The Oxford Handbook of the European Bronze Age is a wide-ranging survey of a crucial period in prehistory during which many social, economic, and technological changes took place. Written by expert specialists in the field, the book provides coverage both of the themes that characterize the period, and of the specific developments that took place in the various countries of Europe. After an introduction and a discussion of chronology, successive chapters deal with settlement studies, burial analysis, hoards and hoarding, monumentality, rock art, cosmology, gender, and trade, as well as a series of articles on specific technologies and crafts (such as transport, metals, glass, salt, textiles, and weighing). The second half of the book covers each country in turn. From Ireland to Russia, Scandinavia to Sicily, every area is considered, and up to date information on important recent finds is discussed in detail. The book is the first to consider the whole of the European Bronze Age in both geographical and thematic terms, and will be the standard book on the subject for the foreseeable future.

Excavation of a site on river gravels in the Cam/Granta valley, by Archaeological Solutions Ltd, took place in advance of gravel extraction and construction of a reservoir. The excavation revealed five phases of archaeological activity, beginning in the Neolithic period with evidence for episodic or seasonal occupation and burial. After a gap of several centuries, there were three phases of Middle Iron Age to early Roman activity representing the continuous development of the same system of enclosures focussed on a central trackway. Domestic occupation was also evident in the form of partial ring gullies. During the Conquest period there was probably a landing site for boats operating on the former river channel evident at the site. Economic activity during these phases represents a mixed, surplus-generating economy and it is possible that river traffic played an important role in the trade of the agricultural surplus. Limited finds of later Roman artefacts indicate a continued Romano-British presence in the vicinity. The final phase of occupationis a small rural Anglo-Saxon settlement comprising seven sunken-featured buildings and associated pits. Environmental and soil micromorphological analysis from this phase has provided important information about the internal arrangement of SFBs and the processes associated with development of their fills.

The Times of their Lives' explains how archaeologists can now move away from thinking about history in terms of thousands of years, to periods from one or two centuries down to lifetimes and generations - a little more than two decades. This vastly improved precision comes from the application of Bayesian chronological frameworks for the interpretation of radiocarbon dates. If they do the right things, archaeologists in general and prehistorians in particular need not confine themselves any longer to the long term, which has often been seen as the defining currency of the discipline.0Many prehistorians are still uncomfortable with the choice of narratives now available - or have not yet critically rethought old habits. This book will show how temporally much more precise accounts of the past can be achieved, across a broad range of contexts and situations. It offers a series of case studies across much of the continent, to provide much more precise timings of key features and trends in the European Neolithic sequence than are currently available, and to construct much more precise estimates of the duration of events and phenomena. From these there is the possibility to open up new insights into the tempo of change through the detailed study of selected sites and situations across the span of the European Neolithic, from the sixth to the early third millennia cal BC. At stake is our ability to study the lives of Neolithic people everywhere at the scale of lifetimes, something unimaginable even a few years ago.

This book provides a detailed description of the archaeological excavation of late Bronze Age and Anglo-Saxon site in southern Essex. The presence of circular enclosure, or ring-work, marks this site as similar to other well-known late Bronze Age sites in the area.

The Oxford Handbook of the European Iron Age presents a broad overview of current understanding of the archaeology of Europe from 1000 BC through to the early historic periods, exploiting the large quantities of new evidence yielded by the upsurge in archaeological research and excavation on this period over the last thirty years. Three introductory chapters situate the reader in the times and the environments of Iron Age Europe. Fourteen regional chapters provide accessible syntheses of developments in different parts of the continent, from Ireland and Spain in the west to the borders with Asia in the east, from Scandinavia in the north to the Mediterranean shores in the south. Twenty-six thematic chapters examine different aspects of Iron Age archaeology in greater depth, from lifeways, economy, and complexity to identity, ritual, and expression. Among the many topics explored are agricultural systems, settlements, landscape monuments, iron smelting and forging, production of textiles, politics, demography, gender, migration, funerary practices, social and religious rituals, coinage and literacy, and art and design.

Sardinia preserves an exceptional record of its Final Neolithic and Copper Age cultures, with a diverse crafts repertory, henges and dolmens, statue-menhirs, chamber tombs - and the only known ziggurat in Europe. The present study provides a synthesis in English for a scholarly readership interested in Mediterranean adaptations during this earliest period of metallurgy. As elsewhere, the infusion of metallurgy had profound implications, as island cultures underwent a series of transformations tied directly or indirectly to it. Spanning two millennia, these changes are studied in terms of material cultures known as Ozieri, Sub-Ozieri, Filigosa-Abealzu, Monte Claro and Bell Beaker. A more overarching finding from this review is the periodic engagement between these cultures and geographically distant ones. Such punctuations of the insular condition had long-lasting effects on local expression, and some thoughts on how this might contribute to understandings of concepts like identity formation are presented by way of a conclusion.

In 1864, a large metal hoard of copper, bronze and silver objects was discovered at Pile in the southern Swedish region of Scania. The hoard has been dated to the onset of the rich Nordic Bronze Age, and emerges as the earliest, finest and one of the largest of the Nordic sacrificial deposits of metalwork in or near water. The Metal Hoard from Pile in Scania, Sweden provides the first detailed documentation, scientific examination and historical interpretation of the assemblage. Around 2000 BCE the site of Pile was networked with places near and far in a manner that boosted the political economy of Southern Scandinavia, adding to an atmosphere of tensions and charge - and it made history. The chapters unfold as a 'history from beneath' beginning with place, Things and time and concluding with metals and the worlds that intersected in Pile at the threshold of the long Bronze Age.

The book explores settlement and burial patterns across the southeastern corner of the Balkan Peninsula during the second millennium BC and offers a new, detailed cross-border examination of the local pottery data. The volume offers a comprehensive analysis based on the existing cultural-historical framework and calls into question established constructs such as the 'Plovdiv-Zimnicea' culture. The work offers a chronologically structured analysis of pottery sequences and is methodologically innovative in the way it applies a rare combination of settlement-scale analysis using advanced spatial-statistical methods alongside artefact-scale typological and stylistic study on local ceramics also subjected to spatial-statistical mapping. As a result, the research highlights clusters of attributes and cycles of micro-regional interaction. On that basis it also addresses the formation, development and decline of the Late Bronze Age tradition(s) in Thrace and examines the degree to which this trajectory was influenced by wider patterns of regional development.

Archaeology of Prehistoric Art, Volume 1 Atlantic Rock Art is a rock art tradition which includes emblematic motifs such as cup-marks, cup-and-rings and lines, known to several countries on the Atlantic seaboard. Design and Connectivity springs from an inter-regional study of this tradition, based on an original and innovative methodology applied to an empirical dataset. The project builds on Richard Bradley's work, investigating differences and similarities in Atlantic Art over study areas in five countries: Scotland, England, Ireland, Spain and Portugal. It applies a multi-scalar methodology developed under the principles of Relational Ontology and Assemblage Theory, providing a dynamic perspective on the empirical data. A thorough categorical scheme was scrutinised using a Presence/Absence Matrix, spatial analysis (fieldwork and GIS) and the development of Social Network Analysis (SNA) to relate and explore the relationships and connectivity between study areas. Concepts of developmental psychology support the idea of intentional teaching and cultural transmission.

The Neolithic - a period in which the first sedentary agrarian communities were established across much of Europe - has been a key topic of archaeological research for over a century. However, the variety of evidence across Europe and the way research traditions in different countries (and languages) have developed makes it very difficult for both students and specialists to gain an overview of continent-wide trends. The Oxford Handbook of Neolithic Europe provides the first comprehensive, geographically extensive, thematic overview of the European Neolithic - from Iberia to Russia and from Norway to Malta - offering both a general introduction and a clear exploration of key issues and current debates surrounding evidence and interpretation. Chapters written by leading experts in the field examine topics such as the movement of plants, animals, ideas, and people (including recent trends in the application of genetics and isotope analyses); cultural change (from the first farming to the first metal artefacts); domestic architecture; subsistence; material culture; monuments; and burial and other treatments of the dead. In doing so, the volume also considers the history of research and sets out agendas and themes for future work in the field.