536 REVIEWS which potentially risk missing parts of the widespread settlement. I would have liked a little further interrogation of the oft-repeated idea that East Anglia was a cultural backwater in this period, and interpretation of the site within a framework of regional difference and strategic engagement with the wider Roman Empire. Nevertheless, this report is a useful addition to the East Anglian Archaeology series. As with most EAA volumes, it is reassuringly consistent in layout and can be either easily interrogated for particular interests or engaged with as a whole. University of Nottingham NATASHA HARLOW [email protected] doi: 10.1017/S0068113X19000199 Outside Roman London: Roadside Burials by the Walbrook Stream. By S. Ranieri and A. Telfer, with D. Walker and V. Yendell. Crossrail Archaeology Series 9. Museum of London Archaeology, London, 2017. Pp. xix + 228, illus. Price: £10.00. ISBN 9781907586446. This book provides significant new data on the development of Roman London, and on the complex archaeology of the upper Walbrook landscape in particular. New light is shed on old research questions through new excavation techniques and expert post-excavation analyses as we might expect from MoLA. In keeping with other MoLA publications, the book is attractive, well laid out, and contains many colour illustrations. The support of Crossrail Limited, The Mayor of London, the Department for Transport and Transport for London is acknowledged on the front cover, and a more detailed promotion of Crossrail activities is supplied on the back cover. Despite its title, ‘roadside burial’ is not the principal focus of the book. In fact, the main part of the cemetery under discussion seems to have been focused on the other side of the Walbrook tributary, and is dealt with in C. Harward, N. Powers and S. Watson (eds), The Upper Walbrook Valley Cemetery of Roman London: Excavations at Finsbury Circus, City of London, 1987–2007 (2015). Equal prominence is given to the development of a very interesting road, probably serving the Cripplegate fort, with perhaps attendant ‘refuse’ disposal. Attention is also given to a microscopic reconstruction of the ecology of this rather ‘backwater’ landscape, as well as the use of the area for quarrying and perhaps more occasional activities. Other finds of interest are associated with transport, and include the recovery of horse remains and hipposandals. An assemblage of shoes was also recovered. Of particular interest for the student of Roman Britain is the archaeological contextualisation of the Walbrook skulls, and (if the reader is patient) a better understanding of the taphonomic and anthropogenic mechanisms that led to a bias towards skull finds in this part of London; some rather gruesome old theories (concerning, for example, continuation of Iron Age head cults or decapitation of rebels) are perhaps debunked in the process. It is argued that the use of a flood zone for inhumation burials created an environment in which human remains were periodically exposed by flood water. The skulls were subsequently seemingly collected and placed in a roadside ditch. The grouping of skulls in an apparent placed deposit in this way shows how human agency and site formation processes combined, with the inherent buoyant qualities of crania perhaps also being a factor in the high representation of skulls. When it comes to the few intact burials encountered on the Walbrook stream site, several of them could be labelled as ‘deviant’. We might wonder if their apparently marginalised location, across the tributary stream and therefore separated from the bulk of the cemetery, is significant. The presence of decapitations, and what appears to be at least one heavy iron restraint (which the writers curiously take pains to argue was not a dress accessory), also raise significant questions relating to peri-mortem punishment or funerary overkill. The interpretive essay on this in the book could perhaps have addressed the possibility of different agencies being involved in death and funeral respectively. While this looks and feels like an approachable book, there is little sense of an integrated narrative. The initial phasing is written in the form of a ‘technical report’, interrupted by the interpolation of what seems to be unedited, uncredited, specialist material. This periodically overbalances the narrative into specialist concerns of typology, like pottery with a particular rim, for example, and does not seem aimed at a particular audience. Later specialist contributions do appear separately in an alternative font, but the objects discussed have not always been clearly introduced beforehand, rendering the discussion occasionally confusing. This sense of disjointedness is compounded in succeeding thematic chapters, with occasional repetition suggesting a tighter editorial hand was required. The brief conclusion appears almost REVIEWS 537 apologetically at the end of the final chapter on the post-Roman period and the book lacks a concluding overview. From personal experience of the difficulties of publishing findings and their interpretation in the developer-funded sphere, I am sure such problems as I have indicated reflect less on the producers of this volume than they do on the systematic pressures of ‘threat-led’ archaeology. It is perhaps ironic that the cover so proudly promotes its connections with an infrastructure project that has had its own problems of financial pressure and perhaps overambitious goals in the ‘real world’. Chartham JAKE WEEKES doi: 10.1017/S0068113X19000291 Hillforts and the Durotriges: A Geophysical Survey of Iron Age Dorset. By D. Stewart and M. Russell, with P. Cheetham and J. Gale. Archaeopress, Oxford, 2017. Pp. viii + 176, illus. Price: £30.00. ISBN 9781784917159. Dorset is one of the best studied regions of Iron Age Britain. The excavations undertaken at the hillforts of Maiden Castle and Hod Hill are on a scale surpassed only by Danebury in Hampshire. As Dave Stewart and Miles Russell so aptly demonstrate, however, we have barely scratched the surface (in the most literal sense). Hillforts and the Durotriges is an engaging and thought-provoking account of Stewart’s impressive attempts to undertake a geophysical study of the 21 Iron Age Dorset hillforts. This is a book which will appeal to both those already familiar with Iron Age Dorset and readers who arrive fresh to the area. Ch. 1 provides a succinct introduction to the Durotriges Project, and the material culture of the eponymous Late Iron Age people. Ch. 2 then moves to discussing the much debated question ‘what is a hillfort?’, before moving on to describing the standard narrative of the structural evolution of hillforts in this region. It is here that the reader is first introduced to a major argument of the book: a desire to move away from the dramatic interpretations proposed by Richmond and Wheeler in which these sites were the foci of resistance to Rome in the first century A.D. In ch. 3, Gale gives an excellent overview of the history of hillfort investigation in Dorset. This leads into ch. 4, where Stewart delivers the core of the book, describing and discussing his geophysical work. Ch. 4 is a fine gazetteer in its own right, giving location, bibliographic references, photographs and site plans for each hillfort. To these are added the results of the magnetometry scans and discussion of their potential implications. Ch. 5 then weaves the results into a coherent image of hillfort use in Dorset, considering the placement of hillforts in the landscape, their proximity to water sources, internal architecture, and what became of them in the centuries (and millennia) after the Iron Age. Russell provides a concluding discussion in ch. 6, returning to the earlier mentioned critique of Richmond and Wheeler’s militaristic interpretation of Hod Hill, Maiden Castle and other hillforts. In considering Stewart’s findings, and by critically reviewing the evidence from Maiden Castle, the Spettisbury Rings and Hod Hill, Russell makes a convincing case for moving away from the idea that such sites were the foci of Durotrigian resistance in the first century A.D. He takes the argument one step further, proposing that the three classes of material culture considered to be markers of Durotrigian ethnicity, namely coinage, black burnished ware and burial rites, post-date the abandonment of many of these hillforts. As such, Dorset hillforts should not be viewed as being distinctive Durotrigian settlements in the first century B.C., but rather accord with the pattern of hillfort use and abandonment observed elsewhere, notably in Wessex. There is little to criticise in this work. It is lavishly illustrated, with numerous maps, site plans and photographs. The only images which do not do this work justice are photographs of material from the Spettisbury Rings derived from the British Museum archives. Other areas which I found less convincing include the emphasis on coinage as indicating the extent of the Durotrigian community, rather than burial rites (ch. 1), and the idea that Hod Hill may have been a tribal capital, despite it being somewhat peripheral to the rest of the Durotrigian zone (although again this is placing emphasis on the distribution of burial rites, and to a lesser extent ceramic forms). These points aside, Hillforts and the Durotriges represents a vital contribution to the study of Iron Age Dorset, and Britain as a whole. University of Leicester ANDREW W. LAMB [email protected] doi: 10.1017/S0068113X19000205.