Research Reports

Excavation of a Liberated African Graveyard in Rupert’s Valley, St Helena

Andrew Pearson, Ben Jeffs, Annsofie Witkin & Helen MacQuarrie

Britain’s abolition of the slave trade in 1807 did not end the traffic of human beings across the Atlantic. Indeed, for many decades to come, hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans continued to be shipped into slavery. From 1840 to 1872 the remote South Atlantic island of St Helena played a pivotal role in Britain’s efforts to suppress the slave trade, and over this time it received over 25,000 ‘liberated Africans’, taken from slave ships by Royal Navy patrols. Conditions aboard the slavers were appalling, and many did not survive the journey. Rupert’s Valley therefore became a graveyard to many thousands of Africans – ‘a valley of dry bones’ in the words of a visiting missionary.

The Archaeology of English Battlefields

Conflict in the pre-industrial landscape

by Glenn Foard and Richard Morris

Warfare looms large in the history of every nation – every country has its Battle of Hastings or Waterloo – yet it is surprisingly difficult to identify battle sites in the landscape. Battlefield archaeology is one of the newest areas of archaeological investigation, originating in work at the Little Bighorn (USA) in 1984.

The New Antiquarians

50 years of archaeological research in Wessex

Edited by Rowan Whimster

For many people, Wessex means Stonehenge, Avebury and the other iconic monuments of prehistory. In reality its chalkland landscapes have played host to a far longer and richer sequence of communities – from Palaeolithic hunters to Iron Age farmers and Roman citizens; from Anglo-Saxon settlers and medieval merchants to the navvies who built the Kennet & Avon Canal and the Australian soldiers who trained for the trenches of the First World War.

Renewed Life for Scottish Castles

by Richard Fawcett and Allan Rutherford

Castles, both ruined and occupied, are amongst the most deeply evocative buildings in the Scottish landscape. This book considers the history of the conservation and restoration of a number of those buildings against the background of what the idea of the castle has meant to Scots over the centuries.

Mesolithic Occupation at Bouldnor Cliff

and the Submerged Prehistoric Landscapes of the Solent

Edited by Garry Momber, David Tomalin, Rob Scaife, Julie Satchell and Jan Gillespie

At the start of the Mesolithic period, some 8000 years ago, sea levels in the North Sea and the English Channel were some 30 to 40m lower than those of today – Britain was a peninsula of northern Europe.

The later Anglo-Saxon settlement at Bishopstone

A downland manor in the making

by Gabor Thomas

Well known for the Early Anglo-Saxon settlement previously excavated on Rookery Hill and its impressive pre-Conquest church, Bishopstone has entered archaeological orthodoxy as a classic example of a ‘Middle Saxon Shift’.

Finds From the Frontier

Material culture in the 4th–5th centuries

edited by Rob Collins and Lindsay Allason-Jones

Finds from the Frontier brings together papers given at a conference held at Newcastle upon Tyne in 2008. Its aim is to elucidate the life of the 4th-century limitanei of Britain through their material culture. The papers consider whether the excavated artefacts justify the traditional implication that the period is one of declining standards and largely come to the conclusion that, on the contrary, the period was rich in artefacts that have much to tell us about the late frontier.

Where Rivers Meet

The archaeology of Catholme and the Trent-Tame confluence

Simon Buteux and Henry Chapman

This book is the story of an area of landscape in the English Midlands from earliest prehistory to around AD 900. Although it looks like a typical rural landscape, archaeological research, much of it in advance of quarrying, has revealed that this area has a long and remarkable history of occupation stretching back to the Ice Age.

Europe’s Lost World

The rediscovery of Doggerland

by Vincent Gaffney, Simon Fitch & David Smith

Winner of the 2010 Best Archaeological Book award

This book, which examines climate change in the past, will appeal to anyone with an interest in the history of the North Sea Basin, from archaeologists, geomorphologists and climatologists, to the interested public.

Laying the Foundations

A history and archaeology of the Trent Valley sand and gravel industry

by Tim Cooper

The aggregates industry is perhaps the quintessential industry of the 20th century, quite literally shaping our world, but its history and archaeology have arguably been neglected. In this ground-breaking new book, the author Tim Cooper attempts to redress the balance with an in-depth but accessible study of the sand and gravel industry of the Trent Valley in the English Midlands.

Lepers Outside the Gate

‘Lepers Outside the Gate’: Excavations at the cemetery of the Hospital of St James and St Mary Magdalene, Chichester, 1986–87 and 1993

edited by John Magilton, Frances Lee and Anthea Boylston

This report, which forms vol 10 in the Chichester Excavations series, describes and discusses the excavation in 1986–87 and 1993 of almost 400 skeletons from the cemetery of the Hospital of St James and St Mary Magdalene just outside Chichester, West Sussex. Founded as a leper hospital for men in the 12th century, this institution admitted women and children towards the end of the Middle Ages and survived the Reformation by becoming an almshouse for the sick poor.

Continental and Mediterranean Imports to Atlantic Britain and Ireland, AD 400–800

by Ewan Campbell

From the 5th to 8th centuries AD there was a flourishing trade network linking the Atlantic coasts of Britain and Ireland to the Mediterranean and north-west Europe, bringing imported pottery and glass as well as new ideas from these areas.

Londinium and Beyond

Essays on Roman London and its hinterland for Harvey Sheldon

edited by John Clark, Jonathan Cotton, Jenny Hall, Roz Sherris and Hedley Swain

This exciting volume pays tribute to the work of the archaeologist Harvey Sheldon, who has been involved in the archaeology of London for over four decades.

Interrupting the Pots

Excavation of Cleatham Anglo-Saxon Cemetery

by Kevin Leahy

The Cleatham cemetery in North Lincolnshire is, with over 1200 cremations and 62 burials, England’s third largest Anglo-Saxon cemetery. It was in use throughout the early Anglo-Saxon period from the mid-5th century to the late 7th century.

Sutton Common

The excavation of an Iron Age ‘marsh-fort’

Edited by Robert Van de Noort, Henry P Chapman and John R Collis

RR154 cover Sutton Common in South Yorkshire is one of the best-known Iron Age multivallate sites in lowland Britain. This volume describes the results of the large-scale excavations undertaken here between 1998 and 2003, which have provided unparalleled insights into the function and meaning of this 4th-century BC ‘marsh-fort’.

Managing the Marine Cultural Heritage

Defining, accessing and managing the resource

edited by J Satchell & P Palma

Recent decades have witnessed an expansion of archaeological activity under water and in the coastal zone. There has also been a realisation of the threats to this material from human and natural action.

Landscape, Community and Colonisation

The North Somerset Levels during the 1st to 2nd millennia AD

by Stephen Rippon

This innovative study examines the changing ways that human communities chose to exploit, modify and ultimately transform their environment over two millennia.

An Atlas of Roman Rural Settlement in England

by Jeremy Taylor

This publication will present the major findings of a project on the characterisation, mapping and assessment of late prehistoric and Roman rural settlement.

Houses and the Hearth Tax

The later Stuart house and society

edited by PS Barnwell & Malcolm Airs

The Hearth Tax (1662–89) is the only national listing of people between the medieval poll taxes and the 19th century census returns. It was a property tax, assumed to approximate to the householders’ wealth, measured by the number of their fireplaces.

Prehistoric Coastal Communities

The Mesolithic of western Britain

edited by Martin Bell

This volume provides ground-breaking new evidence about prehistoric life in Britain – focusing on the little studied communities of the South West and Wales. New evidence from these intertidal and coastal zones now allows a reassessment of Mesolithic people and their settlements, as well as providing valuable case studies from nationally important Bronze Age sites.

Lost Farmsteads

Deserted rural settlements in Wales

edited by Kathryn Roberts

Much of the upland and marginal landscapes of Wales are characterised by an abundance of abandoned houses and farmsteads. These remains are the tangible evidence that for many hundreds of years successive communities occupied and exploited rural areas that are now largely depopulated.

War Art

Murals and graffiti – military life, power and subversion

by Wayne Cocroft, Danielle Devlin, John Schofield and Roger JC Thomas

This book presents in accessible and visual form the diversity and significance of modern military wall art, largely in Britain, but set within its wider geographical and historical context.

Roman Droitwich

Dodderhill fort, Bays Meadow villa, and roadside settlement

by Derek Hurst

This volume covers three major sites in Roman Droitwich (Salinae). The full extent and character of the Neronian fort on Dodderhill are explained, and the remains of the large and spectacular villa at Bays Meadow are also revealed.

Cloth and Clothing in Early Anglo-Saxon England

AD 450–700

by Penelope Walton Rogers

This archaeological study of textiles and costume considers all aspects of Early Anglo-Saxon clothing - how textiles were made in the Early Anglo-Saxon settlements, how the cloth was fashioned into garments, and the nature of the clasps and jewellery with which the clothes were worn.

Beaches, Fields, Streets, and Hills

The anti-invasion landscapes of England, 1940

by William Foot with a foreword by Professor Richard Holmes

RR144 Beaches This book presents the results of a two-year project funded by English Heritage to examine the 1940/41 anti-invasion landscapes of England.

Search