Battles, Boats and Bones
Marion Ravenwood reviews ‘Battles, Boats and Bones: Archaeological Discoveries in Northern Ireland, 1987-2008,’ by Emily Murry and Paul Logue (eds). Read more
Posts from the ‘Reviews’ Category
Oct 22
Social relations in Prehistory
Marion Ravenwood reviews ‘Social Relations in Prehistory: Wessex in the First Millennium BC’ by Niall Sharples Read more
The Lovers of Pound Hill
Bear with us, dear readers, as we take you on a journey into the unknown…. Read more
The Artificial Ape – Timothy Taylor
‘The archaeological excavator’ wrote Mortimer Wheeler, ‘is not digging up things, he is digging up people.’ But what happens when we go so far back into our evolutionary past that things rarely survive? Read more
Checkered Pasts – The Lewis Chessmen Unmasked
Exhibition Review – National Museums Scotland
Few would consider the popular computer game Grand Theft Auto – notorious for its adult content and violent themes – to be a reliable witness to our daily lives. But 800 years from now, if all that survived of our modern world were scant archaeological remains and a copy of this controversial game, what conclusions would archaeologists of the future draw? Read more
Kentish Sites and Sites of Kent
Unfamiliar with the quaint customs of the south-east, when I first read the title of this monograph I assumed it had been written for the demented. Discrete enquiries subsequently revealed it’s actually based on the local saying that if you’re born to the east of the river Medway you’re a ‘Kentish Man,’ and west of the river you’re a ‘Man of Kent.’ Read more
The Iron Age Round-House
Considering their prominence in the archaeological record and the quantity of sites that have been excavated, it is surprising there has never been a book-length synthesis of Iron Age round-houses published before now. Rising admirably to the challenge, Harding has been Abercromby Professor of Prehistory at Edinburgh for the last thirty years, and here he presents a personal selection of sites drawn from this extensive experience. Read more
Field Research Procedure
There was once a time when archaeologists could rebut all criticism of their professional judgement with the simple retort: ‘the spade never lies.’ Whilst history is written by winners, archaeological excavation reveals the past as it was, unsullied by the duplicitous meaning of words. At least that was the holding line, until Philip Greigson pointed out that even if ‘the spade cannot lie, it owes this merit in part to the fact that it cannot speak.’
Dining and Dwelling
Over the last 10 years Ireland has been abuzz with archaeological activity – a positive (and now sadly missed) benefit of the ‘Celtic Tiger’ construction boom. Dining and Dwelling is the sixth monograph to be published in this series by the National Roads Authority (NRA), and it must be also be a world first in that it firmly establishes a developer, albeit a semi-state body, as the foremost publisher of a nation’s archaeological work. Read more
Unfinished Monkey Business
Given enough time, a hypothetical chimpanzee typing at random would, as part of its output, almost certainly produce all of Shakespeare’s plays. If you’ve not got that long to wait, this book is the next best thing. Immortal, and completely bananas.
