Clothing the Medieval world

Ever since clothing became a vehicle through which people could differentiate themselves from others, and outwardly display a degree of individuality, people have been fascinated by the subject. Today, on TV, in magazines and on the high street we are told what is the height of fashion and ‘What Not to Wear’. A number of recent books reveal how the medieval world was not so very different.

Medieval Treasures

Not everything that archaeologists find can be dismissed as the rubbish of our ancestors. Alongside the leftovers from countless meals, cooking pots, structural ironwork and waste pits, occasionally, maybe only a few times in the career of a digger, one might find a gem. In his new book, David Hinton explores the significance of these personal artefacts and prized possessions which reveal so much about the people who originally bought them, cared for them, intended them for their descendants and, sadly, lost them.

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.

New Releases

TRAC 2004
edited by James Bruhn, Ben Croxford and Dimitris Grigoropoulos
Paperback. GB £28.00

The fourteenth Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference was held at the University of Durham Department of Archaeology, March 2004. The papers present and discuss information drawn from as wide a range of geographical regions of the Roman Empire as the scope of theoretical and methodological approaches applied. An equally wide selection of subject matter is illustrated, including the ancient economy, historiography and modern perceptions of the Roman world, production, supply and consumption of material culture, social identities and the experience of social space and the landscape.

From Clan to Clearance
by Keith Branigan

This large, well-illustrated book is the culmination of fifteen years of historical and archaeological research into the history of Barra and its people from the time of the Vikings to the notorious clearances of 1850/51, as revealed by archaeology and hundreds of historical documents tucked away in archives in Scotland, England, Italy and Canada. The book describes the homes and workplaces of the population from Kisimul Castle and Eoligarry House, to the blackhouses and shielings of the ordinary clansmen. It pieces together their way of life, and for the first time uses archaeology to reveal just what it was like to live in a blackhouse. There is also a special study of the township of Balnabodach, one of the most romantic settings in the whole of the Hebrides where one of the most notorious dramas of the Clearances was played out. There is also a chapter by renowned Canadian historian J L Bumsted.

Set in stone: New approaches to Neolithic monuments in Scotland
edited by Vicki Cummings and Amelia Pannett
Paperback. GB £35.00, GB £10.00

As its title might suggest, this volume sets out to present a new view of Scotland's Neolithic as seen via its monumental structures. The papers brought together here came out of a research day at Cardiff University's School of History and Archaeology in January 2002 and cover a diverse number of topics. They raise questions of ancestry and worldview, and highlight the amount that can be done in examining the settings of monuments. Contents include: Not my type: discourses in monumentality (Kenneth Brophy); The 'henge' and 'hengiform' in Scotland (G. J. Barclay); Choreographed monumentality: recreating the centre of other worlds at the monumental complex of Callanish, western Lewis (Cole Henley); Between a rock and a hard place: rock art and mimesis in Neolithic and Bronze Age Scotland (Andy Jones).

Augustine: De Civitate Dei Books I & II
edited with an introduction, translation and commentary by P G Walsh
Paperback. GB £22.50
Hardback. GB £40.00, GB £9.95

This edition of Books I & II of St Augustine's City of God is the only edition in English to provide a text and translation as well as a detailed commentary of this most influential document in the history of western Christianity. In these books, written in the aftermath of the sack of Rome in AD 410 by the Goths, Augustine replies to the pagans, who attributed the fall of Rome to the Christian religion and its prohibition of the worship of the pagan gods.

Journal of Wetland Archaeology Volume 4 (2004)
edited by Bryony Coles
Paperback. GB £20.00, GB £5.00

The Journal of Wetland Archaeology is the journal of the Wetland Archaeological Research Project (WARP) and the University of Exeter Centre for Wetland Research. Contents: Research Papers: A Neolithic wetland site at Abercynafon, Talybont, South Wales (Astrid Caseldine and Caroline Earwood); Environmental monitoring at Nydam, a waterlogged site with weapon sacrifices from the Danish Iron Age. 1: a comparison of methods used and results from undisturbed conditions (Henning Matthiesen, David Gregory, Poul Jensen and Birgit Sensen); Hjortspring and the North - review and commentary (John Coles); The Strata Florida manikin: how exotic is it? (Wijnand Van der Sanden and Rick Turner); Weaving as a domestic craft at the Iron Age site of Glastonbury Lake Village in Somerset, Britain (Tina Tuohy);Bog bodies on display (Heather Gill-Robinson); Wooden boards in prehistoric Japan - wood species and splitting techniques (Hiroyuki Fujii); Joint Tribal/College wet site investigations - a critical need for Native American expertise (Rhonda Foster and Dale Croes); That sinking feeling: wetland investigations of the origins of Venice (Rupert Housley, Albert Ammerman and Charles McClennan); Great expectations: the English Heritage approach to the management of the historic environment in England`s wetlands (Adrian Olivier); The Scottish Wetlands Archaeology Programme - assessing and monitoring the resource (Jon Henderson); Steps towards the heritage management of wetlands in Europe (Bryony Coles); Steps towards the heritage management of wetlands in Europe: response and reflection (Anders Fischer, Helmut Schlichtherle and Pierre Pétrequin); Book reviews: edited by Stephen Rippon.

Journal of Wetland Archaeology 5 (2005)
guest edited by Dale Croes
Paperback. GB £20.00, GB £5.00

The Journal of Wetland Archaeology is the journal of the Wetland Archaeological Research Project (WARP) and the University of Exeter Centre for Wetland Research. Contents: Introduction-Swimming against the tide (John Coles); Fishing gear of the 1st millennium AD in the north east of European Russia (Grigori M Burov); The importance of deltaic wetland resources: A perspective from the Nooksack River Delta, Washington State (U.S.A) (Richard M Hutchings and Sarah K Campbell); The Awazu site, a shell-midden on the bottom of Lake Biwa, Japan (Isao Iba); Salmon exploitation in Jomon archaeology from a wetlands point of view (Akira Matsui); Medieval fish traps on the Shannon estuary, Ireland: interpreting people, place and identity in estuarine landscapes (Aidan O'Sullivan); Archaeology and the death of coastal fishing in Britain (Rick Turner ); Kohika, a late Maori lake village in northern New Zealand (Geoffrey Irwin); Shipwrights, sailors and society in the Middle Bronze Age of NW Europe (Peter Clark); Deconstructing reconstruction: The Bronze Age sewn plank boats from North Ferriby, River Humber, England, UK and their context (Malcolm Lillie); One hundred-one canoes on the shore-3-5,000 year old canoes from Newnans Lake, Florida (Donna L Ruhl and Barbara A Purdy); Cultural historical context of a site at Puget Sound, USA: a preliminary investigation (Dale Croes, Katherine M Kelly and Mark Collard).

Conferences we will be attending

Making of English Landscape (W.G.Hoskins)
Oxford (Saturday 16 April, 2005 )
2005 marks fifty years since the publication of The Making of The English Landscape, a book that has had an enormous impact on research and writing in the fields of history, geography and archaeology. This conference will celebrate Hoskin’s achievement and its influence on subsequent landscape studies. The programme includes speakers who were taught and influenced by W.G.Hoskins. http://www.academic-study.com/

The British Palaeolithic: Recent Discoveries
Rewley Houe, Oxford (Saturday 23 April, 2005 )
The weekend will provide a forum for the discussion of the latest work at Britain oldest sites at Happisburgh and Parkefield as well as about other recent research and discoveries, including fieldwork at the Acheulian site of Hoxne, the excavation of the Neanderthal butchery site and Lynford, and the surprising discovery of cave art at Creswell Crags. Speakers will include: Diane Holmes, John Wymer, Simon Parfitt, Matthew Pope, Nick Ashton, Paul Pettitt, Francis Wenban-Smith, Bill Boismier, Roger Jacobi, Cath Price and Nick Barton.http://www.conted.ox.ac.uk/