This volume is the first in a series which reports on the multi-period site at Mucking, Essex. The excavations lasted for 13 years, from 1965 to 1978, and covered an area of over 18 hectares. This first part of the publication consists of an atlas of the site, together with a short report. The atlas is presented, at a scale of 1:180, on 25 plans which are unphased and include all investigated features; the reader will be able to join the plans and view larger areas and enclosures. The short text which accompanies the atlas consists of a brief history of the excavation and its aftermath, a series of period summaries, and a number of specialist reports which relate to the site as a whole, eg geology and cropmarks. The site atlas plans form an indispensable source of reference for the individual volumes on the various periods represented at Mucking which will follow.

The complex multi-period archaeological landscape at Mucking provided the first opportunity, between 1965 and 1978, to excavate an Anglo-Saxon settlement and associated cemeteries simultaneously. With two cemeteries, at least 53 posthole buildings, and over 200 sunken huts (Grubenhäuser), Mucking remains the most extensive Anglo-Saxon settlement excavated to date, and one of the earliest. The distribution of finds and pottery suggests a gradually shifting settlement, beginning in the early fifth century as a relatively dense group of buildings at the southern end of the site, then gradually moving northwards in the course of the sixth and seventh centuries. The latest recognisable phase datable at least to the end of the seventh century, consisted of a number of widely dispersed farmsteads. This report concentrates on the structures and artefacts from the settlement, and gives special consideration to developments in the ceramic assemblage. Specialist contributions examine the environment and technological evidence, for example plant and animal resources and metalworking technology. The discussion focuses on changes in the size and layout of this community, which was situated at the interface of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Kent and Essex, its historical and geographical contexts, and its relationship to the preceding Romano-British landscape. This report inlcudes a full inventory of the finds and pottery in their contexts.

Folder containing 25 large-scale loose leaf plans, and a short text giving a brief history of the excavations and its aftermath, a series of period summaries, and a number of specialist reports. An indispensable source of reference for the individual volumes that cover the multi-period site.

With two cemeteries, at least 53 posthole buildings, and over 200 Grubenhauser, Mucking remains the most extensive Anglo-Saxon settlement excavated to date, and one of the earliest. This report from the 1965-1978 excavations concentrates on the structures and artefacts from the settlement, and gives special consideration to the pottery assemblage. Specialist contributions examine the environmental and technological evidence, such as plant and animal resources and metalworking technology. The discussion focuses on changes in the size and layout of the community, its historical and geographical contexts, and its relationship to the preceding Romano-British landscape.

The Anglo-Saxon period was crucial to the development of the English landscape, but is rarely studied. The essays here provide radical new interpretations of its development. Traditional opinion has perceived the Anglo-Saxons as creating an entirely new landscape from scratch in the fifth and sixth centuries AD, cutting down woodland, and bringing with them the practice of open field agriculture, and establishing villages. Whilst recent scholarship has proved this simplistic picture wanting, it has also raised many questions about the nature of landscape development at the time, the changing nature of systems of land management, and strategies for settlement. The papers here seek to shed new light on these complex issues. Taking a variety of different approaches, and with topics ranging from the impact of coppicing to medieval field systems, from the representation of the landscape in manuscripts to cereal production and the type of bread the population preferred, they offer striking new approaches to the central issues of landscape change across the seven centuries of Anglo-Saxon England, a period surely foundational to the rural landscape of today. NICHOLAS J. HIGHAM is Professor of Early Medieval and Landscape History at the University of Manchester; MARTIN J. RYAN lectures in Medieval History at the University of Manchester. Contributors: Nicholas J. Higham, Christopher Grocock, Stephen Rippon, Stuart Brookes, Carenza Lewis, Susan Oosthuizen, Tom Williamson, Catherine Karkov, David Hill, Debby Banham, Richard Hoggett, Peter Murphy.

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.

Surface and Underground Excavations – Methods, Techniques and Equipment (2nd edition) covers the latest technologies and developments in the excavation arena at any locale: surface or underground. In the first few chapters, unit operations are discussed and subsequently, excavation techniques are described for various operations: tunnelling, drifting, raising, sinking, stoping, quarrying, surface mining, liquidation and mass blasting as well as construction of large subsurface excavations such as caverns and underground chambers. The design, planning and development of excavations are treated in a separate chapter. Especially featured are methodologies to select stoping methods through incremental analysis. Furthermore, this edition encompasses comprehensive sections on mining at ‘ultra depths’, mining difficult deposits using non-conventional technologies, mineral inventory evaluation (ore – reserves estimation) and mine closure. Concerns over Occupational Health and Safety (OHS), environment and loss prevention, and sustainable development are also addressed in advocating a solution to succeed within a scenario of global competition and recession. This expanded second edition has been wholly revised, brought fully up-to-date and includes (wherever feasible) the latest trends and best practices, case studies, global surveys and toolkits as well as questions at the end of each chapter. This volume will now be even more appealing to students in earth sciences, geology, and in civil, mining and construction engineering, to practicing engineers and professionals in these disciplines as well as to all with a general or professional interest in surface and underground excavations.

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.

Surface and Underground Excavations – Methods, Techniques and Equipment (2nd edition) covers the latest technologies and developments in the excavation arena at any locale: surface or underground. In the first few chapters, unit operations are discussed and subsequently, excavation techniques are described for various operations: tunnelling, drifting, raising, sinking, stoping, quarrying, surface mining, liquidation and mass blasting as well as construction of large subsurface excavations such as caverns and underground chambers. The design, planning and development of excavations are treated in a separate chapter. Especially featured are methodologies to select stoping methods through incremental analysis. Furthermore, this edition encompasses comprehensive sections on mining at ‘ultra depths’, mining difficult deposits using non-conventional technologies, mineral inventory evaluation (ore – reserves estimation) and mine closure. Concerns over Occupational Health and Safety (OHS), environment and loss prevention, and sustainable development are also addressed in advocating a solution to succeed within a scenario of global competition and recession. This expanded second edition has been wholly revised, brought fully up-to-date and includes (wherever feasible) the latest trends and best practices, case studies, global surveys and toolkits as well as questions at the end of each chapter. This volume will now be even more appealing to students in earth sciences, geology, and in civil, mining and construction engineering, to practicing engineers and professionals in these disciplines as well as to all with a general or professional interest in surface and underground excavations.

This book honors the memory of Brian Hesse, a scholar of Near Eastern archaeology, a writer of alliterative and punned publication titles, and an accomplished amateur photographer. Hesse specialized in zooarchaeology, but he influenced a wider range of excavators and ancient historians with his broad interpretive reach. He spent much of his career analyzing faunal materials from different countries in the Middle East-including Iran, Yemen, and Israel, and his publications covered themes particular to animal bone studies, such as domestication, ancient market economics, as well as broader themes such as determining ethnicity in archaeology. The essays in this volume reflect the breadth of his interests. Most chapters share an Old World geographic setting, focusing either on Europe or the Middle East. The topics are diverse, with the majority discussing animal bones, as was Hesse's specialization, but some take a nonfaunal perspective related to the problems with which Hesse grappled. The volume is also broad in temporal scope, ranging from Neolithic Iran to early Medieval England, and it addresses theoretical matters as well as methodological innovations including taphonomy and the history of computers in zooarchaeology. Several of the essays are direct revisits to, inspirations from, or extensions of Hesse's own research. All the contributions reflect his intense interest in social questions about antiquity; the theme of social archaeology informed much of Brian Hesse's thinking, and it is why his work made such an impact on those working outside his own disciplinary research.