OXBOW BOOK NEWS 106 New and forthcoming titles for Autumn 2020 A T A W G R T M A Welcome to the 106th edition of the Oxbow Book News. From everyday life in the Palaeolithic to nineteenth century mausolea, its pages are filled with a characteristically wide range of brand new archaeological titles from our own imprints and our partner publishers. We are particularly excited to announce the latest Historic Towns Atlas which will cover our own home town of Oxford. Through a series of beautifully produced maps, the atlas traces the city’s development from its Prehistoric landscape through Anglo-Saxon beginnings and the medieval foundation of the university to its considerable expansion in the nineteenth century. Introductory material provides historical context, while a gazetteer describes the main historic buildings in detail. Monuments in the Making by Vicki Cummings and Colin Richards presents a major re-appraisal of the dolmen. Based on a new fieldwork project across Britain, Ireland and Scandinavia, the book examines aspects of quarrying and construction as well as function, noting that not all dolmens were used for human burial and suggesting that these monuments were also intended to enchant and captivate. The latest volume in our successful Studying Scientific Archaeology series, Scientific Dating in Archaeology edited by Seren Griffiths, provides an up-to-date guide to the revolution in thinking about chronology which has been sparked by the use of Bayesian statistics and details the methods, applications and challenges of different techniques. Another historic town forms the focus of two volumes from the Exeter: A Place in Time project edited by Stephen Rippon and Neil Holbrook, which give a synthesis of Exeter’s Roman and medieval development, as well as presenting case studies and a wealth of specialist reports. Of course this selection only scratches the surface, and we are sure that, with the bargains to be found in the middle section of the catalogue added to the mix, you will find plenty to tempt you here. We thank you, as ever, for your continued support Cover Image: West wall of tomb 4, decorated with murals, Kenchreai cemetery Photo: Elizabeth Rees From: Archaeology and the Early Church in Southern Greece (Oxbow Books 2020)) Published by Oxbow Books, The Old Music Hall, 106–108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JE Tel (order enquiries): +44 (0)1226 734350 | Tel (general enquiries): +44 (0)1865 241249 E-mail: [email protected] | www.oxbowbooks.com /oxbowbooks @oxbowbooks ARCHAEOLOGICAL METHODPREHISTORY & THEORY Scientific Dating in Archaeology Edited by Seren Griffiths A variety of techniques have been developed to provide scientific chronologies of archaeological sites and material culture. These chronologies under-pin the narratives that are generated for prehistoric and other periods. The application of Bayesian statistical analysis to scientific chronologies has brought renewed emphasis onto how we generate scientific chronological data, how these data are applied into wider narratives, and the epistemological importance of these data. This volume will provide a timely review of the methods, applications and challenges of applying different scientific dating techniques to archaeological sites and material culture. It will then provide an introduction to Bayesian modelling, and highlight a series of considerations in the application of scientific dating techniques. Oxbow Books • Dec 2020 • 9781789255621 £29.95 • Paperback • 256 pages FORTHCOMING – ONLY b/w illustrations £23.95 UNTIL PUBLICATION Far from Equilibrium An Archaeology of Energy, Life and Humanity: A Response to the Archaeology of John C. Barrett Edited by Michael J. Boyd & R. C. P. Doonan Archaeology is in crisis. Spatial turns, material turns and the ontological turn have directed the discipline away from its hard- won battle to find humanity in the past. Meanwhile, popularised science, camouflaged as archaeology, produces shock headlines built on ancient DNA that reduce humanity’s most intriguing historical problems to two-dimensional caricatures. This volume foregrounds the relevance of the scholarship of John Barrett to this crisis. Topics include archaeology and the senses, the continuing problem of the archaeological record, practice, discourse, and agency, reorienting archaeological field practice, the question of different expressions of human diversity, and material ecologies. This critical examination of John Barrett’s contribution to archaeology is simultaneously a response to his urgent call to arms to reorient archaeology in the service of humanity. Oxbow Books • Jan 2021 • 9781789256031 £55.00 • Hardback • 288 pages b/w illustrations FORTHCOMING – ONLY £44.00 UNTIL PUBLICATION 1 www.oxbowbooks.com | [email protected] | +44 (0)1226 734350 ARCHAEOLOGICAL METHOD & THEORY Conversations between Objects Edited by Linda Hulin Linda Hulin considers the relationship between the archaeological record and the human past and examines the differences that arise between the practice of excavating material culture and the models for thinking about it. Two common themes emerge: the dominance of vision as a medium of both recording the past and a vehicle for understanding it and the primacy given to knowledge over sensation. Ultimately, this work brings the ordinariness of the object world back into discourse by exploring their effect, en masse, upon the human body. FORTHComing – onlY Oxbow Books • Dec 2020 • 9781789250039 • £15.99 • Paperback • 160 pages £11.99 UNTIL PUBLICATION Themes in Old World Zooarchaeology From the Mediterranean to the Atlantic Edited by Umberto Albarella, Cleia Detry, Sónia Gabriel, Catarina Ginja & Ana Elisabete Pires This new collection of papers from leading experts provides an overview of cutting-edge research in Old World zooarchaeology. The research spans various areas across Europe, Western Asia and North Africa – from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. Thematically, the book covers many of the research areas where zooarchaeology can provide a significant contribution. These include animal domestication, bone modifications, fishing, fowling, economic and social status, as well as adaptation and improvement. Oxbow Books • Dec 2020 • 9781789255348 • £60.00 • Hardback • 208 pages FORTHComing – onlY b/w illustrations £48.00 UNTIL PUBLICATION Interdisciplinarity and Archaeology Scientific Interactions in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Archaeology Edited by Margarita Díaz-Andreu & Laura Coltofean-Arizancu This book explores the history of interdisciplinary relationships between archaeology and other branches of knowledge in Europe and elsewhere, a largely untold history. It encompasses ten scholarly contributions that offer a critical overview of this complex, dynamic and long-lasting transformative process. This is a pioneering project in the field of the history of archaeology, as it is the first to examine the inclusion into archaeological practice of various disciplines categorized under the umbrella of hard, natural and social sciences, as well as the humanities. Oxbow Books • Feb 2021 • 9781789254662 • £29.99 • Paperback • 184 pages FORTHCOMING ONLY b/w illustrations £23.99 UNTIL PUBLICATION 2 www.oxbowbooks.com | [email protected] | +44 (0)1226 734350 ARCHAEOLOGICAL METHOD & THEORY Grave Disturbances The Archaeology of Post-Depositional Interactions with the Dead Edited by Edeltraud Aspöck, Alison Klevnäs & Nils Müller-Scheeßel Archaeologists excavating burials often find that they are not the first to disturb the remains of the dead. Graves from many periods frequently show signs that others have been digging and have moved or taken away parts of the original funerary assemblage. Interactions with the remains of the dead are explored in eleven chapters ranging from the New Kingdom of Egypt to Viking Age Norway and from Bronze Age Slovakia to the ancient Maya. Each discusses cases of re-entries into graves, including desecration, tomb re-use, destruction of grave contents, as well as the removal of artefacts and human remains for reasons from material gain to commemoration, symbolic appropriation, ancestral rites, political chicanery, and retrieval of relics. Oxbow Books • 2020 • 9781789254426 £55.00 • Hardback • 256 pages The Sacred Body Materializing the Divine Through Human Remains in Antiquity Edited by Nicola Laneri The aim of this volume is to undertake a cross-cultural investigation of the role played in antiquity by humans and human remains in creating forms of relationality with the divine. Such an approach will highlight how the human body can be envisioned as part of a broader materialization of religious beliefs that is based on connecting different realms of materiality in perceiving the supernatural by the community of the livings. Case studies on ritual aspects of funerary practices are presented, emphasising the varied roles of body parts in mortuary rituals and as relics. Other papers take a wider look at regional practices in various time periods and cultural contexts to explore the central role of the corpse in the negotiation of death in human culture. Oxbow Books • April 2021 9781789255188 • £50.00 • Hardback 240 pages • b/w illustrations FORTHComing – onlY £40.00 UNTIL PUBLICATION 3 www.oxbowbooks.com | [email protected] | +44 (0)1226 734350 ARCHAEOLOGICAL METHOD & THEORY The Competition of Fibres Early Textile Production in Western Asia, Southeast and Central Europe (10,000–500 BC) Edited by Wolfram Schier & Susan Pollock The central issues discussed in this new collection are the