A Load of Old Rubbish? - The Oxyrhychus Papyri

In a new work Peter Parsons sifts through the mountain of evidence from a garbage dump at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt, painstakingly deciphered over more than a century and brings the world of the city's Greek inhabitants vividly to life.

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

The Early Prehistory of Wadi Faynan, Southern Jordan: Excavations at the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A Site of WF16 and Archaeological Survey of Wadis Faynan, Ghuwayr and Al Bustan
edited by Bill Finlayson and Steven Mithen
Hardback. GB £75.00

This edited volume provides a full report on the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A site of WF16, southern Jordan. Very few sites of PPNA date have been excavated using modern methods, so this report makes a very significant contribution to our understanding of this period. Excavations have shown that the site contains a highly dynamic use of architecture, and the faunal assemblage reveals new information on the processes that lead to the domestication of the goat.

Symposium and Komos in Aristophanes, second edition
by Babette Pütz
Paperback. GB £24.00

Since the publication of the first edition of this book, in 2003, much important new literature has come out, requiring review. The works on drinking parties have focused more and more on Hellenistic and Roman banquets, while drawing parallels with sympotic matters in Classical Athens. This revised second edition provides translations or paraphrases of all the Greek and Latin (except in a few passages which contain discussions of technical matters) to make the book more accessible for students of Aristophanes who do not read these languages.

The Earlier Iron Age in Britian and the Near Continent
edited by Colin Haselgrove and Rachel Pope
Hardback. GB £75.00

The Earlier Iron Age (c. 800-400 BC) has often eluded attention in British Iron Age studies. Traditionally, we have been enticed by the wealth of material from the later part of the millennium and by developments in southern England in particular, culminating in the arrival of the Romans. The result has been a chronological and geographical imbalance, with the Earlier Iron Age often characterised more by what it lacks than what it comprises: for Bronze Age studies it lacks large quantities of bronze, whilst from the perspective of the Later Iron Age it lacks elaborate enclosure. In contrast, the same period on mainland Europe yields a wealth of burial evidence with links to Mediterranean communities and so has not suffered in quite the same way. Gradual acceptance of this problem over the past decade, along with the corpus of new discoveries produced by developer-funded archaeology, now provides us with an opportunity to create a more balanced picture of the Iron Age in Britain as a whole. The twenty-six papers in the book seek to establish what we now know (and do not know) about Earlier Iron Age communities in Britain and their neighbours on the Continent. The authors engage with a variety of current research themes, seeking to characterise the Earlier Iron Age via the topics of landscape, environment, and agriculture; material culture and everyday life; architecture, settlement, and social organisation; and with the issue of transition - looking at how communities of the Late Bronze Age transform into those of the Earlier Iron Age, and how we understand the social changes of the later first millennium BC. Geographically, the book brings together recent research from regional studies covering the full length of Britain, as well as taking us over to Ireland, across the Channel to France, and then over the North Sea to Denmark, the Low Countries, and beyond.

The Later Iron Age in Britain and Beyond
edited by Colin Haselgrove and Tom Moore
Hardback. GB £90.00

The nature and causes of the transformation in settlement, social structure, and material culture that occurred in Britain during the Later Iron Age (c. 400-300 BC to the Roman conquest) have long been a focus of research. In the past, however, there was a tendency for attention to be directed mostly to southern England and the increased manifestations of Gaulish and Roman influence apparent there towards the end of this period. For the most part, developments in other regions were assumed to be secondary in character and of relatively little significance. Thanks to new work, this viewpoint can no longer be sustained. Throughout Britain, the extent and vitality of the social changes taking place during the later first millennium BC is becoming more apparent, as is the long-term character of many of the processes involved. The time is ripe therefore for new narratives of the Later Iron Age to be created, drawing on the burgeoning material from developer-funded archaeology and the Portable Antiquities Scheme, as well as on new methodological and theoretical approaches. The thirty-one papers collected here seek to re-conceptualise our visions of Later Iron Age societies in Britain by examining regions and topics that have received less attention in the past and by breaking down the artificial barriers often erected between artefact analysis and landscape studies. Themes considered include the expansion and enclosure of settlement, production and exchange, agricultural and social complexity, treatment of the dead, material culture and identity, at scales ranging from the household to the supra-regional. At the same time, the inclusion of papers on Ireland, northern France, the Low Countries, Denmark, and Germany allows insular Later Iron Age developments to be placed in a wider geographical context, ensuring that Britain is no longer studied in isolation.

TRAC 2006
edited by Ben Croxford, Nick Ray, Roman Roth and Natalie White
Paperback. GB £28.00

The sixteenth Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference was held in Cambridge in March 2006. Sixty papers were given during the two-day conference and covered the breadth and length of the Roman world. The issues of identity, its expression and recognition, were at the forefront of consideration. Sessions also looked at public and private religion, 'Romanisation' from a zooarchaeological perspective, how theoretical archaeology works in the field and the ways in which all of this (and more) is presented to the public. This volume contains a selection of the papers from all of the sessions that ran during the course of the conference.

Nicopolis ad Istrum III: A Roman to Early Byzantine Site: The Finds and Environmental Evidence
edited by Andrew Poulter
Hardback. GB £50.00

This, the third and final monograph, completes the description of the excavations carried out by the British team, part of the Anglo-Bulgarian archaeological programme on the site of Nicopolis ad Istrum in northern Bulgaria, one of the best-preserved ancient cities of the Roman Empire. The site provided a unique opportunity to compare the changing layout and economy of an urban centre from the Roman to the late Roman and the early Byzantine periods (c. AD 100-600). The excavations, geophysics, coins and wall-plaster were published in volume 1. Volume 2 describes the evidence for economic changes between the Roman and early Byzantine periods and contains full reports on the pottery and the glass. This volume includes full descriptions of all small-finds (ceramic copper-alloy and iron objects, glass, lamps, sculpture, architecture and flints) each object provided with a description of its archaeological context and the date of deposition. The second half of the volume identifies the environmental and economic differences between the three main periods in the history of the site. Reports include quantified assemblages of zooarchaeological finds (large and, small mammals), fish, birds, archaeobotanical remains, mollusca and human skeletons as well as the results of metallurgical analysis: copper-alloy, iron and 'natural' steel. Not only is this range and quantity of finds in these reports unparalleled in the Balkans, they represent a valuable resource for the material culture of the Roman and la\e Roman periods coming, as they do, from a part of the Roman Empire which has produced very few comparable assemblages. Of no less importance are the quantified bioarchaeological data which offers a unique insight into the charging morphology and economy of a Roman, late Roman and early Byzantine city.

Pottery from Medieval Novgorod and its Region
Orton, Clive
Hardback. GB £40.00

Novgorod was a major medieval city and an important centre for trade routes between northern, central and western Europe and the Near East, and has been the subject of intensive investigation since the 1930s. This volume in a series devoted to the archaeology of medieval Novgorod, presents eleven studies of ceramic evidence in terms of chronology and technology, methodology of investigation, and international trade and contacts. The essays also reflect different approaches to studying ceramics by western and Russian scholars. Some of the subjects explored include hand-made and early wheel-turned pottery from the environs of Novgorod, Novgorod pottery from the 10th to 15th century, handling large urban pottery assemblages, pottery imported from the west and the east, amphorae from Novgorod and the wine trade.

Roman Finds: Context and Theory
edited by Richard Hingley and Steve Willis
Paperback. GB £38.00

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.

Journal of Roman Pottery Studies 13: A Mortarium Bibliography for Roman Britain

edited by Katharine F. Harley and Roberta Tomber, with Peter V. Webster

Paperback. GB £24.00

Mortarium studies have enormous value in addressing a variety of themes including source, chronology, function, distribution, and as an index to trade and Romanisation. This study was designed in 1992, begun in 1995 and completed in 1998. The bibliography took until 2001 to update and can now be presented in final form. It deals with the country in twelve geographical regions, designated by modern county boundaries, but grouped as far as is possible to reflect ancient pottery traditions. Specific recommendations are made for further research.

Conferences we will be attending

Current Research in Egyptology 2007
Swansea (Thursday 19th April - Saturday 21st April)

http://www.swan.ac.uk/news_centre/WhatsHappening/Headline,13796,en.asp.htm