Excavations at the site of the burial ground of the old Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, revealed the largest assemblage of individual burials yet recovered from an 18th/19th century hospital site in Britain. Founded in 1770 with funds from the estate of the Royal physician and MP John Radcliffe, the infirmary was rare in having its own dedicated burial ground. The skeletons span a short period of time, between 1770 and 1852, and comprise patients who had not been claimed for burial in their home parish. Virtually all of them are unidentified, but documentary evidence shows that they comprise members of the labouring and middle classes, most of whom had originated from the locality and the surrounding counties. Their bones provide an important perspective on the health of industrialising post-medieval populations, characterised by high rates of trauma and disease. They highlight the hitherto unrecognised role that the operating theatre and mortuary played in the development of medical education in Oxford. Further, they offer a unique and fascinating perspective on early modern hospital care, surgery and burial, from a period when hospitals underwent a radical transformation, becoming the medically-focused institutions that we know today.

This book looks at how archaeologists in the early 21st century are dealing with the challenges and opportunities presented by development in archaeologically sensitive urban centres. Based on a session held at the 2017 EAA conference in Maastricht, the volume features case studies from across Europe and beyond – including Norway, Lithuania, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Italy and Israel. The chapters look both at individual projects and larger thematic issues. How has urban archaeology changed the ways in which archaeologists work? Is it possible to predict (and avoid or protect) sensitive archaeology in dynamic urban centres? Do technical solutions to preservation in situ actually work? How are the public involved and how do archaeologists promote public engagement? What are some of the issues and problems for the future?This book is the first publication of the EAA Urban Archaeology Community, and its editors hope that it will provoke debate, and inform future developments in urban archaeology in Europe and beyond.

Industrialisation is a notoriously complex issue in terms of the hazards and benefits it has brought to human beings in our endeavours to improve our lives. This is never more evident than in the field of health and medicine, where there are many questions about the causes and treatments of diseases we commonly encounter today, such as cancer, diabetes and degenerative age-related conditions. Are there genetic predispositions to these conditions? Are they a mirror of our modern lives driven by our fast-paced lifestyles or have they always existed but gone undetected? The archive of human skeletal remains at the Museum of London provides a large bank of evidence that has been explored here, along with other skeletal collections from around England, to investigate how far some of these diseases go back in time and what we can tell about the influence of living environments past and present on human health. The Industrial Period was a key period in human history where substantial change occurred to the population’s lifestyles, in terms of occupations, housing and diet as well as leisurely past-times, all of which would have impacted on their health. London had become the most densely populated metropolis in the world, the beating heart of trade and consumerism, an unambiguous example of the urban experience in the Industrial age. Using up-to-date medical imaging technologies in addition to osteoarchaeological examination of human skeletal remains, we have been able to establish the presence of modern day diseases in individuals living in the past, both before and during Industrialisation, to compare to rates in UK populations today. By re-examining the skeletal evidence, we have traced how the perils of unregulated rural and urban lives, changing food consumption, transport, technologies as well as improving medical treatment and life expectancy, have all altered health patterns over time.

Osteoarchaeology is a rich field for reconstructing past lives in that it can provide details on sex, age-at-death, stature, and pathology in conjunction with the cultural, social, and economic aspects of the person’s environment and burial conditions. While osteoarchaeological research is common in the Low Countries, many of the studies done on the excellent skeletal collections remain unpublished and therefore unavailable to a larger audience. Following on the Urban Graveyards volumes, Osteoarchaeology in Historical Context contributes to the dissemination of cemetery research in the Low Countries. Several important skeletal collections are examined in their historical contexts to better understand past living and dying. Osteoarchaeological data are combined with information on burial location, orientation, and grave goods. In doing so, this volume expands our knowledge of contextual cemetery research in the Low Countries and serves as a starting point for comparative research.

This is the first volume describing the results of the CAUs excavations in Cambridge and it is also the first monograph ever published on the archaeology of the town. At 1.5 hectares the Grand Arcade investigations represent the largest archaeological excavation ever undertaken in Cambridge, significantly enhanced by detailed standing building recording and documentary research.

Questions about the cultural exchange of both knowledge and material goods are just as topical today as in years gone by. These questions have gained increasing attention from scholars since the 1980s when the term ‘transfers cultures’ by historians arose. However, this book provides a completely new approach in this context by interdisciplinary investigation of cultural exchanges based on chosen objects from shipwrecks and land, significant written documents and verifiable transfer of knowledge. The publication combines studies from humanities and natural sciences. Thus, historians, archaeologists, and pharmacists have investigated the way of transfer by means of material and immaterial goods, such as ship lists, medicine, metal ware, exotic animals and Asian objects as well as ship constructions. They set out, the continuity and discontinuity of cultural exchange based on moving objects depending on different conditions such as region, time, demand and availability.The innovative contributions of the publication aim to improve the understanding of cultural exchange by sea, as well as its reflection on land in the Early Modern Time and are the results of a workshop, which took place in the German Maritime Museum Bremerhaven, a Research Institute of the Leibniz Association, in 2015. The results show good promise for forthcoming investigations at the interface between History and Maritime Archaeology.The book targets graduate and post-graduate interdisciplinary researchers of archaeological, human, and natural sciences as well as everybody interested in both post-medieval and maritime history.

Het is een wijdverbreid idee dat (post-)middeleeuwse steden een sterfteoverschot hadden en zij slechts in leven konden blijven door de toestroom van migranten; een fenomeen dat bekend staat als het ‘urban graveyard’-effect. Over details valt te twisten, maar duidelijk is dat de stad en de dood dichter bij elkaar stonden dan tegenwoordig. Met de dood als belangrijk element in de stedelijke samenleving vormen grafvelden een belangrijke bron van kennis over het leven in de post-middeleeuwen. Sinds de jaren 80 van de vorige eeuw is systematisch archeologisch onderzoek van (post)middeleeuwse grafvelden in Nederland op gang gekomen. Veel van het onderzoek is nog niet of slechts beperkt gepubliceerd. Ook ontbreken synthetiserende publicaties waarin vergelijkingen tussen de resultaten van lokaal grafveldonderzoek in steden centraal staan. De stad en de dood presenteert enkele overzichtsartikelen waarin de resultaten van oud archeologisch onderzoek worden vergeleken met resultaten van jongere opgravingen binnen verschillende Nederlandse steden. Naast bio-archeologische aspecten is er tevens aandacht voor grafrituelen. Deze rijk geïllustreerde bundel vormt een belangrijke bouwsteen voor thematische verdieping en is een inspiratiebron voor (inter)nationaal vergelijkend onderzoek. In de tweede – Engelstalige – bundel van Urban Graveyard Proceedings komt een reeks andere geselecteerde Nederlandse en Vlaamse grafvelden aan de orde. English translation:It is commonly believed that in medieval and post-medieval towns and cities death outnumbered births and that these urban centres could only survive through the influx of migrants; a concept which has come to be known as the urban graveyard effect. Whether this was indeed the case for all cities and towns is still debated, but it is certain that urban citizens were more used to death that we are today. The medieval graveyards in which the deceased were interred, then still located within town limits, are an invaluable source of knowledge for reconstructing past lives. Systematic archaeological and osteoarchaeological research of urban graveyards has become the norm in the Netherlands and Belgium since the 1980s. However, many of the studies remain unpublished and larger, overarching publications in which comparisons are made between different studies are still lacking. The urban graveyard presents several studies in which the results of older archaeological and osteoarchaeological research are compared to more recent excavation data from several Dutch cities and towns. Both the archaeological data concerning burial position, orientation, and grave goods as well as osteoarchaeological data such as demographic information and pathological observations are discussed. This well-illustrated volume is a starting point and source of inspiration for more (inter)national comparative research.

This book presents the results of the archaeological excavations in advance of the redevelopment by Crossrail Limited of the Eastern Ticket Hall at Tottenham Court RoadUnderground Station, charting the history of one of the great enterprises of Victorian and Edwardian Britain – Crosse and Blackwell.After its move from King Street (close to present-day Shaftesbury Avenue) in 1838 to Soho Square in London’s West End, food manufacturer Crosse and Blackwell built and converted property on a number of streets between Soho Square and Hog Lane (later Charing Cross Road) into warehousing and factory space, enabling production of its food sauces, pickles, vinegar, jams and marmalades on a vast, industrial, scale. With a royal appointment, granted in 1837, the unprecedented use of celebrity chefs to either develop or endorse its products and the branding and labelling of its lines that referenced Britain’s imperial pretensions, Crosse and Blackwell was soon able to dominate not only the domestic market but compete globally. In 1922 it moved from the West End to Branston, Staffordshire, where Crosse and Blackwell developed arguably its most famous product, Branston Pickle.

Millstone quarries are the sites where hard and abrasive stones were extracted to be fashioned into the querns or millstones to grind flour for bread, the staple food of our ancestors. These stones equipped the different grinding mechanisms, from the Prehistoric hand-driven saddle quern to the sophisticated industrial mills driven by wind and water. These little known extraction sites, ubiquitous throughout the European landscape, have been largely neglected. This study, focusing on the southern half of the Iberian Peninsula, attempts to draw attention to these often spectacular sites that merge so well with nature.

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 Mary Rose, one of the first great British warships and Henry VIII's flagship, sank in 1545, taking all her contents and most of her crew to the bottom of the sea. The conservation of the hull of the Mary Rose, and more than 26,000 objects recovered during her excavation, has been a massive undertaking. The complex process of conservation was begun even before the hull was raised from the seabed in 1982, and continues today. For Future Generations: Conservation of a Tudor Maritime Collection is one of the series of books published by the Mary Rose Trust, with the Heritage Lottery Fund, on the archaeology of the Mary Rose. It provides an introduction to the conservation programme devised for the Mary Rose, and the principles, objectives and problems of marine archaeological conservation. A huge range of objects were recovered from the ship, including wood, textiles, leather, ceramics, glass, stone, metals, rope, pieces of sail-cloth, and many hundreds of animal and human bones. Almost all objects required some kind of treatment to halt the effects of 450 years of immersion in saltwater. This volume explains the conservation methods used for the treatment and preservation of each major category of material. It describes the processes of decay and degradation and the results of bacterial and animal infestation that affect shipwrecks in general, and the Mary Rose in particular. The variety and immensity of the task facing the excavators of the Mary Rose was so great that new methods and treatments had to be devised and tested. It proved to be ground-breaking work. The conservation work did not stop with the stabilisation of the hull and objects from the wreck. Museum display and the continuing storage of most objects presented their own problems. This volume also describes the design and construction of specialised display cases, ensuring that the museum could control and monitor potentially destructive environmental factors such as light, humidity, heat and atmospheric pollution, as well as allowing good public access to the objects.

Although the wreck of the Mary Rose was raised twenty years ago, the excavations and conservation work and indeed the ship itself have never been published in full. Now the Mary Rose Trust, with the Heritage Lottery Fund is publishing the complete history of the project and the research up to the present day in five highly illustrated volumes, revealing a wealth of information covering all aspects of the ship. Sealed by Time: The Loss and Recovery of the Mary Rose traces the history of the Mary Rose from great naval vessel to ruinous shipwreck to an outstanding museum display. The Mary Rose was an extraordinary ship. Built to a new design, she was one of the first great British warships. Her career spanned all but a few years of Henry VIII's reign and she took place in most of his wars. Combining for the first time all that is known from contemporary documents and the archaeological evidence, Peter Marsden and a team of specialists give a fascinating and detailed overview of her history. They set out details of the circumstances of her building, participation in three wars with France, repairs and rebuilds, and finally the tragic sinking with massive loss of life in Portsmouth Harbour in 1545 as she prepared to encounter the French fleet one more time. Also described are the place of the ship in naval and seafaring history, the novel aspects of her shape and construction, how she performed at sea, her structure, rigging and armoury. Bringing the story up-to-date, further chapters describe the epic project to excavate and salvage the ship that culminated in the raising of the hull in 1982, an event watched by millions on television, and subsequently how the museum and display of the massive hull were created. Beautifully illustrated with contemporary paintings and documents as well as photos of the excavations and some of the 26,000 objects recovered, this will be of great interest to everyone with an interest in maritime archaeology, conservation, and the history of the period.

The people who lived in England before the First World War now inhabit a realm of yellow photographs. Theirs is a world fast fading from ours, yet they do not appear overly distant. Many of us can remember them as being much like ourselves. Nor is it too late for us to encounter them so intimately that we might catch ourselves worrying that we have invaded their privacy. Digging up their refuse is like peeping through the keyhole. How far off are our grandparents in reality when we can sniff the residues of their perfume, cough medicines, and face cream? If we want to know what they bought in the village store, how they stocked the kitchen cupboard, and how they fed, pampered, and cared for themselves there is no better archive than a rubbish tip within which each object reveals a story. A simple glass bottle can reveal what people were drinking, how a great brand emerged, or whether an inventor triumphed with a new design. An old tin tells us about advertising, household chores, or foreign imports, and even a broken plate can introduce us to the children in the Staffordshire potteries, who painted in the colours of a robin, crudely sketched on a cheap cup and saucer. In this highly readable and delightfully illustrated little book Tom Licence reveals how these everyday minutiae, dug from the ground, contribute to the bigger story of how our great grandparents built a throwaway society from the twin foundations of packaging and mass consumption and illustrates how our own throwaway habits were formed.

During the First World War, 250 soldiers were buried behind enemy lines in unmarked mass graves on the outskirts of the village of Fromelles, Northern France. They were among several thousand Australian and British soldiers who were killed in the Battle of Fromelles on the 19th and 20th July 1916, the first action on the Western Front to involve the Australian Imperial Force. This volume describes Oxford Archaeology’s contribution to a joint Australian and British government mission, under the management of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, to recover the soldiers and re-bury them with full military honours in a new Commonwealth War Graves cemetery in Fromelles. Bringing together an international team of forensic and investigative professionals, Oxford Archaeology excavated and scientifically examined the remains of the soldiers and items – remnants of uniforms, insignia, and poignant mementoes of home, among them a return train ticket and a heart-shaped leather pouch – buried with them. With the full support and co-operation of the soldiers’ families, this evidence was employed alongside DNA and historical sources in an attempt to identify the soldiers by name for their commemoration on headstones. Since the recovery operation began in 2009, limited information has been revealed about the project. This volume is the comprehensive account of the work. Ultimately, however, this is a story of the soldiers, their bravery and sacrifice.With contributions by:Alison Anderson, Matt Bradley, Carl Champness, Ambika Flavel, Wayne Hoban, Peter Jones, Dai Lewis, Tim Loveless, Paul Murray, Dan Poore, Lucian Pricop, Ian Scott, Mark Viner, James Walker, Roland Wessling and Richard Wright

Excavations at Plantation Place provided evidence for medieval and early post-medieval occupation of an entire block in the eastern part of the City of London near the Thames waterfront. Contemporary ground surfaces and buildings did not survive, but associated pits and wells have been related by documentary and cartographic research to identified tenements in this thriving area of shops, warehouses and merchants’ residences. Important assemblages from pits and wells include vessels used in refining gold, crucibles and moulds from bronze casting, and the largest assemblage of late medieval Islamic-style glass yet found in Britain, alongside Middle Eastern ceramics.

This volume contains the results of four archaeological projects undertaken within the historic suburbs of Bristol. Excavations at nos 26–28 and at nos 55–60 St Thomas Street were both within the 12th-century planned suburb of Redcliffe, just to the southeast of the medieval city. Investigations at Harbourside and at Cabot House, Deanery Road, were undertaken in the medieval district of Billeswick, to the southwest of the city centre and in the vicinity of Bristol Cathedral, formerly the church of the 12th-century St Augustine’s Abbey. However, it is the general lack of evidence for significant development at these sites throughout the medieval and post-medieval periods and up to the beginning of the 18th century that provides a common theme.The scarcity of evidence for medieval and post-medieval development at the Billeswick sites, Cabot House and Harbourside, is unsurprising as both were in the ownership of the abbey or cathedral throughout this period, and were clearly of value as undeveloped land, either as parkland (as at Cabot House) or meadow (i.e. Canon’s Marsh at Harbourside). The dearth of evidence from the St Thomas Street sites in Redcliffe was more unexpected, though this appears to corroborate documentary evidence suggesting that this part of the suburb remained something of a backwater into late post-medieval times. At nos 55–60, there was little evidence for anything more substantial than simple boundaries and timber structures, perhaps used for drying cloth, until the beginning of the 18th century. At nos 26–28 there was no evidence for tenements until late into the post-medieval period and the site may well have been part of a medieval grange. The development of the first substantial buildings at both St Thomas Street sites, of new streets and terraces at Cabot House, and of the ropewalks and later industrial development of Canon’s Marsh at Harbourside, all reflect the rapid expansion and building boom Bristol enjoyed in the 18th century, largely a result of the city’s involvement in the Atlantic trade.