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.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 208
ISBN: 9781842179970
Pub Date: 15 Apr 2011
Illustrations: b/w illus
Description:
This book examines how the study of human-animal relations can help us interpret archaeological evidence. An international range of contributors examines fishing, hunting and husbandry, slaughtering and butchering, ceremonial and ritual practices and techniques of deposition and disposal in traditional societies. Topics covered include the theoretical potential of ethnographic research for zooarchaeology, the use of comparative analogies in the ethnographic and zooarchaeological records, the historical developments of ethnozooarchaeology and specific case studies selected from across the world.
This broad geographic approach encompasses examples from different types of societies, ranging from hunter-gatherers to urban populations and from horticulturalists to traditional farmers and pastoralists. This book will be of interest to researchers in a range of fields, including anthropology, ethnohistory and zooarchaeology.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 216
ISBN: 9781842174296
Pub Date: 15 Apr 2011
Series: Current Research in Egyptology
Illustrations: b/w illus
Description:
After having been held in the UK for the past 10 years, the 11th edition of the annual Current Research in Egyptology (CRE) graduate conference was held at Leiden University, The Netherlands in January 2010. As always, the main aim of the conference was to provide graduate and postgraduate students of Egyptology and Egyptian archaeology with the opportunity to present their research. The proceedings of this year's conference cover a wide range of topics from the Predynastic Period to modern Egypt.
The papers reflect a similar variety in areas of research and scientific approach, for example, by applying the linguistic prototype theory to ancient Egyptian texts or by using an ethnoarchaeological approach for the study of modern mud-brick architecture. The topics covered include Egyptian religion, ranging from the Coffin Texts to the decoration of temple walls in Ptolemaic times, as well as sociological issues in the Middle and New Kingdom. Other contributions focus on the study of the chronology of the Middle Kingdom with the help of lunar ephemerides or well-stratified radiocarbon data versus pottery data. In summary, Proceedings of Current Research in Egyptology XI includes 19 selected papers on artefact studies, burial practices and provisioning for the afterlife, economy and sociology, history and chronological studies, linguistics, philology and religion.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 248
ISBN: 9781842179734
Pub Date: 31 Mar 2011
Illustrations: 124 illus
Description:
It is now widely accepted that by the later Middle Palaeolithic Neanderthals possessed a wide range of social and practical skills. More recently, researchers have become interested in how these skills actually emerged; in effect, the challenge now is to document the process by which Middle Pleistocene hominids "became Neanderthals". This book explores the development of classically Neanderthal behaviours in Europe between MIS 9-6, focusing on the British record, especially stone tools as durable residues of human action.
As a geographically constrained study area, the progressively robust British chronometric framework now allows previously invisible patterning in technological behaviour, hominid habitat preference and demography during this period to be investigated. This book examines the immense technological variation that is apparent between British sites, in order to present a picture of changing human behaviour and the emergence of European Neanderthal adaptations.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 208
ISBN: 9781842179932
Pub Date: 31 Mar 2011
Series: Levant Supplementary Series
Illustrations: 87 b/w & col illus
Description:
To some, the Chalcolithic (4700/4500-3700/3600 BC cal.), as the first period with metallurgy, large sprawling villages, rich mortuary offerings, and cult centres, represents a developmental stage on the road to the urban Bronze Age, the "dawn of history". Others have called it 'the end of prehistory'.
More recent scholarship focuses upon the diversification of the subsistence economy, elaborated craft production, and expanded networks for resource acquisition. Many of today's Chalcolithic specialists were taught by biblical archaeologists, such that the culture history paradigm remains deeply embedded. This volume grew out of a workshop held in Madrid in 2006 and aims to kick start a dialogue about how to move beyond culture history and chronology in order to re-engage with larger theoretical discourses. A vast swathe of research in the region ignores these issues and considers theory to be irrelevant. One has the impression that the political realities of the region (including a predilection for biblical archaeology) has left a large proportion of archaeologists in the region, including prehistorians, lost without a map. Contributors to this volume recognize that culture history is the platform upon which current archaeological research is discussed but differ in the degree of emphasis placed on previously defined entities or phases. Delineating levels of difference and similarity between temporal boundaries is critical in this process. The two themes of this volume - culture and chronology - combine the need for theoretical engagement with the establishment of broader, more precise empirical data using explicit classificatory schemes. This is, essentially, the rock and the hard place where much archaeological debate is wedged, and as such the volume will have resonance for scholars of other periods and regions.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 208
ISBN: 9781842173763
Pub Date: 31 Mar 2011
Illustrations: 79 b/w illustrations and maps
Description:
This volume investigates the archaeology of death and commemoration through thematically linked case studies drawn from the Classical world. These investigations stress the processes of burial and commemoration as inherently social and designed for an audience, and they explore the meaning and importance attached to preserving memory. While previous investigations of Greek and Roman death and burial have tended to concentrate on period- or regionally-specific sets of data, this volume instead focuses on a series of topical connections that highlight important facets of death and commemoration significant to the larger Classical world.
Living through the dead investigates the subject of death and commemoration from a diverse set of archaeologically informed approaches, including visual reception, detailed analysis of excavated remains, landscape, and post-classical reflections and draws on artefactual, documentary and pictorial evidence. The nine papers present recent research by some of the leading voices on the subject, as well as some fresh perspectives. Case studies come from Thermopylae, the Bosporan kingdom, Athens, Republican Rome, Pompeii and Egypt. As a collected volume, they provide thematically linked investigations of key issues in ritual, memory and (self)presentation associated with death and burial in the Classical period. As such, this volume will be of particular interest to postgraduate students and academics with specialist interests in the archaeology of the Classical world and also more broadly, as a source of comparative material, to people working on issues related to the archaeology of death and commemoration.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 312
ISBN: 9781935488262
Pub Date: 28 Mar 2011
Description:
Comparative Archaeologies scrutinises current thinking on the dynamics and historical trajectories of complex societies in the American Southwest (AD 900-1600) and the Iberian Peninsula (3000-1500 BC) through a focused comparison of five themes: Histories, Landscapes, Bodies, Gender, and Art. Leading archaeologists from North America and Europe - drawing on diverse intellectual traditions - engage in this innovative form of comparative archaeology which recognizes both the historicities of past societies of similar forms and the social embeddedness of archaeological practice and theory.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 208
ISBN: 9781842173664
Pub Date: 15 Mar 2011
Illustrations: 57 tabs, 79 b/w & col illus
Description:
This volume presents the results of the first 10 years of archaeological investigation at Wellington Quarry, Herefordshire. During this time a regionally unique archaeological and palaeoenvironmental sequence was recorded covering nearly 8000 years of interrelated human activity and landscape change in the Lower Lugg Valley. Starting with use by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, the heavily wooded floodplain witnessed periods of sporadic occupation and activity throughout early prehistory.
A mid 4th millennium BC pit group provided a detailed insight into a wide range of seasonally based activities, while later funerary deposits included a wealthy Beaker burial. From the start of the 2nd millennium BC, an increasingly open and cleared landscape existed beyond the floodplain, on which activity was evidenced by occasional finds from former watercourses. Ritual deposition of human remains and artefacts in the later prehistoric period included a rare Iron Age double inhumation, though by this time a more settled and farmed landscape had emerged. By the 2nd century AD, a streamside settlement had been established. Expansion and intensification of this settlement led to the construction, by the 4th century, of one or more well-appointed stone buildings indicating that at least some of the inhabitants lived a highly Romanised lifestyle, rare on rural sites in this region. The settlement was abandoned by the late 4th to early 5th century but, until at least the 12th to 14th centuries, arable cultivation continued. During the post-medieval period there was a shift towards an enclosed landscape of pasture and meadow, a pattern maintained until the onset of mineral extraction in the 1980s.
Pages: 448
ISBN: 9781842174210
Pub Date: 15 Mar 2011
Illustrations: col and b/w illus
Pages: 448
ISBN: 9781789258080
Pub Date: 15 May 2022
Illustrations: B/w and colour
Description:
This volume builds upon the model of the first Stone Axe Studies volume published in 1979. It explores how scholars from various parts of the world currently approach these distinctive items. Some papers are united by specific material, such as those working on Jadeite axe blades in western and Central Europe.
For others, the link is analytical (e.g., the development of new geochemical techniques), contextual (e.g., work on techniques of hafting or on patterns of deposition) or conceptual (e.g., the uses made of ethno-historic and related models). Taken together, they document the state of the art in stone axe research in Britain and abroad, at the same time providing a much needed basis for comparative study and for debate regarding analytical and interpretative issues.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 104
ISBN: 9781842174173
Pub Date: 14 Mar 2011
Description:
This volume examines conceptions, ideas and habits connected with children in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, focusing on the "dark sides of childhood" in the pre-modern world. The authors investigate the long-term attitudes of people, as well as ruptures in habits and customs. The book is divided into three parts.
"Unwanted" deals with parents who were unable to bring up their baby and handed it over to other people or the cruel whims of destiny. "Disabled" addresses what we would label as children's illnesses since disability was a concept largely unknown to ancient people. "Nearly Lost" examines demons, viewed as destructive forces with the ability to destroy children or young people, sometimes by literally sucking their lives away. The articles are written by an international team of specialists from Belgium, Finland, Italy and the United States and were presented at conferences organised by the research project "Religion and Childhood. Socialisation from the Roman Empire to Christian World", funded by the Academy of Finland (2009-2012, directed by Dr. Katariina Mustakallio), at the University of Tampere, Finland.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 144
ISBN: 9781842179901
Pub Date: 28 Feb 2011
Illustrations: 13 b/w figs
Description:
This book explores the themes of memory and mourning from the Roman deathbed to the Roman cemetery, drawing subject matter from the literature, art, and archaeology of ancient Rome. It brings together scholarship on varied aspects of Roman death, investigating connections between ancient poetry, history and oratory and placing these alongside archaeological and textual evidence for Roman funerary and commemorative rituals. A series of case studies centred on individual authors and/or specific aspects of ritual behaviour, traces the story of Roman death: how the inhabitants of the Roman world confronted their mortality, disposed of the dead, remembered the dead and praised the dead, thereby enhancing our understanding of Roman society.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 128
ISBN: 9781842179741
Pub Date: 28 Feb 2011
Description:
Research on the nature of cultural change in the Roman Empire has traditionally been divided between the Western and Eastern provinces. Papers in this volume aim to reunite the provinces by approaching the question of cultural change across the Empire through a range of material culture and historical sources focusing on the first 100 years of the foundation of a colony.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 208
ISBN: 9781842179673
Pub Date: 28 Feb 2011
Illustrations: b/w illus
Description:
State Formation in Italy and Greece offers an up-to-date and comprehensive sampler of the current discourse concerning state formation in the central Mediterranean. While comparative approaches to the emergence of political complexity have been applied since the 1950s to Mesopotamia, Mesoamerica, Peru, Egypt and many other contexts, Classical Archaeology as a whole has not played a particularly active role in this debate. Here, for the first time, state formation processes occurring in the Bronze Age Aegean as well as in Iron Age Greece and Italy are explicitly juxtaposed, revealing a complex interplay between similar dynamics and differing local factors.
Building upon recent theoretical developments in the origins and functioning of early states, the papers in this volume experiment with a variety of new approaches to old problems. Dual-processual theory, heterarchy, agency theory and weak state theory figure very prominently in the book and offer innovative, context-sensitive comparative frameworks that match the richness of the archaeological and historical record in the Mediterranean. Contributors include scholars working in Etruscan and early Roman archaeology and history, in Aegean archaeology and on the emergence of the Greek polis. A full analytical index further facilitates the cross-referencing of common themes across the geographic scope of the book.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 208
ISBN: 9781842179772
Pub Date: 28 Feb 2011
Description:
The so called rhyton from Danilo, an archaeological site near the coastal town of Sibenik in Dalmatia, Croatia, is a four-legged Neolithic vessel made of fired clay that according to the consensus of archaeological opinion was most likely a cult vessel used in rituals of unknown origin and content. "Danilo Culture" is the eponymous name bestowed on a culture flourishing in the period from about 5500-4500 BC at Danilo and at some neighbouring sites. This culture had great influence along the eastern Adriatic coast and its hinterland and produced a significant number of these vessels.
Rhyta, which other Neolithic cultures also made, were dispersed throughout a vast area of southeast Europe, from Greece to the Alps. This book is an in-depth study of that mysterious, prehistoric archaeological artifact which, due to its antiquity, structure and symbolism, has become a kind of universal proto-matrix for all relevant mythological and spiritual structures of the Mediterranean zone of later, historic times.
Format: Hardback
Pages: 272
ISBN: 9781842174272
Pub Date: 26 Feb 2011
Illustrations: col illus throughout
Description:
The West Midlands is a region of geographical, topographical and geological contrasts, forming disparate landscapes that are reflected in the nature and diversity of its rich archaeology. This ranges from evidence of its prehistory to the important industrial heritage of its major conurbations. This book represents an attempt by the region's archaeologists to draw these varying archaeological landscapes together to produce a research framework and agenda for their future management.
This is based on a comprehensive evaluation of the archaeological resource and has allowed new research directions to be followed and gaps in our knowledge to be filled. The book is arranged chronologically, each chapter addressing the important themes identified within each period. The colour images illustrate different aspects of the archaeology of the West Midlands and also include a series of distribution maps produced from data held in the region's Sites and Monuments Records and Historic Environment Records. The research agenda is an invaluable tool not only for those interested or involved in the archaeology of the West Midlands but also for those working in other regions, adding another important piece to the archaeological jigsaw of the British Isles and helping us to see the archaeology of the West Midlands more prominently in its wider context.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 168
ISBN: 9781842179697
Pub Date: 22 Feb 2011
Illustrations: b/w illus
Description:
Ships and Guns brings together experts from the field of historic artillery and underwater archaeologists to present a series of papers which focus on the development of naval ordnance in Europe and, especially, Venice, in the 15th17th centuries, as exemplified by the maritime archaeological resource. Subjects include Venetian ordnance in shipwrecks of the Mediterranean and Atlantic, the race to develop big calibres in the first war of Morea, Genoese ordnance aboard galleys in the 16th century, the strategic logistics of guns at sea during the Spanish armada of 1588 and ships and guns of the Tudor navy. Often specialists in ordnance study artefacts recovered from wrecks without a complete knowledge of the archaeological context from which they have been recovered.
Archaeologists investigating the context of the objects on the other hand, often do so with only a superficial knowledge of historic artillery. This volume hopes to redress the balance, and also to present a large amount of information, often concerning little-known wrecks, on this important but under-published subject area.
Format: Paperback
Pages: 176
ISBN: 9781842179871
Pub Date: 15 Feb 2011
Illustrations: b/w illus
Description:
Understanding the calendars used by ancient and medieval cultures is essential to the writing of history. Equally important, however, is understanding the basis upon which our current knowledge of these calendars rests. This second volume of Calendars and Years explores the calendars of ancient and medieval China, India, the ancient Jewish world, the medieval Islamic world, and the Maya.
Particular attention is given to the preserved evidence on which our understanding of these calendars lie, the modern historiography of their study, and the role of calendars in ancient and medieval society. Topics covered include the origin of the Chinese sexagenary cycle, evidence for the 364-day year in the ancient Jewish world, and the history of attempts to establish a correlation between Mayan dates and the Julian and Gregorian calendars. 176p, b/w illus (Oxbow Books 2011) Praise for Volume I: "Steele has assembled an essential foundation for the further study of calendariography and chronography in the ancient Near East and Egypt." Francesca Rochberg Journal for the History of Astronomy (November 2008) "It is a book from which there are absolute nuggets of incredible information to be mined." Peter A Clayton
