When mechanical ploughing was introduced on Felix Eriths farm in the 1950s, fragments of Bronze Age pottery were brought to the surface. Wherever this occurred, Erith excavated, and in 1960 he published an account of his discoveries which clearly established the importance of the Ardleigh cemetery. The pottery, with its flamboyant decoration, became the classic Deverel-Rimbury ceramic of southern East Anglia. A prolonged campaign of aerial photography revealed an extensive cropmark landscape of ring-ditches, trackways and enclosures. Further excavations in the 1960s by Erith with the Colchester Archaeological Trust revealed an Iron Age round-house, 'Belgic burials and Roman kilns. In the 1970s investigations by the Central Excavation Unit were designed to examine the nature of the cropmark complex and to place the earlier work in context. This book describes the results of both these campaigns. It provides an illustrated corpus of Ardleigh style Deverel-Rimbury ceramics, and an account of the evidence for a rural Roman pottery production centre in the hinterland of Colchester. The nature of the cropmark landscape, and the present condition and potential of the archaeology of Ardleigh are considered.

Sited at the furthest limits of the Neolithic revolution and standing at the confluence of the two great sea routes of prehistory, Britain and Ireland are distinct from continental Europe for much of the prehistoric sequence. In this landmark 2007 study - the first significant survey of the archaeology of Britain and Ireland for twenty years - Richard Bradley offers an interpretation of the unique archaeological record of these islands based on a wealth of current and largely unpublished data. Bradley surveys the entire archaeological sequence over a 4,000 year period, from the adoption of agriculture in the Neolithic period to the discovery of Britain and Ireland by travellers from the Mediterranean during the later pre-Roman Iron Age. Significantly, this is the first modern account to treat Britain and Ireland on equal terms, offering a detailed interpretation of the prehistory of both islands.

The varied character of Britain's countryside and towns provides communities with a strong sense of local identity. One of the most significant features of the southern British landscape is the way that its character differs from region to region, with compact villages in the Midlands contrasting with the sprawling hamlets of East Anglia and isolated farmsteads of Devon. Even more remarkable is the very 'English' feel of the landscape in southern Pembrokeshire, in the far south west of Wales. Hoskins described the English landscape as 'the richest historical record we possess', and in this book Stephen Rippon explores the origins of regional variations in landscape character, arguing that while some landscapes date back to the centuries either side of the Norman Conquest, other areas across southern Britain underwent a profound change around the 8th century AD.

Studies on finds in Roman Britain and the Western Provinces have come to greater prominence in the literature of recent years. The quality of such work has also improved, and is now theoretically informed, and based on rich data-sets. Work on finds over the last decade or two has changed our understanding of the Roman era in profound ways, and yet despite such encouraging advances and such clear worth, there has to date, been little in the way of a dedicated forum for the presentation and evaluation of current approaches to the study of material culture. The conference at which these papers were initially presented has gone some way to redressing this, and these papers bring the very latest studies on Roman finds to a wider audience. Twenty papers are here presented covering various themes.

The excavations led by Margaret and Tom Jones on the Thames gravel terraces at Mucking, Essex, undertaken between 1965 and 1978 are legendary. The largest area excavation ever undertaken in the British Isles, involving around 5000 participants, recorded around 44,000 archaeological features dating from the Beaker to Anglo-Saxon periods and recovered something in the region of 1.7 million finds of Mesolithic to post-medieval date. While various publications have emerged over the intervening years, the death of both directors, insufficient funding, many organizational complications and the sheer volume of material evidence have severely delayed full publication of this extraordinary palimpsest landscape. Lives in Land is the first of two major volumes which bring together all the evidence from Mucking, presenting both the detail of many important structures and assemblages and a comprehensive synthesis of landscape development through the ages: settlement histories, changing land-use, death and burial, industry and craft activities. The long time-gap since completion of the excavations has allowed the authors the unprecedented opportunity to stand back from the density of site data and place the vast sum of Mucking evidence in the wider context of the archaeology of southern England throughout the major periods of occupation and activity. Lives in Land begins with a thorough evaluation of the methods, philosophy and archival status of the Mucking project against the organizational and funding background of its time, and discusses its fascinating and complex history through a period of fundamental change in archaeological practice, legislation, finance, research priorities and theoretical paradigms in British Archaeology. Subsequent chapters deal with the prehistoric landscape, each focusing on the major themes that emerge by major period from analysis and synthesis of the data. The authors draw on archival material including site notebooks and personal accounts from key participants to provide a detailed but lively account of this iconic landscape investigation.

This volume is a critical assessment of the current state of archaeological knowledge of the settlement originally called Camulodunon and now known as Colchester. The town has been the subject of antiquarian interest since the late 16th century and the first modern archaeological excavations occurred in 1845 close to Colchester Castle, the towns most prominent historic site. The earliest significant human occupation recorded from Colchester dates to the late Neolithic, but it was only towards the end of the 1st century BC that an oppidum was established in the area. This was superseded initially by a Roman legionary fortress and then the colonia of Camulodunum on a hilltop bounded on the north and east by the river Colne. There is little evidence for continuing occupation here in the early post-Roman period, but in 917 the town was re-established as a burgh and gradually grew in importance. After the Norman Conquest, a castle was built on the foundations of the ruined Roman Temple of Claudius, and a priory and an abbey were established just to the south of the walled town. Although the town, as elsewhere, was affected by the Dissolution of the Monasteries and the English Civil War it remained essentially medieval in character until the 18th century. During the 19th century this process of change was accelerated by the arrival of the railway, industrialisation and the establishment of the military garrison. Since the 1960s Colchester has been subject to recurring phases of re-development, the most recent having ended only in 2007, which have had a significant impact on the historic environment. Fortunately the town is one of the best studied in the country.

Twenty-one contributions, written by friends and colleagues, reflect the wide interests of Professor Michael Vickers; from the Aegean Bronze Age to the use made of archaeology by dictators in the modern age. Seven contributions relate to Georgia, where the Professor has worked most recently, and made his home.

The Raunds Area Project investigated more than 20 Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in the Nene Valley. From c 5000 BC to the early 1st millennium cal BC a succession of ritual mounds and burial mounds were built as settlement along the valley sides increased and woodland was cleared. Starting as a regular stopping-place for flint knapping and domestic tasks, first the Long Mound, and then Long Barrow, the north part of the Turf Mound and the Avenue were built in the 5th millennium BC. With the addition of the Long Enclosure, the Causewayed Ring Ditch, and the Southern Enclosure, there was a chain of five or six diverse monuments stretched along the river bank by c 3000 cal BC. Later, a timber platform, the Riverside Structure, was built and the focus of ceremonial activity shifted to the Cotton 'Henge', two concentric ditches on the occupied valley side. From c 2200 cal BC monument building accelerated and included the Segmented Ditch Circle and at least 20 round barrows, almost all containing burials, at first inhumations, then cremations down to c 1000 cal BC, by which time two overlapping systems of paddocks and droveways had been laid out. Finally, the terrace began to be settled when these had gone out of use, in the early 1st millennium cal BC. This second volume of the Raunds Area Project, published as a CD, comprises the detailed reports on the environmental archaeology, artefact studies, geophysics and chronology.

The Science and Archaeology of Materials is set to become the definitive work in the archaeology of materials. Henderson's highly illustrated work is an accessible and fascinating textbook which will be essential reading for all practical archaeologists. With clear sections on a wide range of materials including ceramics, glass, metals and stone, this work examines the very foundations of archaeological study. Anyone interested in ancient technologies, especially those involving high temperatures, kilns and furnaces will be able to follow in each chapter how raw materials are refined, transformed and shaped into objects. This description is then followed by appropriate case studies which provide a new chronological and geographical example of how scientific and archaeological aspects can and do interact. They include: *Roman pale green and highly decorated glass *17th Century glass in Britain and Europe *the effect of the introduction of the wheel on pottery technology *the technology of Celadon ceramics *early copper metallurgy in the Middle East *chemical analysis and lead isotope analysis of British Bronzes *early copper alloy metallurgy in Thailand *the chemical analysis of obsidian and its distribution *the origins of the Stonehenge bluestones This book shows how archaeology and science intersect and fe ed off each other. Modern scientific techniques have provided data which, when set within a fully integrated archaeological context, have the potential of contributing to mainstream archaeology. This holistic approach generates a range of connections which benefits both areas and will enrich archaeological study in the future.