Download or read book Middle Saxon Animal Husbandry in East Anglia written by Pam J. Crabtree and published by East Anglian Archaeology. This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comparative study of three large Middle Saxon faunal assemblages from eastern England includes the animal bone remains from the estate centres of Brandon in western Suffolk and Wicken Bonhunt in north-western Essex, and the faunal remains recovered from a number of sites within the town of Ipswich. In Middle Saxon times Ipswich served as an emporium or ?wic?, a centre of craft production and regional and international trade. All three sites produced large faunal assemblages that were analysed using standard archaeozoological methods. Individual bones were identified to species and body part; the bones were examined for traces of butchery and pathology; ages at death were determined on the basis of dental eruption and wear and epiphyseal fusion of the long bones; and measurements were recorded when possible. Species ratios, mortality profiles and osteometric data suggest that the inhabitants of Brandon were engaged in specialised wool production. Unlike most other Anglo-Saxon sites, the Middle Saxon features at Wicken Bonhunt produced large numbers of pig bones. The residents of the site may have been engaged in large-scale pork production, and the limited evidence from the late 6th-to-7th century features at the site suggest that specialised pork production may have begun at the site in the later part of the Early Saxon period. Brandon and Wicken Bonhunt also produced rich assemblages of wild birds, including water birds and waders. The Middle Saxon sites from Ipswich yielded a much less diverse bird assemblage. The inhabitants of Ipswich appear to have been provisioned with beef and mutton from the surrounding countryside, but the ageing data indicate that some pigs may have been raised within the town itself. The results are compared to the faunal assemblages that have been recovered from other Early and Middle Saxon sites in eastern England.

Download or read book Early Medieval Britain written by Pam J. Crabtree and published by . This book was released on 2018-06-07 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the development of towns in Britain from late Roman times to the end of the Anglo-Saxon period using archaeological data.

Download or read book Farming Transformed in Anglo Saxon England written by Mark McKerracher and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2018-02-21 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anglo-Saxon farming has traditionally been seen as the wellspring of English agriculture, setting the pattern for 1000 years to come – but it was more important than that. A rich harvest of archaeological data is now revealing the untold story of agricultural innovation, the beginnings of a revolution, in the age of Bede. Armed with a powerful new dataset, Farming Transformed explores fundamental questions about the minutiae of early medieval farming and its wider relevance. How old were sheep left to grow, for example, and what pathologies did cattle sustain? What does wheat chaff have to do with lordship and the market economy? What connects ovens in Roman Germany with barley maltings in early medieval Northamptonshire? And just how interested were Saxon nuns in cultivating the opium poppy? Farming Transformed is the first book to draw together the variegated evidence of pollen, sediments, charred seeds, animal bones, watermills, corn-drying ovens, granaries and stockyards on an extensive, regional scale. The result is an inter-disciplinary dataset of unprecedented scope and size, which reveals how cereal cultivation boomed, and new watermills, granaries and ovens were erected to cope with – and flaunt – the fat of the land. As arable farming grew at the expense of pasture, sheep and cattle came under closer management and lived longer lives, yielding more wool, dairy goods, and traction power for plowing. These and other innovations are found to be concentrated at royal, aristocratic and monastic centers, placing lordship at the forefront of agricultural innovation, and farming as the force behind kingdom-formation and economic resurgence in the seventh and eighth centuries.

Download or read book Anglo Saxon Farms and Farming written by Debby Banham and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2014-09-25 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Farming was the basis of the wealth that made England worth invading, twice, in the eleventh century, while trade and manufacturing were insignificant by modern standards. In Anglo-Saxon Farms and Farming, the authors employ a wide range of evidence to investigate how Anglo-Saxon farmers produced the food and other agricultural products that sustained English economy, society, and culture before the Norman Conquest. The first part of the volume draws on written and pictorial sources, archaeology, place-names, and the history of the English language to discover what crops and livestock people raised, and what tools and techniques were used to produce them. In part two, using a series of landscape studies - place-names, maps, and the landscape itself, the authors explore how these techniques might have been combined into working agricultural regimes in different parts of the country. A picture emerges of an agriculture that changed from an essentially prehistoric state in the sub-Roman period to what was recognisably the beginning of a tradition that only ended with the Second World War. Anglo-Saxon farming was not only sustainable, but infinitely adaptable to different soils and geology, and to a climate changing as unpredictably as it is today.

Download or read book Animals and Inequality in the Ancient World written by Benjamin S. Arbuckle and published by University Press of Colorado. This book was released on 2015-01-15 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Animals and Inequality in the Ancient World explores the current trends in the social archaeology of human-animal relationships, focusing on the ways in which animals are used to structure, create, support, and even deconstruct social inequalities. The authors provide a global range of case studies from both New and Old World archaeology—a royal Aztec dog burial, the monumental horse tombs of Central Asia, and the ceremonial macaw cages of ancient Mexico among them. They explore the complex relationships between people and animals in social, economic, political, and ritual contexts, incorporating animal remains from archaeological sites with artifacts, texts, and iconography to develop their interpretations. Animals and Inequality in the Ancient World presents new data and interpretations that reveal the role of animals, their products, and their symbolism in structuring social inequalities in the ancient world. The volume will be of interest to archaeologists, especially zooarchaeologists, and classical scholars of pre-modern civilizations and societies.

Download or read book Animal Husbandry in Ancient Israel written by Aharon Sasson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-08 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Animals have been used to human advantage for thousands of years. 'Animal Husbandry in Ancient Israel' presents an analysis of caprines and cattle husbandry in the Southern Levantine Bronze and Iron Age. The book employs key methodological approaches - comparative analysis, taphonomy, Geographic Information System spatial analysis, and ethnographic studies - to challenge prevalent views on the Southern Levantine ancient economy. 'Animal Husbandry in Ancient Israel' argues that the key concern of nomadic, rural and urban populations was survival - the common household maintained a self-sufficient economy - rather than profit, specialization or trade. The book will be of value to all those interested in the dynamic relationship between humans and animals in ancient Israel.

Download or read book Territoriality and the Early Medieval Landscape written by Stephen Rippon and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2022-04-05 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All communities have a strong sense of identity with the area in which they live, which for England in the early medieval period manifested itself in a series of territorial entities, ranging from large kingdoms down to small districts known as pagi or regiones. This book investigates these small early folk territories, and the way that they evolved into the administrative units recorded in Domesday, across an entire kingdom - that of the East Saxons (broadly speaking, what is now Essex, Middlesex, most of Hertfordshire, and south Suffolk). A wide range of evidence is drawn upon, including archaeology, written documents, place-names and the early cartographic sources. The book looks in particular at the relationship between Saxon immigrants and the native British population, and argues that initially these ethnic groups occupied different parts of the landscape, until a dynasty which assumed an Anglo-Saxon identity achieved political ascendency (its members included the so-called "Prittlewell Prince", buried with spectacular grave-good in Prittlewell, near Southend-on- Sea in southern Essex). Other significant places discussed include London, the seat of the first East Saxon bishopric, the possible royal vills at Wicken Bonhunt near Saffron Walden and Maldon, and St Peter's Chapel at Bradwell-on-Sea, one of the most important surviving churches from the early Christian period.

Download or read book Building Anglo Saxon England written by John Blair and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-10-12 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize A radical rethinking of the Anglo-Saxon world that draws on the latest archaeological discoveries This beautifully illustrated book draws on the latest archaeological discoveries to present a radical reappraisal of the Anglo-Saxon built environment and its inhabitants. John Blair, one of the world's leading experts on this transformative era in England's early history, explains the origins of towns, manor houses, and castles in a completely new way, and sheds new light on the important functions of buildings and settlements in shaping people's lives during the age of the Venerable Bede and King Alfred. Building Anglo-Saxon England demonstrates how hundreds of recent excavations enable us to grasp for the first time how regionally diverse the built environment of the Anglo-Saxons truly was. Blair identifies a zone of eastern England with access to the North Sea whose economy, prosperity, and timber buildings had more in common with the Low Countries and Scandinavia than the rest of England. The origins of villages and their field systems emerge with a new clarity, as does the royal administrative organization of the kingdom of Mercia, which dominated central England for two centuries. Featuring a wealth of color illustrations throughout, Building Anglo-Saxon England explores how the natural landscape was modified to accommodate human activity, and how many settlements--secular and religious—were laid out with geometrical precision by specialist surveyors. The book also shows how the Anglo-Saxon love of elegant and intricate decoration is reflected in the construction of the living environment, which in some ways was more sophisticated than it would become after the Norman Conquest.

Download or read book Rural Settlements and Society in Anglo Saxon England written by Helena Hamerow and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2012-07-05 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first major synthesis of the evidence for Anglo-Saxon settlements from across England and throughout the Anglo-Saxon period, and a study of what it reveals about the communities who built and lived in them.

Download or read book European Archaeology as Anthropology written by Pam J. Crabtree and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2017-03-21 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the days of V. Gordon Childe, the study of the emergence of complex societies has been a central question in anthropological archaeology. However, archaeologists working in the Americanist tradition have drawn most of their models for the emergence of social complexity from research in the Middle East and Latin America. Bernard Wailes was a strong advocate for the importance of later prehistoric and early medieval Europe as an alternative model of sociopolitical evolution and trained generations of American archaeologists now active in European research from the Neolithic to the Middle Ages. Two centuries of excavation and research in Europe have produced one of the richest bodies of archaeological data anywhere in the world. The abundant data show that technological innovations such as metallurgy appeared very early, but urbanism and state formation are comparatively late developments. Key transformative process such as the spread of agriculture did not happen uniformly but rather at different rates in different regions. The essays in this volume celebrate the legacy of Bernard Wailes by highlighting the contribution of the European archaeological record to our understanding of the emergence of social complexity. They provide case studies in how ancient Europe can inform anthropological archaeology. Not only do they illuminate key research topics, they also invite archaeologists working in other parts of the world to consider comparisons to ancient Europe as they construct models for cultural development for their regions. Although there is a substantial corpus of literature on European prehistoric and medieval archaeology, we do not know of a comparable volume that explicitly focuses on the contribution that the study of ancient Europe can make to anthropological archaeology.

Download or read book The Wide Lens in Archaeology written by Allan Gilbert and published by Lockwood Press. This book was released on 2017-06-01 with total page 517 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book honors the memory of Brian Hesse, a scholar of Near Eastern archaeology, a writer of alliterative and punned publication titles, and an accomplished amateur photographer. Hesse specialized in zooarchaeology, but he influenced a wider range of excavators and ancient historians with his broad interpretive reach. He spent much of his career analyzing faunal materials from different countries in the Middle East-including Iran, Yemen, and Israel, and his publications covered themes particular to animal bone studies, such as domestication, ancient market economics, as well as broader themes such as determining ethnicity in archaeology. The essays in this volume reflect the breadth of his interests. Most chapters share an Old World geographic setting, focusing either on Europe or the Middle East. The topics are diverse, with the majority discussing animal bones, as was Hesse's specialization, but some take a nonfaunal perspective related to the problems with which Hesse grappled. The volume is also broad in temporal scope, ranging from Neolithic Iran to early Medieval England, and it addresses theoretical matters as well as methodological innovations including taphonomy and the history of computers in zooarchaeology. Several of the essays are direct revisits to, inspirations from, or extensions of Hesse's own research. All the contributions reflect his intense interest in social questions about antiquity; the theme of social archaeology informed much of Brian Hesse's thinking, and it is why his work made such an impact on those working outside his own disciplinary research.

Download or read book The Middle Ages Revisited Studies in the Archaeology and History of Medieval Southern England Presented to Professor David A Hinton written by Ben Jervis and published by Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2018-11-17 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume, produced in honour of Professor David A. Hinton’s contribution to medieval studies, re-visits the sites, archaeologists and questions which have been central to the archaeology of medieval southern England. Contributions are focused on the medieval period (from the Anglo-Saxon period to the Reformation) in southern England.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Anglo Saxon Archaeology written by Helena Hamerow and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2011-03-31 with total page 1110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by a team of experts and presenting the results of the most up-to-date research, The Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology will both stimulate and support further investigation into a society poised at the interface between prehistory and history.

Download or read book East Anglia and Its North Sea World in the Middle Ages written by David Bates and published by Boydell & Brewer Ltd. This book was released on 2015 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays discusses East Anglia in the context of a medieval maritime framework and explores the extent to which there was a distinctive community bound together by the shared frontier of the North Sea during the Middle Ages. It brings together the work of a range of international scholars and includes contributions from the disciplines of history, archaeology, art history and literary studies.

Download or read book Zooarchaeology in Practice written by Christina M. Giovas and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-11-24 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Zooarchaeology in Practice unites depth of treatment with broad topical coverage to advance methodological discussion and development in archaeofaunal analysis. Through case studies, historical accounts, and technical reviews authored by leading figures in the field, the volume examines how zooarchaeological data and interpretation are shaped by its methods of practice and explores the impact of these effects at varying levels of investigation. Contributing authors draw on geographically and taxonomically diverse datasets, providing instructive approaches to problems in traditional and emerging areas of methodological concern. Readers, from specialists to students, will gain an extensive, sophisticated look at important disciplinary issues that are sure to provoke critical reflection on the nature and importance of sound methodology. With implications for how archaeologists reconstruct human behavior and paleoecology, and broader relevance to fields such as paleontology and conservation biology, Zooarchaeology in Practice makes an enduring contribution to the methodological advancement of the discipline.

Download or read book Food Eating and Identity in Early Medieval England written by Allen J. Frantzen and published by Boydell & Brewer Ltd. This book was released on 2014 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fresh approach to the implications of obtaining, preparing, and consuming food, concentrating on the little-investigated routines of everyday life. Food in the Middle Ages usually evokes images of feasting, speeches, and special occasions, even though most evidence of food culture consists of fragments of ordinary things such as knives, cooking pots, and grinding stones, which are rarely mentioned by contemporary writers. This book puts daily life and its objects at the centre of the food world. It brings together archaeological and textual evidence to show how words and implements associated with food contributed to social identity at all levels of Anglo-Saxon society. It also looks at the networks which connected fields to kitchens and linked rural centres to trading sites. Fasting, redesigned field systems, and the place offish in the diet are examined in a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary inquiry into the power of food to reveal social complexity. Allen J. Frantzen is Professor of English at Loyola University Chicago.

Download or read book Ancient Taxation written by Jonathan Valk and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2021-08-24 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of studies that explores the extractive systems of eleven ancient states and societies from across the ancient world Ancient Taxation is a collection of studies that explores the extractive systems of eleven ancient states and societies from across the ancient world, ranging from Bronze Age China to Anglo-Saxon Britain. The contributors discuss the inherent challenges of taxation in predominantly agro-pastoral societies, including basic tax strategy (e.g., taxing goods vs. labor, in-kind vs. money taxes, etc.); the mechanics of assessment and collection; and the politics of negotiating the cooperation of social, economic, and political élites and other important social groups. In assembling a broad range of studies, this book sheds new light on the commonalities and differences between ancient taxation systems, and so on the broader fiscal and institutional practices of antiquity. It also provides new impetus for further comparative research into extractive practices across ancient societies and between antiquity and recent historical periods. The book will be of interest to those studying ancient social and economic history, the history of social organization, and the history of ancient Greece and Rome, Egypt, the Ancient Near East, or ancient China.