) More Markets, Minsters, and Metal-Detector Finds: Middle Saxon Hampshire a Decade On (Katharina Ulmschneider); 9) Food, Fasting and Starvation: Food Control and Body Consciousness in Early Anglo-Saxon England (Sally Crawford); 10) Bede and Roman Britain (Michael Lapidge); 11) Questioning Bede (James Campbell); 11) Offa’s St Albans (Rosalind Niblett); 12) A Possible Commemorative Stone for Æthelmund, Father of Æthelric (Michael Hare); 13) The Prehistory of English Fonts (John Blair); 14) Architecture, Music, and Time in Wulfstan’s Verse (David Howlett); 15) “Knights” before the Round Table: Cnihtas, Guildhalls and Governance in Early Winchester (Derek Keene); 16) Winchester in Domesday Book (Julian Munby); 17) The Romanesque West Front of Winchester Cathedral (John Crook); 18) Reflections on Tithes and the Formation of Parishes (Christopher Brooke); 19) Henry of Blois, the Cluny Connection and Two Ivories in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Pamela Tudor-Craig).
BAR 504 2009: The Sounds of Stonehenge Centre for the History of Music in Britain, the Empire and the Commonwealth. CHOMBEC Working Papers No. 1 edited by Stephen Banfield. ISBN 9781407306308. £31.00. vi+80 pages; illustrated throughout with maps, plans, figures, tables, photographs, 4 colour plates.
The Sounds of Stonehenge originated as a workshop of the Centre for the History of Music in Britain, the Empire and the Commonwealth (CHOMBEC), held at the Victoria Rooms, University of Bristol, UK in November 2008. The 8 papers contain material pertaining to acoustic physics, anthropology, archaeology, architecture, cognitive psychology, English literature, film studies, history, history of art, media and popular studies, musicology, sociology, and creative composition. Contents: 1) The sounds of Stonehenge: some notes on an acoustic archaeology (Joshua Pollard ); 2) New art - ancient craft: making music for the monuments (John Crewdson and Aaron Watson); 3) Soul music: instruments in an animistic age (Simon Wyatt); 4) Songs of the stones: the acoustics of Stonehenge (Rupert Till); 5) The cultural history of Stonehenge (Ronald Hutton); 6) Megaliths in English art music (Stephen Banfield); 7) Stonehenge and its film music (Guido Heldt); 8) Stonehenge in rock (Timothy Darvill).
BAR 503 2009: Excavations at Pevensey Castle 1936 to 1964 by Malcolm Lyne. ISBN 9781407306292. £36.00. vi+163 pages; illustrated throughout with maps, plans, figures, tables, photographs.
This report concentrates on the hitherto unpublished 1936-39 and 1964 excavations at Pevensey (southern England) with re-assessments of some of the findings from earlier work there. Contents: Preface; Introduction; The Excavations; The Landscape; The Roman Fortress; The Post-Roman Occupation; The Coins; The Small Finds; The Pottery.
BAR 502 2009: Understanding Landscape Values: A Scottish Highland Case Study by Camilla Priede. ISBN 9781407306285. £30.00. vi+111 pages; illustrated with maps, plans, figures, tables, photographs.
This work examines the values that people hold for the landscapes of the Scottish Highlands. The central premise of the study is that to make decisions about the best way to curate landscapes it is necessary to understand the values that people have for landscape, and what are the main influences on these values. It is argued that the values the general public have for landscape should be fully incorporated within landscape planning and policy. For this, two key research questions formed the basis of the study: How can qualitative preferences and values for landscape best be captured and measured in a repeatable and reliable manner, and to what extent and in what ways does an increased knowledge of landscape history affect people’s landscape preferences and values. This study answers these questions with reference to the landscape of the Scottish Highlands.
BAR 501 2009: Building Late Churches in North Hampshire A geological guide to their fabrics and decoration from the mid-eighteenth century to the First World War by J. R. L. Allen. ISBN 9781407306278. £33.00. viii+135 pages; illustrated throughout with maps, plans, figures, tables, photographs..
Hampshire (southern England) north of roughly the latitude of Winchester is dominated geologically by the Upper Cretaceous Chalk Group and by a substantial outcrop of Tertiary clays and sands which, forming part of the London Basin, the county shares with Berkshire to the north. More than 115 churches, by in excess of 60 designers and architects, were rebuilt, built anew and/or significantly modified in this area between 1750 and the First World War in response to profound changes in population, sources of wealth and means of transport and communication. This work looks at their building materials and decoration.
BAR 500 : Roman Quarrying and Stone Supply on the Periphery – Southern England A geological study of first century funerary monuments and monumental architecture by Kevin Haywood. ISBN 9781407306179. £52.00. x+190 pages; illustrated throughout with maps, plans, drawings, figures, tables and photographs. With CD.
The content of this report which examines the geological source of the earliest examples of fine freestone carving in the province, first-century tombstones and architectural fragments, is primarily aimed at students and researchers of Roman archaeology, with only a passing interest in geology. For this reason the author has included a glossary of geological terms and where possible made the geological terminology and techniques of analysis in the main text as clear as possible. For academics from more scientific disciplines (archaeological scientists and geologists), certain Chapters (two and six) and appendices examine the geological materials in much greater detail. The CD also has an overview of British Jurassic Freestones, including amended geological maps of outcrops in southern England and northern France courtesy of the British Geological Survey. This section may therefore provide a useful tool for stone-masons, conservationists and cathedral archaeologists in identifying suitable limestone materials for restoration work.
BAR 499 2009: Excavation of an Enigmatic Multi-Period Site on the Isle of Portland, Dorset by Susann Palmer with Denene Reilly. ISBN 9781407306162. £34.00. xi+140 pages; illustrated throughout with maps, plans, drawings, figures, tables and photographs. With CD.
This report involves a multi-period site in a corner of the large sports field of the Royal Manor Arts College in Weston Road, Portland (Dorset, southern England). Excavation took place following the proposed development of an all-weather sports field, which was shown to contain many structures and other remains during preliminary assessment work by commercial archaeologists. The on-site work took place over a period of about 15 months. A large number of features and a very large quantity of finds were revealed. Specialists in different fields have contributed to the study of the main categories of finds and numerous photographs and drawings give a clear indication of the interest of the site and its assemblages.
BAR 498 2009: Medieval Land Reclamation at Brayford Pool, Lincoln Archaeological excavation at The Brayford Centre 2000 by Simon Carlyle and Rob Atkins. ISBN 978 1 4073 0602 5. £27.00. ix+73 pages; illustrated throughout with maps, plans, drawings, figures, tables and photographs.
In June 2000, a small excavation was carried out by Northamptonshire Archaeology on land on the north bank of Brayford Pool, Lincoln (eastern England), in the area of medieval Baxtergate. The earliest horizons were identified in two cores taken from deposits in the base of the trench. Environmental analysis of the cores, assisted by two radiocarbon dates, showed that peat began to accumulate along the Pool margins in the late Bronze Age, probably developing into a fen carr type habitat. A change from woody to fibrous peat in the late prehistoric or Roman period implies a significant change in the local environment, possibly associated with the use of the foreshore as a ‘hard’ to serve the Roman military and then the colonia in the 1st century AD. Peat continued to accumulate until around the late 7th century AD, when the ground appears to have dried out sufficiently to encourage marginal settlement in the area. Within the trench, archaeological remains, broadly dating to the 11th and 12th centuries AD, were found beneath a thick layer of modern demolition rubble. The medieval remains comprised features typical of ‘backyard’ activity, such as cess and general refuse pits, and ditches and gullies which probably functioned as plot boundaries and drains. The tentative remains of a partitioned timber building, possibly used as a latrine and/or an animal byre, were also found. This activity was interspersed with a series of layers, probably associated with attempts to reclaim land along the northern edge of Brayford Pool or placed to protect the bank of the Pool from erosion. Environmental evidence was used to characterize the medieval deposits in order to assist in determining the function of the features, as well as providing information about the local environment at this time. Later medieval and post-medieval horizons had been totally destroyed by 19th and 20th-century development.
BAR 497 2009: The Material Culture of the Tradesmen of Newcastle upon Tyne 1545 – 1642 The Durham Probate Record evidence by Gwendolynn Heley. ISBN 978 1 4073 0601 . £41.00. vi+210 pages; illustrated throughout with maps, plans, drawings, figures, tables and photographs, including 1 colour fold-out map.
This book examines the material culture of middling tradesmen living in Newcastle upon Tyne between 1545 and 1642. The analysis is based on wills and inventories selected from the Durham Probate Records pertaining to Newcastle residents. The book has three major themes; people, property and objects, and covers five subject areas: firstly, a background discussion of the limitations inherent in working with probate records in material culture studies, and an explanation of the methodology employed; secondly, an analysis of inheritance practices and patterns concerning selected types of bequests, exploring issues such as primogeniture, gender and life-cycle factors; thirdly, a study of the built environment and social demography of the town, including occupational zones, based on descriptions of properties along streets and in specific locations recorded in the documents; fourthly, an extensive analysis of patterns of
consumption, production and investment among tradesmen by way of categories of objects associated with the household, household production and objects relating to the practice of a trade; the final chapter explores the size of houses, the function of rooms and the nature of social relations within the home.
BAR 496 2009: Patterns in Stonework: The Early Church in Britain and Ireland An introduction to ecclesiastical geology by John F. Potter. ISBN 978 1 4073 0600 1. £53.00. xxvi+191 pages; illustrated throughout with maps, plans, drawings, figures, tables and photographs, including 7 colour plates.
This work falls into two parts. In the first, the author undertakes a summary of his ecclesiastical geological research of thirty years and in the second part this information is applied to a number of early churches in Ireland. Chapters 1 and 2 examine the characteristics of stone emplacement as they apply in particular to the Anglo-Saxon churches of England. They illustrate how the craftsmen of this period used stone in certain structural features of their ecclesiastical buildings in distinctive styles, and how these styles may be distinguished from the work of the Norman or ‘Romanesque’ period that followed. They also provide details of the simplified nomenclature that has been devised to describe the distinguishing bedding orientations that can exist for stones emplaced in different wall structures. In Chapter 3, some of these same styles of stone emplacement, more recently identified in various early ecclesiastical sites in Scotland and the Isle of Man, are discussed. Occurring at much the same time as the distinctive Anglo-Saxon work in England the styles are described as ‘Patterned’. The reasons for the subtle differences in styles between Scotland and England (and between regions) are considered and attributed to the specific controls of geology and available rock type. The following Chapters (4 to 6) examine a selection of early ecclesiastical sites in Ireland. Stone emplacement patterns in some thirty plus Irish ecclesiastical buildings are carefully reviewed, particularly with reference to their quoins, antae, and arch jambs. Where a high proportion of the stones in these structures are set with their bedding or lineation set vertically, they replicate the ‘Patterned’ style observed in buildings in England, and more especially, Scotland. Those portions of buildings perceived as reflecting these patterns are considered to be of a similar early date, and the particulars of those structures exhibiting them are detailed. This additional information enables parts of many early Irish ecclesiastical buildings to be more precisely dated. Furthermore, with so many Irish churches constructed of hard, difficult to distinguish and utilize, Palaeozoic rock lithologies, it permits different areas or periods of wall fabric to be more readily discriminated. This is exemplified in those churches which possess antae, where the workmanship provided dates of both during and after the ‘Patterned’ period. Although the purpose for the construction of antae may never be definitely known, Chapter 6 offers a new hypothesis based on the visible evidence revealed in the wall fabrics. This proposes that they were constructed primarily for the defence of the vulnerable corners of simple single-celled churches.
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