Book Reviews edited by Anthony Harding Altes Holz in neuem Licht: archäologische und dendrochrono... more Book Reviews edited by Anthony Harding Altes Holz in neuem Licht: archäologische und dendrochronologische Untersuchungen an spätneolithischen Feuchtbodensiedlungen in Oberschwaben by Niels Bleicher, reviewed by A. Whittle
SummaryThis paper highlights the potential for what could be termed an ‘archaeology of pain’, ref... more SummaryThis paper highlights the potential for what could be termed an ‘archaeology of pain’, reflecting on the potential significance and role of the infliction, suffering, endurance and observation of pain by individuals in the past. It presents a case study of ‘bog bodies’, human remains recovered from wetland which, due to the anoxic, waterlogged conditions, preserves human flesh and associated evidence, including injuries and cause of death. The central argument is that evidence from pathological investigations of certain later prehistoric bodies provides hitherto neglected information concerning the embodied experience of pain, in particular its duration and intensity, which may be central to the interpretation of these events. This understanding can be framed not only in terms of the experience of pain by the victims, but also in the potential perception of pain and suffering by those inflicting these and potentially by any observers of the final moments of these individuals.
– Electromagnetic induction survey was used to investigate the prehistoric landscape at Stoneheng... more – Electromagnetic induction survey was used to investigate the prehistoric landscape at Stonehenge. – Borehole logs and forward modelling were used to develop a semi-automated interpretation scheme. – Twenty excavations enabled the potential and limitations of the approach to be evaluated.
Where a licence is displayed above, please note the terms and conditions of the licence govern yo... more Where a licence is displayed above, please note the terms and conditions of the licence govern your use of this document. When citing, please reference the published version. Take down policy While the University of Birmingham exercises care and attention in making items available there are rare occasions when an item has been uploaded in error or has been deemed to be commercially or otherwise sensitive.
Bog bodies are among the best-known archaeological finds worldwide. Much of the work on these oft... more Bog bodies are among the best-known archaeological finds worldwide. Much of the work on these often extremely well-preserved human remains has focused on forensics, whereas the environmental setting of the finds has been largely overlooked. This applies to both the ‘physical’ and ‘cultural’ landscape and constitutes a significant problem since the vast spatial and temporal scales over which the practice appeared demonstrate that contextual assessments are of the utmost importance for our explanatory frameworks. In this article we develop best practice guidelines for the contextual analysis of bog bodies, after assessing the current state of research and presenting the results of three recent case studies including the well-known finds of Lindow Man in the United Kingdom, Bjældskovdal (Tollund Man and Elling Woman) in Denmark, and Yde Girl in the Netherlands. Three spatial and chronological scales are distinguished and linked to specific research questions and methods. This provides ...
Teasing out the separate strands of influence that created the Saharan qusūr is hardly an easy ta... more Teasing out the separate strands of influence that created the Saharan qusūr is hardly an easy task, and with the exception of the eleventh-century foundations in the Mzab, firm chronological data are absent. Chekhab-Abudaya rightly sees the expanding concentric circles with radial streets that characterise the plans of many of the qusūr as the result of a series of new arrivals, settling outside the walls and then building new ones. She contrasts these concentric plans with those that contain rough grids, which she judges to be later. But none of these is easily dated. No excavations have ever taken place (except in the deserted Ibadi town of Sedrata) and, to my knowledge, no radiocarbon dating has been carried out on a qsar outside Libya (although radiocarbon dates for the qusūr of the Wadi Draa in Morocco are underway; Corisande Fenwick pers. comm.). Chekhab-Abudaya’s investigation thus serves the very useful purpose of pulling together all the available information, creating numerous and beautifully clear comparative plans, and asking a series of questions that certainly remain to be answered. New data could, and should, come from future archaeological work on these sites and, indeed, on the whole of the northern Sahara.
bone survival are favourable, and Atlantic roundhouses, whose levels of preservation allow us to ... more bone survival are favourable, and Atlantic roundhouses, whose levels of preservation allow us to glimpse what was undoubtedly a wider practice. The next set of chapters are more thematic in character, considering topics such as ‘focal’ and ‘signal’ burials (terms introduced by Harding to avoid the clumsy attribution of ‘high status’ to interred individuals without proper consideration of the role of burial monuments for the living, Chapter 5); and an insightful discussion of the nature of grave-goods (Chapter 6), which are still too often simply seen as the personal possessions of the deceased. Harding’s detailed discussion of violent and ritual deaths (Chapter 7) addresses a post-processualist tendency to pacify a world in which threat of violence was likely a regular occurrence. ‘Warrior’ and ‘weapon’ graves arguably, however, receive more attention than they merit (e.g. p. 137); though weaponry clearly was not buried with everyone, such a focus promotes the view of a society with a specialist warrior class, rather than one in which individuals could presumably have held a number of simultaneous roles, variously called on in times of need. No analysis of funerary archaeology would be complete without consideration of the often problematic topic of gender and mortuary practice (Chapter 8), where the former is still too often assumed without adequate osteological assessment, and where sex and gender are frequently used synonymously (cf. pp. 224–26). One omission is a lack of acknowledgement that death in childbirth is likely to have been a fate which befell many women in Iron Age Britain. This, together with the death of (presumably) young adult males in skirmishes away from home (Chapter 7), is a possible explanation for the dominance of females in certain cemeteries, such as Wetwang and Garton Slack (p. 220), and the Pictish cemeteries of northern Scotland (p. 239). Drawing on broader evidence from iconography in art, Chapter 9 prompts us to consider the blurred line between humans and animals in Iron Age Britain. In particular, the co-mingling of remains as structured deposits forces us to reevaluate the importance and relevance attached to individual personhood at this time. The volume concludes with an attempt to reconstruct the funerary ritual and beliefs of Iron Age Britain (Chapter 10), and serves as an important reminder that human remains may not always have been the most important component of an archaeological assemblage, and that the interment of a specific individual may not always have been the prime motive for the deposition of those remains. It is clear, from Harding’s thorough and well-presented analysis, that human remains in Iron Age Britain were a powerful resource for the living, and that the diverse and fragmented mortuary practices observed have much to tell us, not only about the Iron Age dead, but about Iron Age society at large. As such, this much-needed volume serves not only as a go-to reference guide for Iron Age mortuary practice, but as a platform for opening up new lines of inquiry into this enigmatic topic.
Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites, 2016
Where a licence is displayed above, please note the terms and conditions of the licence govern yo... more Where a licence is displayed above, please note the terms and conditions of the licence govern your use of this document. When citing, please reference the published version. Take down policy While the University of Birmingham exercises care and attention in making items available there are rare occasions when an item has been uploaded in error or has been deemed to be commercially or otherwise sensitive.
This book presents methods for capturing data, modeling and engaging with heritage through digita... more This book presents methods for capturing data, modeling and engaging with heritage through digital interfaces, plus case studies of sites in Europe, North and Central America and collections relating to ancient Middle Eastern and North African civilizations.
The recent publication of The Oxford Handbook of Wetland Archaeology is a welcome addition to the... more The recent publication of The Oxford Handbook of Wetland Archaeology is a welcome addition to the Oxford Handbooks series, which aims to present up-to-date surveys of current research aimed at an audience of graduate students and academics. Like others in the series, this edition on wetland archaeology is substantial. It totals 943 pages containing 54 chapters written by 59 different authors who, together, represent 16 different countries from across five continents. As suggested on the inside of the dust jacket, this is ‘the most comprehensive survey of global wetlands ever published’. Certainly, this volume does have considerable breadth in terms of chronological and geographical spread, and in terms of the diverse range of subject areas. With such an ambitious portfolio, the volume provides a comprehensive overview of wetland archaeology, showcasing the relatively familiar territory of the subdiscipline, as well as some less familiar themes and approaches. Along with Menotti’s recent volume on the same subject (Menotti, 2012), this volume represents a significant addition to the growing corpus on the subject. The broad range of topics presented in this volume is organised into seven themes, or ‘parts’, with a concluding epilogue. However, this structure is not always as clear-cut as it might appear due to the very nature of wetland archaeology. For example, while parts 1 and 2 provide the cultural overview of the archaeology of wetlands across the globe, the case studies presented within the chapters in later parts add to these examples, broadening the chronological and geographical coverage considerably. Similarly, towards the end of the book, there are parts that contain groups of quite diverse topics across the chapters, perhaps most significantly in the section on changing research attitudes, which contains an extremely assorted mixture of chapters detailing subject areas ranging from issues of contemporary climate change and wetland archaeology (Robert van de Noort), to the interpretation of long-distance trade routes based on the analysis of material culture (Paolo Bellintani). However, this diversity of subject areas within these groupings presents the rare potential of serendipity, where the unexpected is found almost by accident. The first two parts of the book focus on the cultural archaeology represented by sites, landscapes and finds from wetland environments. The first of these presents a broad overview of wetland archaeology from all populated continents, although for some areas, the coverage is general and chronological, as illustrated by the chapters on the wetland archaeology of prehistoric and historic Europe by Francesco Menotti and Aidan O’Sullivan, respectively, or by Peter Mitchell’s overview of the wetland archaeology of Africa. For other regions, the focus is, by necessity, on particular regions, such as the outlining of prehistoric wetland occupation in the lower regions of the Yangtze River in China (Yunfei Zheng). Part 2 of the volume continues this theme of cultural archaeology through a consideration of the waterlogged archaeological evidence itself, arranged around the themes from settlement to human remains. The three chapters on settlement focus on the vast range of structures that have been excavated from Alpine lake-dwellings (Pierre Pétrequin) and crannogs (Jon Henderson and Rob Sands), in addition to a more discursive chapter on living spaces (Renate Ebersbach). Material culture is explored through overviews of wooden artefacts (Rob Sands), fishtraps (Madonna L Moss) and wet-preserved bone and antler artefacts (Jörg Schibler). Road networks and transport are explored through an excellent overview of trackway structures (Richard Brunning and Conor McDermott), and the practical and symbolic functions of rivers and lakes (Fiona Haughey). The concluding subtheme on ‘human bodies’ consists of a single chapter on bog bodies by Wijnand van der Sanden, providing a useful summary approached from a number of different perspectives and providing a forwardlooking assessment of research in this area. For such a broad subject as the archaeology of wetlands, there will always be some areas which might have warranted more attention. For example, while there is some coverage within Brunning and McDermott’s chapter, boats are not explored in detail, although they do appear within some later sections of the book, such as within Martin Bell’s chapter on intertidal archaeology. With cultural archaeology explored within these first two parts of the book, the focus of the following two is methodological. Part 3 is devoted to survey and excavation, with a diverse range of chapters that range considerably in their scope, while also containing significant cultural data relating to specific sites and landscapes that are not featured elsewhere in the volume. The section on survey commences with two chapters devoted to terrestrial (Andreas Weller and Andreas Bauerochse) and underwater remote…
During the 1960s and 1970s, aerial reconnaissance on the northern side of the confluence of the R... more During the 1960s and 1970s, aerial reconnaissance on the northern side of the confluence of the Rivers Trent, Tame, and Mease in Staffordshire revealed a cluster of features indicative of prehistoric ceremonial activity. Some of the features within the cluster are morphologically unique, but a lack of previous investigation meant that their dating, phasing, and function were unknown. This paper details the results of a multi-disciplinary approach to addressing these questions about the complex and to place it into its contemporary landscape context. The results indicate that the complex represents numerous phases of symbolic and ceremonial activity extending from the late Neolithic and into the early Bronze Age. Furthermore, it has shown how these structures fit within a wider landscape of ceremonial activity extending back to the earlier Neolithic and continuing into the Bronze Age.
Book Reviews edited by Anthony Harding Altes Holz in neuem Licht: archäologische und dendrochrono... more Book Reviews edited by Anthony Harding Altes Holz in neuem Licht: archäologische und dendrochronologische Untersuchungen an spätneolithischen Feuchtbodensiedlungen in Oberschwaben by Niels Bleicher, reviewed by A. Whittle
SummaryThis paper highlights the potential for what could be termed an ‘archaeology of pain’, ref... more SummaryThis paper highlights the potential for what could be termed an ‘archaeology of pain’, reflecting on the potential significance and role of the infliction, suffering, endurance and observation of pain by individuals in the past. It presents a case study of ‘bog bodies’, human remains recovered from wetland which, due to the anoxic, waterlogged conditions, preserves human flesh and associated evidence, including injuries and cause of death. The central argument is that evidence from pathological investigations of certain later prehistoric bodies provides hitherto neglected information concerning the embodied experience of pain, in particular its duration and intensity, which may be central to the interpretation of these events. This understanding can be framed not only in terms of the experience of pain by the victims, but also in the potential perception of pain and suffering by those inflicting these and potentially by any observers of the final moments of these individuals.
– Electromagnetic induction survey was used to investigate the prehistoric landscape at Stoneheng... more – Electromagnetic induction survey was used to investigate the prehistoric landscape at Stonehenge. – Borehole logs and forward modelling were used to develop a semi-automated interpretation scheme. – Twenty excavations enabled the potential and limitations of the approach to be evaluated.
Where a licence is displayed above, please note the terms and conditions of the licence govern yo... more Where a licence is displayed above, please note the terms and conditions of the licence govern your use of this document. When citing, please reference the published version. Take down policy While the University of Birmingham exercises care and attention in making items available there are rare occasions when an item has been uploaded in error or has been deemed to be commercially or otherwise sensitive.
Bog bodies are among the best-known archaeological finds worldwide. Much of the work on these oft... more Bog bodies are among the best-known archaeological finds worldwide. Much of the work on these often extremely well-preserved human remains has focused on forensics, whereas the environmental setting of the finds has been largely overlooked. This applies to both the ‘physical’ and ‘cultural’ landscape and constitutes a significant problem since the vast spatial and temporal scales over which the practice appeared demonstrate that contextual assessments are of the utmost importance for our explanatory frameworks. In this article we develop best practice guidelines for the contextual analysis of bog bodies, after assessing the current state of research and presenting the results of three recent case studies including the well-known finds of Lindow Man in the United Kingdom, Bjældskovdal (Tollund Man and Elling Woman) in Denmark, and Yde Girl in the Netherlands. Three spatial and chronological scales are distinguished and linked to specific research questions and methods. This provides ...
Teasing out the separate strands of influence that created the Saharan qusūr is hardly an easy ta... more Teasing out the separate strands of influence that created the Saharan qusūr is hardly an easy task, and with the exception of the eleventh-century foundations in the Mzab, firm chronological data are absent. Chekhab-Abudaya rightly sees the expanding concentric circles with radial streets that characterise the plans of many of the qusūr as the result of a series of new arrivals, settling outside the walls and then building new ones. She contrasts these concentric plans with those that contain rough grids, which she judges to be later. But none of these is easily dated. No excavations have ever taken place (except in the deserted Ibadi town of Sedrata) and, to my knowledge, no radiocarbon dating has been carried out on a qsar outside Libya (although radiocarbon dates for the qusūr of the Wadi Draa in Morocco are underway; Corisande Fenwick pers. comm.). Chekhab-Abudaya’s investigation thus serves the very useful purpose of pulling together all the available information, creating numerous and beautifully clear comparative plans, and asking a series of questions that certainly remain to be answered. New data could, and should, come from future archaeological work on these sites and, indeed, on the whole of the northern Sahara.
bone survival are favourable, and Atlantic roundhouses, whose levels of preservation allow us to ... more bone survival are favourable, and Atlantic roundhouses, whose levels of preservation allow us to glimpse what was undoubtedly a wider practice. The next set of chapters are more thematic in character, considering topics such as ‘focal’ and ‘signal’ burials (terms introduced by Harding to avoid the clumsy attribution of ‘high status’ to interred individuals without proper consideration of the role of burial monuments for the living, Chapter 5); and an insightful discussion of the nature of grave-goods (Chapter 6), which are still too often simply seen as the personal possessions of the deceased. Harding’s detailed discussion of violent and ritual deaths (Chapter 7) addresses a post-processualist tendency to pacify a world in which threat of violence was likely a regular occurrence. ‘Warrior’ and ‘weapon’ graves arguably, however, receive more attention than they merit (e.g. p. 137); though weaponry clearly was not buried with everyone, such a focus promotes the view of a society with a specialist warrior class, rather than one in which individuals could presumably have held a number of simultaneous roles, variously called on in times of need. No analysis of funerary archaeology would be complete without consideration of the often problematic topic of gender and mortuary practice (Chapter 8), where the former is still too often assumed without adequate osteological assessment, and where sex and gender are frequently used synonymously (cf. pp. 224–26). One omission is a lack of acknowledgement that death in childbirth is likely to have been a fate which befell many women in Iron Age Britain. This, together with the death of (presumably) young adult males in skirmishes away from home (Chapter 7), is a possible explanation for the dominance of females in certain cemeteries, such as Wetwang and Garton Slack (p. 220), and the Pictish cemeteries of northern Scotland (p. 239). Drawing on broader evidence from iconography in art, Chapter 9 prompts us to consider the blurred line between humans and animals in Iron Age Britain. In particular, the co-mingling of remains as structured deposits forces us to reevaluate the importance and relevance attached to individual personhood at this time. The volume concludes with an attempt to reconstruct the funerary ritual and beliefs of Iron Age Britain (Chapter 10), and serves as an important reminder that human remains may not always have been the most important component of an archaeological assemblage, and that the interment of a specific individual may not always have been the prime motive for the deposition of those remains. It is clear, from Harding’s thorough and well-presented analysis, that human remains in Iron Age Britain were a powerful resource for the living, and that the diverse and fragmented mortuary practices observed have much to tell us, not only about the Iron Age dead, but about Iron Age society at large. As such, this much-needed volume serves not only as a go-to reference guide for Iron Age mortuary practice, but as a platform for opening up new lines of inquiry into this enigmatic topic.
Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites, 2016
Where a licence is displayed above, please note the terms and conditions of the licence govern yo... more Where a licence is displayed above, please note the terms and conditions of the licence govern your use of this document. When citing, please reference the published version. Take down policy While the University of Birmingham exercises care and attention in making items available there are rare occasions when an item has been uploaded in error or has been deemed to be commercially or otherwise sensitive.
This book presents methods for capturing data, modeling and engaging with heritage through digita... more This book presents methods for capturing data, modeling and engaging with heritage through digital interfaces, plus case studies of sites in Europe, North and Central America and collections relating to ancient Middle Eastern and North African civilizations.
The recent publication of The Oxford Handbook of Wetland Archaeology is a welcome addition to the... more The recent publication of The Oxford Handbook of Wetland Archaeology is a welcome addition to the Oxford Handbooks series, which aims to present up-to-date surveys of current research aimed at an audience of graduate students and academics. Like others in the series, this edition on wetland archaeology is substantial. It totals 943 pages containing 54 chapters written by 59 different authors who, together, represent 16 different countries from across five continents. As suggested on the inside of the dust jacket, this is ‘the most comprehensive survey of global wetlands ever published’. Certainly, this volume does have considerable breadth in terms of chronological and geographical spread, and in terms of the diverse range of subject areas. With such an ambitious portfolio, the volume provides a comprehensive overview of wetland archaeology, showcasing the relatively familiar territory of the subdiscipline, as well as some less familiar themes and approaches. Along with Menotti’s recent volume on the same subject (Menotti, 2012), this volume represents a significant addition to the growing corpus on the subject. The broad range of topics presented in this volume is organised into seven themes, or ‘parts’, with a concluding epilogue. However, this structure is not always as clear-cut as it might appear due to the very nature of wetland archaeology. For example, while parts 1 and 2 provide the cultural overview of the archaeology of wetlands across the globe, the case studies presented within the chapters in later parts add to these examples, broadening the chronological and geographical coverage considerably. Similarly, towards the end of the book, there are parts that contain groups of quite diverse topics across the chapters, perhaps most significantly in the section on changing research attitudes, which contains an extremely assorted mixture of chapters detailing subject areas ranging from issues of contemporary climate change and wetland archaeology (Robert van de Noort), to the interpretation of long-distance trade routes based on the analysis of material culture (Paolo Bellintani). However, this diversity of subject areas within these groupings presents the rare potential of serendipity, where the unexpected is found almost by accident. The first two parts of the book focus on the cultural archaeology represented by sites, landscapes and finds from wetland environments. The first of these presents a broad overview of wetland archaeology from all populated continents, although for some areas, the coverage is general and chronological, as illustrated by the chapters on the wetland archaeology of prehistoric and historic Europe by Francesco Menotti and Aidan O’Sullivan, respectively, or by Peter Mitchell’s overview of the wetland archaeology of Africa. For other regions, the focus is, by necessity, on particular regions, such as the outlining of prehistoric wetland occupation in the lower regions of the Yangtze River in China (Yunfei Zheng). Part 2 of the volume continues this theme of cultural archaeology through a consideration of the waterlogged archaeological evidence itself, arranged around the themes from settlement to human remains. The three chapters on settlement focus on the vast range of structures that have been excavated from Alpine lake-dwellings (Pierre Pétrequin) and crannogs (Jon Henderson and Rob Sands), in addition to a more discursive chapter on living spaces (Renate Ebersbach). Material culture is explored through overviews of wooden artefacts (Rob Sands), fishtraps (Madonna L Moss) and wet-preserved bone and antler artefacts (Jörg Schibler). Road networks and transport are explored through an excellent overview of trackway structures (Richard Brunning and Conor McDermott), and the practical and symbolic functions of rivers and lakes (Fiona Haughey). The concluding subtheme on ‘human bodies’ consists of a single chapter on bog bodies by Wijnand van der Sanden, providing a useful summary approached from a number of different perspectives and providing a forwardlooking assessment of research in this area. For such a broad subject as the archaeology of wetlands, there will always be some areas which might have warranted more attention. For example, while there is some coverage within Brunning and McDermott’s chapter, boats are not explored in detail, although they do appear within some later sections of the book, such as within Martin Bell’s chapter on intertidal archaeology. With cultural archaeology explored within these first two parts of the book, the focus of the following two is methodological. Part 3 is devoted to survey and excavation, with a diverse range of chapters that range considerably in their scope, while also containing significant cultural data relating to specific sites and landscapes that are not featured elsewhere in the volume. The section on survey commences with two chapters devoted to terrestrial (Andreas Weller and Andreas Bauerochse) and underwater remote…
During the 1960s and 1970s, aerial reconnaissance on the northern side of the confluence of the R... more During the 1960s and 1970s, aerial reconnaissance on the northern side of the confluence of the Rivers Trent, Tame, and Mease in Staffordshire revealed a cluster of features indicative of prehistoric ceremonial activity. Some of the features within the cluster are morphologically unique, but a lack of previous investigation meant that their dating, phasing, and function were unknown. This paper details the results of a multi-disciplinary approach to addressing these questions about the complex and to place it into its contemporary landscape context. The results indicate that the complex represents numerous phases of symbolic and ceremonial activity extending from the late Neolithic and into the early Bronze Age. Furthermore, it has shown how these structures fit within a wider landscape of ceremonial activity extending back to the earlier Neolithic and continuing into the Bronze Age.
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