Home Partner Publishers Series Blog About Us Oxbow Book News Contact Us
Archaeological Method & Theory
British Archaeology European Archaeology Heritage & Conservation Numismatics Weapons & Warfare World Archaeology
Classical World
Egypt & Near East
Medieval & Viking
Post Medieval, Modern & Industrial Archaeology
Prehistory
Oxbow Books

Oxbow Books is a leading publisher in the fields of archaeology, ancient history and medieval studies, with an international reputation for quality and affordability. Oxbow's archaeology publishing covers all periods from earliest prehistory through classical archaeology, the ancient Near East, Egyptology, the Middle Ages and post-medieval archaeology. They publish a wide variety of books including scholarly monographs, edited collections of papers, and excavation and research reports in related fields such as archaeological practice and theory, archaeozoology, and environmental, landscape and maritime archaeology.

Founded in Oxford in 1983 by academic and museum archaeologist, David Brown, Oxbow Books has evolved and expanded significantly over the years. Now celebrating their 40th anniversary, Oxbow remains dedicated to the quality of their publishing for readers, and the contribution their books bring to the scholarly and professional communities more broadly.

Archaeology of Symbols Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 304
ISBN: 9798888570982
Pub Date: 28 Feb 2024
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Material Religion in Antiquity
Illustrations: 130 B/W illustrations
Description:
This third volume in the Material Religion in Antiquity series stems from the First International Congress on the Archaeology of Symbols (ICAS I) that took place in Florence in May 2022. The archaeological process of reconstructing and understanding our past has undergone several reassessments in the last century, producing an equal number of new perspectives and approaches. The recent materiality turn emphasizes the necessity to ground those achievements in order to build fresh avenues of interpretation and reach new boundaries in the study of the human kind and its ecology.
The Late Minoan III Necropolis of Armenoi Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 160
ISBN: 9798888570463
Pub Date: 07 Feb 2024
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: 120 b/w illustrations
Description:
The Late Minoan III Necropolis of Armenoi, Crete (ca. 1390–1190 BC) is the only intact, complete Late Minoan necropolis presently known, of which 232 tombs have been excavated. The research project was the first large-scale genomic sampling of skeletal material from a single site in Bronze Age Greece, as well as being the first time a multi-disciplinary approach with ancient DNA as its focus has been conducted on a large, well-curated necropolis assemblage.
Artifacts of Mourning Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 152
ISBN: 9798888571101
Pub Date: 15 Jan 2024
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Studies in Funerary Archaeology
Illustrations: 112 color and B/W illustrations
Description:
In 2016, construction workers in Philadelphia unexpectedly uncovered a long forgotten burial ground. Archaeologists quickly discovered this was the location of the burial ground of the First Baptist Church of Philadelphia, used as early as 1722. It was thought to have been exhumed and moved in 1859.
Journal of Roman Pottery Studies Volume 20 Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 160
ISBN: 9798888570340
Pub Date: 28 Dec 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Journal of Roman Pottery Studies
Description:
The new volume of the long-running Journal of Roman Pottery Studies will include conference proceedings of the 2019 conference held at Atherstone, Warwickshire, and the 50th anniversary conference of the Study Group for Roman Pottery held online with Newcastle University. Papers reflect on recent advances in methodological approaches and their applications, the past and future role of the society and new initiatives in archiving policies and their implications. It will also contain a number of papers outside these conferences that focus on pottery production, notably of colour-coated wares in Lincoln and in the province of Noricum, as well as a report on the glass working furnace discovered alongside the pottery production kilns at Mancetter-Hartshill.
In the Darkest of Days Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 176
ISBN: 9781789258592
Pub Date: 15 Dec 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: B/w and colour
Description:
This book collects recent works on the subjects of sacrificial offerings, ritualised violence and the relative values thereof in the contexts of Scandinavian prehistory from the Neolithic to the Viking era. It provides a detailed re-appraisal of key aspects of prehistoric bog bodies using the latest forensic and material culture analytical techniques to examine questions of sacrifice, execution and ritual behaviour.The volume re-opens investigations into notions of value relating to diverse evidence and suggested evidence for human sacrifice and related ritualised violence.
Roman Urbanism in Italy Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 280
ISBN: 9798888570364
Pub Date: 15 Dec 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: University of Cambridge Museum of Classical Archaeology Monograph
Description:
The study of Roman urbanism – especially its early (Republican) phases – is extensively rooted in the evidence provided by a series of key sites, several of them located in Italy. Some of these Italian towns (e.g.
The Excavations at Ismant al-Kharab Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 488
ISBN: 9781789259636
Pub Date: 15 Dec 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: B&W and Color images
Description:
The adoption of Christianity by the Egyptian populace was well underway by the late third century, but evidence for its presence in the archaeological record from the Nile valley is sparse. This is due, in part, to the loss of ancient settlement sites beneath modern cultivation. By comparison, Ismant al-Kharab, ancient Kellis, in Dakhleh Oasis, was abandoned at the end of the fourth century and many of its structures survive intact.
Monumental Times Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 176
ISBN: 9798888570388
Pub Date: 15 Nov 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Description:
This book is concerned with the origins, uses and subsequent histories of monuments. It emphasises the time scales illustrated by these structures, and their implications for archaeological research. It is concerned with the archaeology of Western and Northern Europe, with an emphasis on structures in Britain and Ireland, and the period between the Mesolithic and the Viking Age.
Architectures of the Roman World Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 256
ISBN: 9781789259940
Pub Date: 31 Oct 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Description:
This book brings together an international team of scholars to re-evaluate Roman-period architecture outside Rome and the Italian Peninsula, looking at the regions that formed part of the Roman Empire over a broad time frame: from the 2nd century BCE to the 3rd century CE. Moving beyond traditional views of ‘Roman provincial architecture’, they highlight the multi-faceted features of these architectures, their function, impact and significance within the local cultures, and the dynamic discourse between periphery and centre. Architecture is intended in the broad sense of the term, encompassing the buildings’ technological components as well as their ornamental and epigraphic apparatuses.
Revisiting Grooved Ware Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 304
ISBN: 9798888570326
Pub Date: 31 Oct 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Neolithic Studies Group Seminar Papers
Description:
Following its appearance, arguably in Orkney in the 32nd century cal BC, Grooved Ware soon became widespread across Britain and Ireland, seemingly replacing earlier pottery styles and being deposited in contexts as varied as simple pits, passage tombs, ceremonial timber circles and henge monuments. As a result, Grooved Ware lies at the heart of many ongoing debates concerning social and economic developments at the end of the 4th and during the first half of the 3rd millennia cal BC.Stemming from the 2022 Neolithic Studies Group autumn conference, and following on from Cleal and MacSween’s 1999 NSG volume on Grooved Ware, this book presents a series of papers from researchers specializing in Grooved Ware pottery and the British and Irish Neolithic, offering both regional and thematic perspectives on this important ceramic tradition.
Economic Circularity in the Roman and Early Medieval Worlds Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 232
ISBN: 9781789259964
Pub Date: 15 Oct 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Description:
Economic circularity is the ability of a society to reduce waste by recycling, reusing, and repairing raw materials and finished products. This concept has gained momentum in academia, in part due to contemporary environmental concerns. Although the blurry conceptual boundaries of this term are open to a wide array of interpretations, the scholarly community generally perceives circular economy as a convenient umbrella definition that encompasses a vast array of regenerative and preservative processes.
RRP: £50.00
Exploring Writing Systems and Practices in the Bronze Age Aegean Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 192
ISBN: 9781789259018
Pub Date: 10 Oct 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Contexts of and Relations Between Early Writing Systems
Illustrations: B/W
Description:
Writing does not begin and end with the encoding of an idea into a group of symbols. It is practised by people who have learnt its principles and acquired the tools and skills for doing it, in a particular context that affects what they do and how they do it. Nor are these practices static, as those involved exploit opportunities to adapt old features and develop new ones.
Textile Production in Pre-Roman Italy Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 296
ISBN: 9798888570593
Pub Date: 15 Sep 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Ancient Textiles
Illustrations: 120 b/w figs, tbs, maps
Description:
Older than both ceramics and metallurgy, textile production is a technology which reveals much about prehistoric social and economic development. This book examines the archaeological evidence for textile production in Italy from the transition between the Bronze Age and Early Iron Ages until the Roman expansion (1000-400 BCE), and sheds light on both the process of technological development and the emergence of large urban centres with specialised crafts. Margarita Gleba begins with an overview of the prehistoric Appennine peninsula, which featured cultures such as the Villanovans and the Etruscans, and was connected through colonisation and trade with the other parts of the Mediterranean.
Eilean Donan Castle Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 128
ISBN: 9798888570548
Pub Date: 15 Sep 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: 70 illustrations predominantly in color
Description:
Now hard to believe, Eilean Donan Castle was once one of the largest castles in the west Highlands, known to have featured seven towers, the remains of which lie buried on the island. This book provides a refreshed view of the lost medieval guise of the castle, of its 13th-century origins and form, and of who was responsible for building it, allowing the castle to be positioned accurately in the complex dynamics of powerholding and display of the earls of Ross and associated militarised kindreds of the west Highlands during six centuries of change up to the castle’s destruction in 1719. A new history and the details of the below-ground archaeology allow us to see the lost medieval castle in our mind’s eye 500 years after it vanished.
Sasanian and Islamic Settlement and Ceramics in Southern Iran (4th to 17th Century AD) Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 512
ISBN: 9798888570524
Pub Date: 15 Aug 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: British Institute of Persian Studies Archaeological Monograph Series
Illustrations: 250 b/w illustrations and 32 colour images
Description:
This monograph comprises the final publication of a study supported by the British Institute of Persian Studies and undertaken by Seth Priestman and Derek Kennet at the University of Durham. The work presents and analyses an assemblage of just under 17,000 sherds of pottery and associated paper archives resulting from one of the largest and most comprehensive surveys ever undertaken on the historic archaeology of southern Iran. The survey was undertaken by Andrew George Williamson (1945–1975), a doctoral student at Oxford University between 1968 and 1971, at a time of great progress and rapid advance in the archaeological exploration of Iran.
Explanations in Iconography Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 240
ISBN: 9798888570425
Pub Date: 05 Aug 2023
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: American Landscapes
Illustrations: 90 illustrations in B/W
Description:
Explanations in Iconography: Ancient American Indian Art, Symbol, and Meaning is a significant contribution to archaeology and to- iconography studies – a discipline that has gradually been coming into its own. Iconography is a rich and fascinating field when applied to the complex and enigmatic imagery on many ancient Pre-Columbian artifacts. When viewed through the lens of early ethnographic records and American Indian oral traditions – as well as information from knowledgeable American Indian elders – it opens a world of understanding and clarity until recently unknown in the field of anthropological archaeology.
© Pen and Sword Books Limited 2024. Registered in England No. 2527258.
Registered Office: 47 Church Street, Barnsley, S70 2AS.