June 2002 Issue
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| WELCOME | ||||||||
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David Brown introduces the inaugural issue of OXeN | ||||||||
| FEATURES | ||||||||
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"Very probably it was the most magnificent temple in the world" - William Stukeley Apart from Stonehenge, Avebury in Wiltshire is probably the best-known stone circle in Britain. Its chequered history has included, in recent years, demolition, vandalism, reconstruction and much debate over the meaning and significance of the stones. The site was the lifelong obsession of many antiquarians including John Aubrey, William Stukeley and Alexander Keiller. Each had their own approach to investigating the site and their own opinions as to what the purpose of the stones was. Three new books and one published three years ago, focus on different aspects of the site's history and those involved in its investigation and study. | ||||||||
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Mick was in Oxbow this week and told us about the new series of Time Team, the phenomenally successful TV series that regularly attracts 3 million viewers. The programs are being filmed at the moment, but will not appear on our screens until January 2003. The sites visited range from a Roman villa in Somerset to an Anglo-Saxon cemetery in Hampshire. The team looks underneath Castle Howard to find a buried medieval village, dives deep beneath the Peak District to reveal cave stratigraphy, and uncovers one of Roman Britain's most northerly civilian settlements. Also, the newest book to come out of the series will be available later this year. Mick Aston and Tony Robinson join forces in this throw-away title (just kidding!): "Archaeology is Rubbish". | ||||||||
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Of all the new books that have passed over the desks of the Oxbow staff this month, these, for whatever reason, are the ones that grabbed their attention.
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| INTERVIEWS | ||||||||
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Last week, Charles Watkinson had an opportunity to speak with Eric H Cline, author of The Battles of Armageddon: Megiddo and the Jezreel Valley from the Bronze Age to the Nuclear Age ... and to find out what kinds of books Eric has beside the bed. Eric Cline is an Assistant Professor of Ancient History and Archaeology at The George Washington University. He has done fieldwork in the Mediterranean and the Middle East and is currently working with the team at Megiddo. "The Battles of Armageddon" (University of Michigan Press) has just come out in paperback after winning the 2001 Biblical Archaeology Society Publication Award for "Best Popular Book on Archaeology". | ||||||||
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Meet the publisher: Richard Purslow of Windgather Press In 1999 Oxbow first heard about Richard's plans to start a publisher that would focus on landscape studies. Three years on, Windgather can boast an impressive, and growing, list of handsomely-produced titles and a successful, twice-yearly journal, "Landscapes", with over 500 subscribers. We talked to Richard about his vision for the company, his favourite books, and more ... For more details about Windgather Press books, take a look at: http://www.oxbowbooks.com/results.cfm?P=windgather | ||||||||
Conference: Countdown to WAC 5 2003
Whatever you might think about it, the WORLD ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONGRESS (WAC) is never a boring meeting. Delegates in New Delhi in 1994 (WAC 3) were plunged into bitter religious controversy after the organizers banned discussion of the Ayodhya issue, while the Cape Town meeting in 1999 (WAC 4) attracted newspaper headlines for stimulating debates about white imperialism. The recently announced 2003 meeting (WAC 5) will be held in Washington DC, power capital of the world and one of America's poorest cities ... it is sure to cause a stir.
New Releases
Oxbow Books is delighted to announce the publication of the first volume in a new series of monographs reporting on the exciting multi-disciplinary investigations at the site of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, one of the oldest non-African sites to have yielded evidence for the activities of groups of hominin hunter-gatherers.
The Acheulian Site of Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, Israel
1, The Wood Assemblage
by Naama Goren-Inbar and Ella Werker, from the Institute of Archaeology,
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, and Craig S Feibel, from Rutgers University, USA.
This volume describes the unique assemblage of fossil wood, which accumulated as driftwood on
the shores of lake Hula. Analysis of this wood has provided new data on ancient plant communities
of the Levant and the role they played in early hominin palaeoecology.
Read more...