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.

Flint and Stone in the Neolithic Period Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 328
ISBN: 9781842174203
Pub Date: 30 Aug 2011
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Neolithic Studies Group Seminar Papers
Illustrations: b/w illus
Description:
Lithic artefacts were an intrinsic part of Neolithic life both in terms of everyday practical use and in ritual/symbolic mode. Archaeologists and prehistorians studying the Neolithic period recognise this, and accordingly, strive to maximise relevant data recovery and subsequently exploit the available data to the full. Fulfilling these ambitions requires specialist input, which not only comes from lithic analysts themselves, but also draws on a wide range of expertise from across archaeology and other disciplines and practices.
Guess Who's Coming To Dinner Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 192
ISBN: 9781842179857
Pub Date: 30 Aug 2011
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Description:
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner examines how specific types of food were prepared and eaten during feasting rituals in prehistoric Europe and the Near East. Such rituals allowed people to build and maintain their power and prestige and to maintain or contest the status quo. At the same time, they also contributed to the inner cohesion and sense of community of a group.
Umm al-Biyara Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 160
ISBN: 9781842174395
Pub Date: 26 Aug 2011
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Levant Supplementary Series
Illustrations: 183 b/w illus
Description:
Umm al-Biyara, the highest mountain in Petra, southern Jordan, was the first Iron Age Edomite site to be extensively excavated. It was a domestic, unwalled site of stone-built longhouses dating to the 7th-6th centuries BCE. The stratigraphy, pottery, small finds and inscribed material, including the important bulla of Qos-Gabr, King of Edom are described, supplemented by chapters on the use of space and a landscape study of mountain-top sites in the Petra region.
RRP: £35.00
St Peter's, Barton-upon-Humber, Lincolnshire Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 944
ISBN: 9781842173251
Pub Date: 02 Aug 2011
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: col & b/w illus, foldouts, 2-part set
Description:
St Peter's, Barton-upon-Humber, is a redundant medieval church in the care of English Heritage. As a result of a major programme of research carried out between 1978 and 2007, it is now the most intensively studied parish church in the UK. Excavations between 1978 and 1984 investigated most of the interior of the building, as well as a swathe of churchyard around its exterior.
Knowledge is Light Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 128
ISBN: 9781842174487
Pub Date: 15 Jul 2011
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: ASTENE Publications
Illustrations: 23 col & b/w illus
Description:
For thousands of years travellers wandered to, and spread out through, Egypt and the Near East, seeking trade, adventure and knowledge. For centuries travellers to - and from - the Near East carried knowledge with them and then carried home the new knowledge acquired in the region. And knowledge, as the Arabic proverb states, is light.
RRP: £20.00
Archaeomalacology Revisited Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 104
ISBN: 9781842174364
Pub Date: 15 Jun 2011
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w & col illus
Description:
The past decade has witnessed a remarkable momentum in the advancement of archaeomalacological research but there is still a lot of room for progress. These ten papers are the second published proceedings of the archaeomalacology sessions organised by ICAZ (Mexico City, 2006). The contributions revisit important archaeological issues such as provenance of raw materials, dye production and the secondary uses of industrial shell waste, the role of shell artefacts in the symbolic world of diverse civilisations, technology and early cross-regional exchange networks.
RRP: £32.00
Communicating Identity in Italic Iron Age Communities Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 228
ISBN: 9781842179918
Pub Date: 15 Jun 2011
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: 108 b/w & col illus
Description:
Recent archaeological work has shown that South Italy was densely occupied at least from the Late Bronze Age, with a marked process of the development of proto-urban centres, accompanied by important technological transformations. The archaeological exploration of indigenous South Italy is a relatively recent phenomenon, thanks to the bias towards the study of Greek colonies. Therefore an assessment of processes taking place in Italic Iron Age communities is well overdue.
Oceans Odyssey 2 Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 354
ISBN: 9781842174425
Pub Date: 03 Jun 2011
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: colour and black and white illustrations throughout
Description:
Oceans Odyssey 2 presents the results of the discovery and archaeological survey of ten deep-water wrecks by Odyssey Marine Exploration. In the Western Approaches and western English Channel, a mid-17th century armed merchantman, the guns of Admiral Balchin's Victory (1744), the mid-18th century French privateer La Marquise de Tourny and six German U-boats lost at the end of World War II are examined in depth. From the Atlantic coast of the United States, the Jacksonville 'Blue China' wreck's British ceramics, tobacco pipes and American glass wares bring to life the story of a remarkable East Coast schooner lost in the mid-19th century.
RRP: £25.00
Sailing to Classical Greece Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 120
ISBN: 9781842174227
Pub Date: 17 May 2011
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w illus
Description:
This volume of 15 papers is a tribute to Petros Themelis for his significant contribution to Greek archaeology and especially to the excavation, study and conservation to the ancient site of Messene in the Peloponnese. An international cast of scholars has contributed essays on a wide range of subjects (Greek sculpture, epigraphy and architecture), which reflect the interests of the honorand. New, previously unpublished material from Messenia, Athens and elsewhere is here presented for the first time.
RRP: £32.00
Exotica in the Prehistoric Mediterranean Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 216
ISBN: 9781842174241
Pub Date: 15 May 2011
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: 8 pages of colour illustrations, b/w illustrations
Description:
This book examines how exotic materials were exchanged and used across the Mediterranean from the Neolithic era to the Iron Age, focusing on the Bronze Age. A variety of materials and interpretative approaches are presented through several case studies. These emphasise how the value of exotic materials depended on the context in which they were consumed.
Old Kingdom, New Perspectives Cover Old Kingdom, New Perspectives Cover
Format: 
Pages: 344
ISBN: 9781842174302
Pub Date: 15 May 2011
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w & col illus
Pages: 336
ISBN: 9781789258813
Pub Date: 15 Oct 2022
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: B/w and colour
Description:
Recent research on all aspects of the Old Kingdom in Egypt is presented in this volume, ranging through the Pyramid Texts, tomb architecture, ceramics, scene choice and layout, field reports, cemetery layout, tomb and temple statuary. The contributions also show how Egyptology is not stuck in its venerable traditions but that newer forms of technology are being used to great effect by Egyptologists. For example, two papers show how GIS technology can shed light on cemetery arrangement and how 3D scanners can be employed in the process of producing facsimile drawings of reliefs and inscriptions.
RRP: £38.00
Beyond the Core Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 120
ISBN: 9781842179895
Pub Date: 30 Apr 2011
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: b/w illus
Description:
This volume explores the idea of regionally-based archaeologies across the British Isles which are not necessarily defined by modern political boundaries or through comparisons with regions such as Wessex and Orkney. In the past these intensively studied areas have often been assumed to represent the 'typical' - other areas with apparently different narratives have generally been labelled 'peripheral' and their diversity and distinctiveness overlooked. Assumptions about these core-based models have been challenged, especially by archaeologists in Ireland and Scotland and to some extent Wales.
Pompeii Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 200
ISBN: 9781842179840
Pub Date: 15 Apr 2011
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: 99 illus
Description:
Even after more than 250 years since its discovery, Pompeii continues to resonate powerfully in both academic discourse and the popular imagination. This volume brings together a collection of ten papers that advance, challenge and revise the present conceptions of the city's art, industry and infrastructure. The discussions of domestic art in this book, a perennial topic for Pompeian scholars, engage previously neglected subjects such as wall ornaments in domestic decoration, the sculpture collection in the house of Octavius Quartio, and the role of the covered walkways in luxury villa architecture.
Well Built Mycenae, Fasc 16/17 Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 102
ISBN: 9781842179963
Pub Date: 15 Apr 2011
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: Well Built Mycenae
Illustrations: DVD
Description:
The post-palatial period - Late Helladic IIIC - is often seen as the twilight years of Mycenean civilisation, a period of economic decline with few achievements in terms of architecture, materials or technology. Excavation in the Citadel House area at Mycenae afforded unique opportunities to explore stratified remains of this period and to define and describe its character. In this fascicule, Dr.
TRAC 2010 Cover
Format: Paperback
Pages: 160
ISBN: 9781842174524
Pub Date: 15 Apr 2011
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Series: TRAC
Illustrations: b/w illus
Description:
This volume contains ten papers reflecting current aspects of the debate in theoretical Roman archaeology. They include papers on what the pottery finds from the Nepi Survey Project can tell us about how the local landscape was used and inhabited, poliadic deities in Roman colonies in Italy, Pompeii, the practice of the recycling of architectural materials and personal adornment concerning textile remains and brooches.
RRP: £36.00
Late Quaternary Landscape Evolution of the Swale-Ure Washlands, North Yorkshire Cover
Format: Hardback
Pages: 336
ISBN: 9781842173749
Pub Date: 15 Apr 2011
Imprint: Oxbow Books
Illustrations: 16 pages of col illus, CD
Description:
Reporting on a multi-disciplinary project this book seeks to reconstruct the history since the last glaciation of the area between and including the middle reaches of the Rivers Swale and Ure in Yorkshire. Included in this history are both natural changes, determined from studies of landforms and sediments, and human-induced changes, recorded in archaeological and geo-archaeological records. The work is set in the context of previous research and pre-existing knowledge, outlined in an introductory chapter.