Download or read book An Iron Age Settlement Outside Battlesbury Hillfort Warminster and Sites Along the Southern Range Road written by Chris Ellis and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Construction of a tank road through part of Salisbury Plain, from Warminster to Tilshead, has revealed archaeological remains dating from the Neolithic up to the modern use of the Plain for military training. Excavation adjacent to Battlesbury Camp hillfort has uncovered Late Bronze Age to Middle Iron Age settlement activity including ditches, roundhouses, four-post structures and numerous pits. Some of the pits contained human burials, and other deposits of artefacts and animal bones appear to have been formally placed. Detailed environmental investigation has provided information about both the nature of the on-site activities and the character of the surrounding landscape. Other sites investigated along the tank road included a round barrow and a multiple inhumation and cremation burial of Early Bronze Age date, a Middle Bronze Age enclosure, Late Bronze Age settlement sites, the 'Old Ditch' Wessex Linear earthwork and evidence for Romano-British settlement and landuse.
Download or read book An Iron Age Settlement and Roman Complex Farmstead at Brackmills Northampton written by Chris Chinnock and published by Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2023-12-28 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: MOLA undertook archaeological excavations at Brackmills, Northampton, investigating part of a large Iron Age settlement and Roman complex farmstead. The remains were very well preserved having, in places, been shielded from later truncaton by colluvial deposits. Earlier remains included a late Bronze Age/early Iron Age pit alignment.
Download or read book Iron Age Hillfort Defences and the Tactics of Sling Warfare written by Peter Robertson and published by Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2016-07-10 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sling accuracy at a hillfort is measured here for the first time, in a controlled experiment comparing attack and defence across single and developed ramparts.
Download or read book Iron Age Hillforts in Britain and Beyond written by Dennis Harding and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Widely regarded as major visible field monuments of the Iron Age, hillforts are central to an understanding of later prehistoric communities in Britain and Europe. Harding reviews the changing perceptions of hillforts and the future prospects for hillfort research, highlighting aspects of contemporary investigation and interpretation.
Download or read book Sacred Landscapes in Antiquity written by Ralph Haussler and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2020-07-31 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From generation to generation, people experience their landscapes differently. Humans depend on their natural environment: it shapes their behavior while it is often felt that deities responsible for both natural benefits and natural calamities (such as droughts, famines, floods and landslides) need to be appeased. We presume that, in many societies, lakes, rivers, rocks, mountains, caves and groves were considered sacred. Individual sites and entire landscapes are often associated with divine actions, mythical heroes and etiological myths. Throughout human history, people have also felt the need to monumentalize their sacred landscape. But this is where the similarities end as different societies had very different understandings, believes and practices. The aim of this new thematic appraisal is to scrutinize carefully our evidence and rethink our methodologies in a multi-disciplinary approach. More than 30 papers investigate diverse sacred landscapes from the Iberian peninsula and Britain in the west to China in the east. They discuss how to interpret the intricate web of ciphers and symbols in the landscape and how people might have experienced it. We see the role of performance, ritual, orality, textuality and memory in people’s sacred landscapes. A diachronic view allows us to study how landscapes were ‘rewritten’, adapted and redefined in the course of time to suit new cultural, political and religious understandings, not to mention the impact of urbanism on people’s understandings. A key question is how was the landscape manipulated, transformed and monumentalized – especially the colossal investments in monumental architecture we see in certain socio-historic contexts or the creation of an alternative humanmade, seemingly ‘non-natural’ landscape, with perfectly astronomically aligned buildings that define a cosmological order? Sacred Landscapes therefore aims to analyze the complex links between landscape, ‘religiosity’ and society, developing a dialectic framework that explores sacred landscapes across the ancient world in a dynamic, holistic, contextual and historical perspective.
Download or read book The Hard Way written by Susannah Walker and published by Unbound Publishing. This book was released on 2024-06-06 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'The Hard Way is a powerful manifesto for women who long to walk alone – and safely – in the countryside' Dr. Sharon Blackie, author of If Women Rose Rooted Why is it radical for women to walk alone in the countryside, when men have been doing so for centuries? The Hard Way is a powerful and illuminating book about addressing this imbalance, reclaiming fearlessness and diving into the history of the landscape from a woman’s point of view. Setting off to follow the oldest paths in England, the Ridgeway and the Harrow Way, Susannah Walker comes across artillery fire, concern from passing policemen and her own innate fear of lone figures in the distance: a landscape shaped by men, from prehistoric earthworks to today’s army bases. But along the way, Susannah finds Edwardian feminists, rebellious widows, forgotten writers and artists, as well as all their anonymous sisters who stayed at home throughout history. They become her companions over 135 miles of walking, revealing how much, or how little, has changed for women now.
Download or read book Origins Development and Abandonment of an Iron Age Village written by Andy Chapman and published by Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2015-12-31 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excavations of a large Iron Age farming settlement in Northamptonshite spread across five sites, four studied here (The Lodge, Long Dole, Crick Hotel and Nortoft Lane, Kilsby) with Covert Farm, Crick studied in Volume I (9781784912086).
Download or read book Death and Burial in Iron Age Britain written by Dennis William Harding and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this volume, Harding examines the deposition of Iron Age human and animal remains in Britain and challenges the assumption that there should have been any regular form of cemetery in prehistory, arguing that the dead were more commonly integrated into settlements of the living than segregated into dedicated cemeteries.
Download or read book From Foragers to Farmers written by Ehud Weiss and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2009-08-01 with total page 534 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume celebrates the career of archaebotanist Professor Gordon C. Hillman. Twenty-eight papers cover a wide range of topics reflecting the great influence that Hillman has had in the field of archaeobotany. Many of his favourite research topics are covered, the body of the text being split into four sections: Personal reflections on Professor Hillman's career; archaeobotanical theory and method; ethnoarchaeological and cultural studies; and ancient plant use from sites and regions around the world. The collection demonstrates, as Gordon Hillman believes, that the study of archaebotany is not only valuable, but vital for any study of humanity.
Download or read book The Making of Prehistoric Wiltshire written by David Field and published by Amberley Publishing Limited. This book was released on 2017-04-15 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The complete story of the area known for the famous Stonehenge, Avebury, Silbury Hill.
Download or read book Rewriting History written by Dennis Harding and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every generation re-writes history in its own way'. Re-writing History applies Collingwood's dictum to a series of topics and themes, some of which have been central to prehistoric and protohistoric archaeology for the past century or more, while some have been triggered by more recent changes in technology or social attitudes. Some issues are highly controversial, like the proposals for the Stonehenge World Heritage sites. Others challenge long-held popular myths, like the deconstruction of the Celts and by extension the Picts. Yet some traditional tenets of scholarship have gone unchallenged for too long, like the classical definition of civilization itself. But why should it matter? Surely it is in the order of things that each generation rejects received wisdom and adopts ideas that are radical or might offend previous generations? Is this not simply symptomatic of healthy and vibrant debate? Or are there grounds for believing that current changes are of a more disquieting character, denying the basic assumptions of rational argument and freedom of enquiry and expression that have been the foundation of western scholarship since the eighteenth century Enlightenment? Re-writing History addresses contemporary concerns about information and its interpretation, including issues of misinformation and airbrushing of politically-incorrect history. Its subject matter is the archaeology of prehistoric and early historic Britain, and the changes witnessed over two centuries and more in the interpretation of the archaeological heritage by changes in the prevailing political and social as well as intellectual climate. Far from being topics of concern only to academics in ivory towers, the way in which seemingly innocuous issues such as cultural diffusion or social reconstruction in the remote past are studied and presented reflects important shifts in contemporary thinking that challenge long-accepted conventions of free speech and debate.
Download or read book Religion in Britain from the Megaliths to Arthur written by Robin Melrose and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2016-03-11 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Druids and the Arthurian legends are all most of us know about early Britain, from the Neolithic to the Iron Age (4500 BC-AD 43). Drawing on archaeological discoveries and medieval Welsh texts like the Mabinogion, this book explores the religious beliefs of the ancient Britons before the coming of Christianity, beginning with the megaliths--structures like Stonehenge--and the role they played in prehistoric astronomy. Topics include the mysterious Beaker people of the Early Bronze Age, Iron Age evidence of the Druids, the Roman period and the Dark Ages. The author discusses the myths of King Arthur and what they tell us about paganism, as well as what early churches and monasteries reveal about the enigmatic Druids.
Download or read book The Materiality of Magic written by Ceri Houlbrook and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2015-12-31 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The subject of ‘magic’ has long been considered peripheral and sensationalist, the word itself having become something of an academic taboo. However, beliefs in magic and the rituals that surround them are extensive – as are their material manifestations – and to avoid them is to ignore a prevalent aspect of cultures worldwide, from prehistory to the present day. The Materiality of Magic addresses the value of the material record as a resource in investigations into magic, ritual practices, and popular beliefs. The chronological and geographic focuses of the papers presented here vary from prehistory to the present-day, including numinous interpretations of fossils and ritual deposits in Bronze Age Europe; apotropaic devices in Roman and Medieval Britain; the evolution of superstitions and ritual customs – from the ‘voodoo doll’ of Europe and Africa to a Scottish ‘wishing-tree’; and an exploration of spatiality in West African healing practices. The objectives of this collection of nine papers are twofold. First, to provide a platform from which to showcase innovative research and theoretical approaches in a subject which has largely been neglected within archaeology and related disciplines, and, secondly, to redress this neglect. The papers were presented at the 2012 Theoretical Archaeology Group (TAG) conference in Liverpool.
Download or read book Personifying Prehistory written by Joanna Brück and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-01-24 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Bronze Age is frequently framed in social evolutionary terms. Viewed as the period which saw the emergence of social differentiation, the development of long-distance trade, and the intensification of agricultural production, it is seen as the precursor and origin-point for significant aspects of the modern world. This book presents a very different image of Bronze Age Britain and Ireland. Drawing on the wealth of material from recent excavations, as well as a long history of research, it explores the impact of the post-Enlightenment 'othering' of the non-human on our understanding of Bronze Age society. There is much to suggest that the conceptual boundary between the active human subject and the passive world of objects, so familiar from our own cultural context, was not drawn in this categorical way in the Bronze Age; the self was constructed in relational rather than individualistic terms, and aspects of the non-human world such as pots, houses, and mountains were considered animate entities with their own spirit or soul. In a series of thematic chapters on the human body, artefacts, settlements, and landscapes, this book considers the character of Bronze Age personhood, the relationship between individual and society, and ideas around agency and social power. The treatment and deposition of things such as querns, axes, and human remains provides insights into the meanings and values ascribed to objects and places, and the ways in which such items acted as social agents in the Bronze Age world.
Download or read book Dress and Identity in Iron Age Britain written by Elizabeth Marie Foulds and published by Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2017-01-26 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through an analysis of glass beads from four key study regions in Britain, the book aims to explore the role that this object played within the networks and relationships that constructed Iron Age society.
Download or read book Cliffs End Farm Isle of Thanet Kent written by Jacqueline I. McKinley and published by Wessex Archaeology. This book was released on 2015-02-05 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excavations at Cliffs End Farm, Thanet, Kent, undertaken in 2004/5 uncovered a dense area of archaeological remains including Bronze Age barrows and enclosures, and a large prehistoric mortuary feature, as well as a small early 6th to late 7th century Anglo-Saxon inhumation cemetery. An extraordinary series of human and animal remains were recovered from the Late Bronze Age–Middle Iron Age mortuary feature, revealing a wealth of evidence for mortuary rites including exposure, excarnation and curation. The site seems to have been largely abandoned in the later Iron Age and very little Romano-British activity was identified. In the early 6th century a small inhumation cemetery was established. Very little human bone survived within the 21 graves, where the burial environment differed from that within the prehistoric mortuary feature, but grave goods indicate ‘females’ and ‘males’ were buried here. Richly furnished graves included that of a ‘female’ buried with a necklace, a pair of brooches and a purse, as well as a ‘male’ with a shield covering his face, a knife and spearhead. In the Middle Saxon period lines of pits, possibly delineating boundaries, were dug, some of which contained large deposits of marine shells. English Heritage funded an extensive programme of radiocarbon and isotope analyses, which have produced some surprising results that shed new light on long distance contacts, mobility and mortuary rites during later prehistory. This volume presents the results of the investigations together with the scientific analyses, human bone, artefact and environmental reports.
Download or read book Applied Soils and Micromorphology in Archaeology written by Richard I. Macphail and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 631 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book uniquely focuses on all aspects of archaeological soil micromorphology, based upon the authors' joint sixty years of worldwide studies.
