Justinian’s Balkan Wars is the first history of military and diplomatic affairs in the Roman provinces south of the River Danube during the reign of the Emperor Justinian (A.D. 527-65). The Emperor’s policies in this region have received little attention from modern historians, who have focussed on his struggles with the Sassanian Persian empire in the East, and, in the West, his glorious reconquests of Italy from the Goths and Africa from the Vandals. This comparative neglect reflects the influence of the contemporary historian Procopius, who (following his own bias) viewed the Balkans under Justinian as a backwater denuded of manpower and left vulnerable to the depredations of barbarian raiders. In contrast Justinian’s Balkan Wars argues that the Emperor was fully aware of the region’s vital strategic importance, and frequently committed more effort and resources there than in other theatres of operation. Justinian’s Balkan Wars offers a detailed reconstruction of military and diplomatic relations between the Germanic, Hunnic and Slavic peoples north of the Danube frontier and Justinian’s eastern Roman Empire. It uses a variety of contemporary histories and chronicles to chart barbarian raids, imperial campaigns and the receptions of barbarian leaders in the glittering halls of the imperial capital, Constantinople. In doing so it sketches the contours of Justinian’s Balkan strategy and its relationship to other theatres of operation such as the Italian Peninsula and the Transcaucasus. The book draws on administrative reforms, epigraphic and numismatic evidence, and the archaeology of settlement patterns to place these historical events in a wider socio-economic and physical context. It shows the importance of infrastructure, logistical preparation, political control and the support of local hearts and minds for successful campaigning in Late Antiquity. Justinian’s energetic military, diplomatic, and development policies in the Balkans ensured that the eastern Roman Empire in general prevailed against its barbarian opponents. Hence the eventual loss of Roman control over the majority of the Balkan provinces and their colonisation by Slavic tribes in the 7th c. was by no means inevitable when Justinian died in 565.

In 2014, the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World organized an international writing competition calling for accessible and engaging essays about any aspect of archaeology. Nearly 150 submissions from over two dozen countries were received. Archaeology for the People gathers the best of those entries. Their diverse topics—from the destruction of historic, urban gardens in contemporary Istanbul to the fall of the ancient Maya city— offer a taste of the global reach and relevance of archaeology. Their main common trait, however, is that they prove that archaeology can offer much more to a general audience than Indiana Jones or aliens building pyramids. All of the articles collected in this book combine sophisticated analysis of an exciting archeological problem with prose geared at a non-specialized audience. This book also offers a series of reflections on how and why to engage in dialogues about archaeology with people who are not specialists. These include a stunning photo-essay that captures the challenges of life at an archaeological site in northern Sudan, interviews with a number of leading archaeologists who have successfully written about archaeology for a broad public or who are actively engaged in practicing archaeology beyond academia, and a discussion of the experience of teaching a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) about archaeology to over 40,000 students. This book should be of interest to anyone who has wondered how and why to write about archaeology for people other than archaeologists.

The investigations have produced evidence for 6,000 years of landscape and settlement evolution. Perhaps the most striking result is the evidence for continuity, rather than discontinuity, in the development of the landscape. The act of defining chronological periods, while essential in describing past human society, does tend to accentuate discontinuity. This applies both to individual monuments — some on the Biddenham Loop played a major part in people’s lives for many generations — and to the wider landscape itself. The Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments were incorporated into the middle Bronze Age field systems and some were still used for the burial of the dead. Continued use of these fields into the middle Iron Age and even the Romano-British period is clearly evidenced by the way in which later farmsteads were set up on their periphery. The positioning of the main early Iron Age pit alignment across the Biddenham Loop has elements of both discontinuity and continuity. It does ‘cut’ a number of ditched boundaries but does so at the corners of fields, so that over the majority of its course it crosses unenclosed land between two separate middle Bronze Age field systems. For the Roman–Saxon transition it is significant that the majority of the evidence for early Saxon settlement occurs in the vicinity of Romano-British settlements.

Incomplete Archaeologies takes a familiar archaeological concept – assemblages – and reconsiders such groupings, collections and sets of things from the perspective of the work required to assemble them. The discussions presented here engage with the practices of collection, construction, performance and creation in the past (and present) which constitute the things and groups of things studied by archaeologists – and examine as well how these things and thing-groups are dismantled, rearranged, and even destroyed, only to be rebuilt and recreated. The ultimate aim is to reassert an awareness of the incompleteness of assemblage, and thus the importance of practices of assembling (whether they seem at first creative or destructive) for understanding social life in the past as well as the present. The individual chapters represent critical engagements with this aim by archaeologists presenting a broad scope of case studies from Eurasia and the Mediterranean. Case studies include discussions of mortuary practice from numerous angles, the sociopolitics of metallurgy, human-animal relationships, landscape and memory, the assembly of political subjectivity and the curation of sovereignty. These studies emphasise the incomplete and ongoing nature of social action in the past, and stress the critical significance of a deeper understanding of formation processes as well as contextual archaeologies to practices of archaeology, museology, art history, and other related disciplines. Contributors challenge archaeologists and others to think past the objects in the assemblage to the practices of assembling, enabling us to consider not only plural modes of interacting with and perceiving things, spaces, human bodies and temporalities in the past, but also to perhaps discover alternate modes of framing these interactions and relationships in our analyses. Ultimately then, Incomplete Archaeologies takes aim at the perceived totality not only of assemblages of artefacts on shelves and desks, but also that of some of archaeology’s seeming-seamless epistemological objects.

The author, an archaeologist, is now directing the restoration of a Viking ship in Normandy. In this book, he traces the evolution of this type of clinker-built ship, from the most ancient prototypes (Hjortspring), to the later models (Roskilde), with many detailed plans. He then explains their construction and modes of navigation used, as well as the religious concepts linked to the fantastic figureheads. Finally, he displays several modern replicas of these ships. TEXT IN FRENCH

The excavations led by Margaret and Tom Jones on the Thames gravel terraces at Mucking, Essex, undertaken between 1965 and 1978 are legendary. The largest area excavation ever undertaken in the British Isles, involving around 5000 participants, recorded around 44,000 archaeological features dating from the Beaker to Anglo-Saxon periods and recovered something in the region of 1.7 million finds of Mesolithic to post-medieval date. While various publications have emerged over the intervening years, the death of both directors, insufficient funding, many organisational complications and the sheer volume of material evidence have severely delayed full publication of this extraordinary palimpsest landscape.Lives in Land is the first of two major volumes which bring together all the evidence from Mucking, presenting both the detail of many important structures and assemblages and a comprehensive synthesis of landscape development through the ages: settlement histories, changing land-use, death and burial, industry and craft activities. The long time-gap since completion of the excavations has allowed the authors the unprecedented opportunity to stand back from the density of site data and place the vast sum of Mucking evidence in the wider context of the archaeology of southern England throughout the major periods of occupation and activity.Lives in Land begins with a thorough evaluation of the methods, philosophy and archival status of the Mucking project against the organisational and funding background of its time, and discusses its fascinating and complex history through a period of fundamental change in archaeological practice, legislation, finance, research priorities and theoretical paradigms in British Archaeology. Subsequent chapters deal with the prehistoric landscape, each focusing on the major themes that emerge by major period from analysis and synthesis of the data. The authors draw on archival material including site notebooks and personal accounts from key participants to provide a detailed but lively account of this iconic landscape investigation.

The past is inextricably embeded in the present – whether we are aware of it or not. The present was shaped by the thoughts and deeds of those who went before, and our daily life largely plays out on a stage set by our ancestors. The seven contributors to this volume have taken their cue from ancient artefacts of the cultures of the Mediterranean and Near East that are kept in the National Museum of Denmark. The authors explain how these items were gathered in the first place at their remote places of origin, and why the collectors deemed the objects so important that they were willing to go through considerable trouble and expense to bring them to Denmark. Also, the demonstrate how the interpretation and perceived significance, thereby sketching important stages in the formative history of the National Museum.

Woven textiles are produced by nearly all human societies. This volume investigates evidence for patterned textiles (that is, textiles woven with elaborate designs) that were produced by two early Mediterranean civilisations: the Minoans of Crete and the Mycenaeans of mainland Greece, that prospered during the Aegean Bronze Age, c. 3000-1200 BC, contemporary with pharaonic Egypt. Both could boast of specialists in textile production. Together with their wine, oil, and art, Minoan and Mycenaean textiles were much desired as trade goods. Artistic images of their fabrics preserved both in the Aegean and in other parts of the Mediterranean show elaborate patterns woven with rich decorative detail and colour. Only a few small scraps of textiles survive but evidence for their production is abundant and frescoes supply detailed information about a wide variety of now-lost textile goods from luxurious costumes and beautifully patterned wall hangings and carpets, to more utilitarian decorated fabrics. A review of surviving artistic and archaeological evidence indicates that textiles played essential practical and social roles in both Minoan and Mycenaean societies.

This two-volume publication presents a study of the barrows of South Scandinavian Early Bronze Age and their social and environmental context. It is based on a series of projects conducted between 1992 and 2004, culminating in the excavation of the great barrow of Skelhøj in Southwest Jutland, and the analyses of its surroundings in the Tobøl barrow group, from 2002 to 2004.The excavation of Skelhøj was the first near-complete excavation of a scheduled great barrow conducted for purely research reasons since these monuments became scheduled under the Nature Protection Act of 1937 and it therefore offered very rare opportunities for analysis. The first volume presented an overview of the barrow tradition and a detailed account of the results of the excavation of the great barrow Skelhøj. In this second volume the consequences on our understanding of barrows are explored in more detail.

This monograph details the results of major excavations in Southwark, London, detailing an archaeological sequence which spans the early prehistoric to very latest Roman periods. The site lay on the Southern outskirts of Roman London and was the location of a large Romano-Celtic temple complex. A very large finds assemblage includes a marble inscription, which is the earliest text found to mention 'Londoners'.

This book is about the map of an English county – Hertfordshire – which was published in 1766 by two London map-makers, Andrew Dury and John Andrews.For well over two centuries, from the time of Elizabeth I to the late 18th century, the county was the basic unit for mapping in Britain and the period witnessed several espisodes of comprehensive map making. The map which forms the subject of this book followed on from a large number of previous maps of the county but was greatly superior to them in terms of quality and detail. It was published in a variety of forms, in nine sheets with an additional index map, over a period of 60 years. No other maps of Hertfordshire were produced during the rest of the century, but the Board of Ordnance, later the Ordnance Survey, established in the 1790s, began to survey the Hertfordshire area in 1799, publishing the first maps covering the county between 1805 and 1834. The OS came to dominate map making in Britain but, of all the maps of Hertfordshire, that produced by Dury and Andrews was the first to be surveyed at a sufficiently large scale to really allow those dwelling in the county to visualise their own parish, local topography and even their own house, and its place in the wider landscape. The first section examines the context of the map’s production and its place in cartographic history, and describes the creation of a new, digital version of the map which can be accessed online . The second part describes various ways in which this electronic version can be interrogated, in order to throw important new light on Hertfordshire’s landscape and society, both in the middle decades of the eighteenth century when it was produced, and in more remote periods. The attached DVD contains over a dozen maps which have been derived from the digital version, and which illustrate many of the issues discussed in the text, as well as related material which should likewise be useful to students of landscape history, historical geography and local history.

Malcolm Lillie presents a major new holistic appraisal of the evidence for the Mesolithic occupation of Wales. The story begins with a discourse on the Palaeolithic background. In order to set the entire Mesolithic period into its context, subsequent chapters follow a sequence from the palaeoenvironmental background, through a consideration of the use of stone tools, settlement patterning and evidence for subsistence strategies and the range of available resources. Less obvious aspects of hunter-forager and subsequent hunter-fisher-forager groups include the arenas of symbolism, ritual and spirituality that would have been embedded in everyday life. The author here endeavours to integrate an evaluation of these aspects of Mesolithic society in developing a social narrative of Mesolithic lifeways throughout the text in an effort to bring the past to life in a meaningful and considered way.The term ‘hunter-fisher-foragers’ implies a particular combination of subsistence activities, but whilst some groups may well have integrated this range of economic activities into their subsistence strategies, others may not have. The situation in coastal areas of Wales, in relation to subsistence, settlement and even spiritual matters would not necessarily be the same as in upland areas, even when the same groups moved between these zones in the landscape. The volume concludes with a discussion of the theoretical basis for the shift away from the exploitation of wild resources towards the integration of domesticates into subsistence strategies, i.e. the shift from food procurement to food production, and assesses the context of the changes that occurred as human groups re-orientated their socio-economic, political and ritual beliefs in light of newly available resources, influences from the continent, and ultimately their social condition at the time of ‘transition’.

Archaeological investigations at Huntsman’s Quarry, Kemerton, south Worcestershire during 1995-6 recorded significant Late Bronze Age occupation areas and field systems spreading across more than 8 hectares. Limited evidence for Upper Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic and Beaker activity was also recovered together with an Early Bronze Age ring-ditch. Waterholes and associated round-houses, structures and pits were set within landscape of fields and droveways radiocarbon dated to the 12th–11th centuries cal BC. Elements of this field system probably pre-dated the settlement. Substantial artefactual and ecofactual assemblages were recovered from the upper fills of the waterholes and larger pits . The settlement had a predominantly pastoral economy supported by some textile and bronze production. Ceramics included a notable proportion of non-local fabrics demonstrating that the local population enjoyed a wide range of regional contacts. Wider ranging, national exchange networks were also indicated by the presence of shale objects as well as the supply of bronze for metalworking, perhaps indicative of a site of some social status. Together the evidence indicates a small settlement within which occupation of individual areas was short-lived with the focus of the settlement shifting on a regular basis. It is proposed that this occurred on a generational basis, with each generation setting up a new ‘homestead’ with an associated waterhole. The settlement can be compared favourably to those known along the Thames Valley but until now not recognised in this part of the country. Cropmark evidence and limited other investigations indicate that the fields and droveways recorded represent a small fragment of a widespread system of boundaries established across the gravel terraces lying between Bredon Hill and the Carrant Brook. This managed and organised landscape appears to have been established for the maintenance of an economy primarily based on relatively intensive livestock farming; the trackways facilitating seasonal movement of stock between meadows alongside the Carrant Brook, the adjacent terraces and the higher land on Bredon Hill.

The site at Mill Lane, Sawston, represents millennia of human activity within a dynamic and changing landscape setting. River valleys have been a focus for human activity since the early Holocene and, in addition to providing abundant archaeological evidence for this activity, the proximity to water also highlights the potential for the preservation of both archaeological remains and palaeoenvironmental source material. However, human activity within river valleys also commonly bridges areas of both wetland and dryland; ecological zones which are often approached using quite different archaeological methods and which present considerable differences in levels of archaeological visibility and preservation. The site at Mill Lane offered an uncommon opportunity to explore the interface between these two types of environment.Here we present the results of the study of a wetland/dryland interface on the edge of palaeochannels of the River Cam in Cambridgeshire. Through the integrated archaeological and palaeoenvironmental analysis of a site on the western edge of Sawston, a detailed picture of life on the edge of the floodplain from the late glacial to the post-medieval periods has been developed. At the heart of this is the relationship between people and their changing environment, which reveals a shifting pattern of ritual, occupation and more transitory activity as the riparian landscape in a wooded setting became a wetland within a more openly grazed environment. The presence of potential built structures dating to the early Neolithic, the early Bronze Age and the early Anglo-Saxon periods provides some sense of continuity, although the nature of these structures and the environmental context within which they were constructed was very different.

During the 18th century the expansion of the wealthy London parish of St Marylebone led to the development of two additional graveyards to relieve pressure on the church and churchyard on Marylebone High Street. The latest of these, on the north side of Paddington Street, was in use between 1772 and 1853. Archaeologists recorded 386 burials from 124 single, stacked and brick-lined graves at the western edge of this ground. The archaeological findings and detailed osteological analysis of 291 individuals are combined with documentary research to provide a fascinating account of a burial ground used predominantly by the middle and upper classes.

The volume presents proceedings of the second international conference dedited to the study of relations between Egypt, the Aegean, the Levant and the Sudan in the 2nd and 1st millenia BCE.