This edited volume of 16 papers provides an introduction to the techniques and methodologies, approaches and potential of environmental archaeology within Ireland. Each of the 16 invited contributions focuses on a particular aspect of environmental archaeology and include such specialist areas as radiocarbon dating, dendrochronology, palaeoentomology, human osteoarchaeology, palynology and geoarchaeology, thereby providing a comprehensive overview of environmental archaeology within an Irish context. The inclusion of pertinent case studies within each chapter will heighten awareness of the profusion of high standard environmental archaeological research that is currently being undertaken on Irish material. The book will provide a key text for students and practitioners of archaeology, archaeological science and palaeoecology.

Excavations 1976-90 at the priory of St Mary Merton revealed much about the layout and development of this monastery from the 12th century to the Dissolution. Founded on its present site beside the Wandle river, c 11.3km south-west of London, in 1117, Merton was one of the most influential of all the English houses of regular canons, and was much favoured by Henry III. Of particular interest are the monastic infirmary complex - hall, chapel, cloister and ancillary buildings - and the large number (700+) of burials excavated from the external cemetery, church, cloister and chapter house.

The Romney Marsh / Dungeness Foreland depositional complex comprises an extensive tract of marshland and associated sand and gravel barrier deposits, located in the eastern English Channel. This monograph presents the results of a programme of palaeoenvironmental investigation aimed at improving our understanding of this internationally-significant coastal landform. The focus is on the evidence for landscape change during the late Holocene, from c. 3000 BC onwards, and on identifying the local, regional and global driving mechanisms responsible for the changes observed. The research details the results from two related projects, each funded as part of English Heritage's Aggregate Levy Sustainability Fund scheme. The first project concerns the late Holocene evolution of the port of Rye, located in the southeast part of the complex, and the second the depositional history of the gravel foreland. Topics explored include the vegetation and land-use history of the study area, methodological issues relating to the collection and interpretation of radiocarbon dates from coastal lowlands, the role of compaction in influencing landscape and sea-level change, and the effects of medieval storms on coastal flooding and landscape change. This monograph is intended for students and researchers interested in Holocene coastal evolution and sea-level change, coastal vegetation history and land-use history, and the development of new techniques for reconstructing past environmental change in coastal lowlands.

The excavations at St Peter's church, Barton-upon-Humber, between 1978 and 1984 have yielded the largest collection of human remains in the UK, dating from the late tenth century to the mid-nineteenth. The twin aims of the project were to understand the architectural history and setting of this complex, multi-period building (Volume 1), and to recover a substantial sample of the population for palaeopathological study (Volume 2). An extensive programme of historical and topographical research also took place in order to set the archaeological evidence firmly in context. The parish registers, which extend back to the mid-sixteenth century, were transcribed, and these provide an important demographic overview of the population. The cemetery evidence revealed that the population is entirely secular, representing a cross-section of all levels of society living in the town and its hinterland. In total, 2,750 inhumations were examined, but there were also thousands of disarticulated bones - approximately three tons in weight - which could only be given the briefest examination. Those who were buried at St Peter's were subject not only to the normal visitations of disease and trauma but suffered an outbreak of the plague in 1593, when about a fifth of the population was lost. Taking the long view over the entire period, however, it is striking how many of the marks of health and vigour, popularly supposed to have changed substantially between the middle ages and the Victorian era, have remained relatively constant. Together, the two volumes provide fascinating insights into that mainstay of settlement - the small English market town.

Archaeological rescue excavations in Southwark between 1983 and 1990 uncovered parts of the London house of the medieval bishops of Winchester. The archaeological evidence, mainly from the east part of the site, is supplemented by detailed documentary evidence. The property developed from the mid 12th century into a palatial residence, based around an inner and an outer courtyard, and enclosed by a boundary wall. In the 14th-century palace, a great hall, service rooms and kitchens occupied the north range, household and servants were accommodated around the other sides of the inner courtyard, while the bishop had his own apartments, chapel and garden. A passage below the hall gave access from the inner courtyard north to the wharves and river. Storerooms, workshops and stables lined the east boundary wall, with gardens in the west half of the enclosure. A parliamentary survey of 1647 describes the layout of the bishop's palace, which was sketched c.1644 by Hollar for his Long View of London . The site remained in the bishops' ownership until the 1640s and it was returned to them after the Civil War, but a multiplicity of tenants and subtenants occupies the palace; by 1720 it was 'disused and very ruinous'. The medieval bishop's palace became tenements and small industrial storage units; in the 19th century large warehouses were built. Fire in 1814 revealed the surviving medieval masonry of the hall and service range, and the hall's west gable wall with its rose window remains a prominent landmark today.

This report presents the results of over 40 years of excavation, historic building survey and documentary research that has been carried out by Oxford Archaeology and others at the site of the Cistercian house of Rewley, a chantry founded in 1280. It became an abbey and stadium providing accommodation for monks studying at the university, and can therefore claim to be one of Oxford's earliest colleges. The railway station that subsequently occupied the site in 1851 followed the design of the Crystal Palace, built for the Great Exhibition, and was the last surviving representative of that internationally important building.

A campaign to improve visitor and education facilities at Norwh cathedral involved the construction of new buildings within the west and south ranges of the cloister, and led to excavation of the area where the medieval refectory once stood. This revealed archaeological evidence of the Late Saxon, medieval and post-medieval periods and forms the subject of this report. Excavation has confirmed the long-held supposition that this area of Norwich was populated during the Late Saxon period. Timber buildings of both post-hole and beam slot construction were present, along with rubbish pits, many very substantial in size. A rutted trackway developed into a metalled road, its discovery adding to the ever-evolving street plan of Late Saxon Norwich. It was also apparent that this area was subject to changes in the local water table, and liable to flooding. Late Saxon occupation here was brought to a sudden halt by the acquisition of the land for the building of the Norman cathedral in the latter years of the 11th century. The refectory, which has been described as one of the most magnificent in Europe, was built during the 1120s but was largely demolished during the years following the Dissolution. An extensive programme of groundworks was carried out in the 12th century, prior to construction of the refectory, with the area being levelled. Unfortunately, later use of the area has destroyed most of the evidence relating to the refectory itself. Despite this the level of the floor was established and footings for opposing engaged pillars were recorded. These would have supported an arcade, separating the high end from the main hall. Following the Dissolution, not only the refectory but many of the conventual buildings were demolished. In the period from 1538 to 1620 large pits were dug across the site of the former refectory and used for the dumping of demolition debris on a massive scale. Surprisingly, of the identifiable rubble very little originated from the refectory building itself. Architectural fragments, including some with painted designs from the infirmary and chapter house, were found along with painted window glass which probably originated from the Lady Chapel. In 1620 the western third of the site was the location for part of a prebendary's house, the remainder being established as a garden. In 1873, works undertaken specifically to reduce the risk from fire included the demolition of the prebendary's house. 'Restoration' work was carried out to the remaining medieval structure and the area which had once served as the monk's refectory was left open as a garden plot. It remained so until archaeological work began in 2001.

Oxbow says: From 1993, the North Somerset Levels Project sought to investigate the origins and development of this area of reclaimed coastal marshland during the first and second millennia AD. The inter-disciplinary approach taken has added archaeological (survey and excavation) data, palaeoenvironmental evidence, studies of documentary sources, architecture, cartography and field- and place-names, to what was already known about the historic landscape. This report, which publishes the findings of the project, examines local and regional changes and variations in the landscape, focusing on two major phases of exploitation, modification and transformation during the Roman and medieval periods. Factors such as agriculture, grazing, salt production, fishing, draining, flood defence, and the establishment of settlements, roads, commons, field systems, as well as cultural factors, are all discussed, as evidence from the local area is placed within a wider regional context. An excellent study which exemplifies all that is new and exciting in landscape study.

The countryside of Devon and Cornwall preserves an unusually rich legacy from its medieval past. This book explores the different elements which go to make up this historic landscape - the chapels, crosses, castles and mines; the tinworks and strip fields; and above all, the intricately worked counterpane of hedgebanks and winding lanes. Between AD 500 and 1700, a series of revolutions transformed the structure of the South West Peninsula's rural landscape. The book tells the story of these changes, and also explores how people experienced the landscape in which they lived: how they came to imbue places with symbolic and cultural meaning. Contributors include: Ralph Fyfe on the pollen evidence of landscape change; Sam Turner on the Christian landscape; Peter Herring on both strip fields and Brown Willy, Bodmin Moor; O. H. Creighton and J. P. Freeman on castles; Phil Newman on tin working; and Lucy Franklin on folklore and imagined landscapes.

A report on fieldwork carried out in a little investigated area of London just outside the city wall. The area known as Moorfields was waterlogged throughout the Middle Ages, only being reclaimed in the 16th century. Finds include evidence of Roman settlement up to the construction of the wall in the 3rd century, and evidence of the medieval use of the area for leisure activities, including ice-skating and for dumping waste. The site was used for pottery production in the 16th and 17th centuries following its reclamation.

Excavations in 1996-7 uncovered important new evidence for the development of the eastern part of the Roman Londinium, as well as medieval and later activity. Early Roman activity took place on sloping ground near a minor tributary of a small stream, known as the Lorteburn in the medieval period. First-century development included ditches and a scatter of timber buildings. Boundaries were aligned with a nearby road to the north-west of the site, and did not match the orientation of either the forum to the west or the Colchester road to the north. Development increased until interrupted by the Hadrianic fire. More substantial stone buildings, reached by secondary alleys or paths, date from the mid 2nd century onwards and include sunken rooms, good-quality painted plaster interior decoration, and unusual ribbon pointing and painted ashlar-effect rustication. A sunken-floored aisled building with brick pier bases may have incorporated a warehouse. In the mid 3rd century new masonry buildings were constructed on a different alignment. The new complex included suites of heated rooms and a possible bathhouse. Contemporary timber structures may have been outbuildings. The site produced an important assemblage of late Roman pottery. The Roman buildings were abandoned in the late 4th-century and their remains sealed by 'dark earth'. Reoccupation was represented by 11th-century rubbish pits and robbing of Roman masonry. The early 12th-century church of St Katherine Coleman lay to the north of open ground and gardens up to the 16th century. Post-Great Fire evidence included fortifications of the rebuilt 18th-century church, vaults of the East India Company Tea and Drug Warehouse and the Hambro synagogue.

The New Armouries was built against the medieval inner curtain wall at the Tower of London in 1663-4 as a small arms store, and was later used for displays of the Royal Armouries collections. On the opposite side of the curtain wall a range of buildings providing soldiers' houses was constructed in the mid 17th century. This was rebuilt as the Irish Barracks by Dugal Campbell in the 1750s, but was demolished during the 19th century. Oxford Archaeology carried out a programme of archaeological and building recording at the New Armouries and Irish Barracks during redevelopment works by Historic Royal Palaces between 1997 and 2000. Excavations found traces of Roman deposits, and the remains of medieval buildings and features constructed within the royal garden. The complete plan of Dugal Campbell's Irish Barracks was revealed. This Occasional Paper contains a full account of the archaeological results and building surveys, a discussion of the historical and cartographic evidence, and reports on finds and environmental remains.

This long-awaited publication elucidates a remarkable monument, now preserved in situ beside the Tower of London. Excavations at Tower Hill in 1979 uncovered substantial reamins of the medieval postern gate at the junction of the City's defensive wall and the moat of the Tower of London. The postern gate was constructed between 1297 and 1308, towards the close of the reign of Edward I. It formed a defensible terminus to the City wall and a minor gateway suitable for pedestrian traffic. The base of a rectangular tower survived on the south side of the gate passage, along with a staircase turret. The structure had a cellar and a ground floor chamber with a suspended timber floor, the superstructure surviving to the level of the arrow loops. The tower must have had at least one upper floor. These remarkable remains survived because of a dramatic landslip in 1431 or 1440, when the southern part of the structure slipped at least three metres down the side of the moat. The northern part of the gate probably remained standing whilst the underpinned southern tower provided the foundation for a rebuilt postern gate. Cartographic evidence shows that a postern gate stood on the site until at least the 17th century. Thematic aspects include documentary evidence that the gate was administered by the City rather than the nearby royal castle, the question of whether there was a Roman gate in the adjascent city wall, the appearance of the gateway and the character of the Tower Hill area in the 16th and 17th centuries.

The Mote of Mark is a low boss of granite rising from forty-five metres above the eastern shore of Rough Firth, where the Urr Water enters the Solway, between the villages of Kippford and Rockcliffe. The summit comprises a central hollow between two raised areas of rock and was formerly defended by a stone and timber rampart enclosing one third of an acre. The Mote of Mark appears to have first attracted the attention of antiquaries in the late eighteenth century, and first assumed national importance with Alexander Curle's major work in 1913. After the interruption of the First World War, the site was left largely alone until it was re-excavated in the 1970s. These excavations, in 1973 and '79 were designed to answer three specific questions: How many phases of activity are represented in the structural history of the defences? How many phases of activity are represented by the evidence for Early Medieval metalworking and occupation? And, how does the evidence of occupation within the defences relate to the structural history of the defences? This book presents the results of the excavations and their interpretation within the framework of these questions.

The Palace and Abbey of Westminster provide one of the most familiar images in the world. From its beginnings on an island surrounded by the Rivers Thames and Tyburn more than 7000 years ago, the site became the most important centre of English history from the 11th century onwards. The palace, which started as one of many royal residences, became the principal home of the English monarchs until it was damaged by fire during the reign of Henry VIII. The former royal chapel of St Stephen became the home of the House of Commons and the palace, with the rise in the power of Parliament in the mid 17th century, once again took centre stage in English history. The abbey, one of the richest and most important monastic establishments in England, was also a royal church, home to the coronations of all English monarchs since Edward the Confessor and mausoleum to many of Englands royal houses. This book publishes the archaeological work undertaken for the Jubilee Line Extension Project in the 1990s and a series of other archaeological investigations in and around the Palace of Westminster. It starts with the origins of the settlement on Thorney Island over 7000 years ago and discusses the evidence from the later prehistoric, Roman and Saxon periods before describing the development of the palace up to the fire of 1834. Important aspects of this work are the understanding of the varying environmental conditions around the island and the integration of antiquarian observations to provide an up-to-date synthesis of our current knowledge.

The site at Whitecross Farm, including timber structures located on the edge of the eyot, and a substantial midden and occupation deposit has been securely radiocarbon-dated to the late Bronze Age. The late Bronze Age artefact assemblages are suggestive of a high-status site, with a range of domestic and ritual activities represented. The bank of the Grim's Ditch earthwork was found to have preserved evidence of earlier settlement, dating to the Neolithic and Bronze Age, and a sequence of cultivation, including ard marks and 'cord-rig' cultivation ridges. Pottery and radiocarbon analysis dated the earthwork to the end of the late Iron Age or the early Roman period. A multi-period settlement, consisting of pits, a waterhole, postholes, gullies and field systems, was identified at Bradford's Brook, Cholsey. The main periods represented are late Bronze Age and Romano-British, while a small quantity of Saxon pottery indicates limited Saxon activity. A large pit containing late Bronze Age pottery, a cattle skull, waterlogged wood and plant remains, a complete loomweight and flint flakes has been interpreted as a waterhole. A series of radiocarbon dates were obtained for deposits within this feature. All three sites are discussed individually as well as within their local, regional and national contexts. Chapter 7 provides an overall discussion of later Bronze Age themes that have arisen through the excavation and analysis of these sites.