Reviewed by Deirdre O'Sullivan in Medieval Archaeology 52 (2008)
'The report is well presented, with helpful use of colour to phase the excavation plans. The diagrams of successive land-use and ownership usefully represent a complex narrative, and offer a good framework for analysing such processes elsewhere'. 'The integration between documentary and physical evidence could probably have been dealt with a bit more concisely, but the overall approach has led to a useful synthesis, worth imitating in other urban contexts'.
Reviewed by Zoe Devlin in Antiquity (December 2008)
'The archaeology of East Anglia has been very well-served over the last thirty years or so with good quality, detailed publications in the East Anglian Archaeology series. ...It is now well over a decade since the final part of the Spong Hill cemetery catalogue was published, but the contents of the present volume indicate the delay was worthwhile. The authors have been able to draw upon other research based upon the original site reports and subsequent finds analysis ...' and the result is '...therefore more sophisticated and accurate than it might have been if incorporated into the original site reports'. 'The authors have succeeded in producing an excellent synthesis of the material ... which will lay the groundwork for future discussions.'
Reviewed for Essex Archaeology and History (2008) by Jennifer Ward.
‘This report makes a substantial contribution to our knowledge of south-east Essex’ and provides ‘a deeper understanding and appreciation of the site’.
Reviewed by Andrew Reynolds for Medieval Archaeology (51, 2007)
‘This is a key site both regionally and nationally, excavated to modern standards. The quality of the text and illustrations is good ... Overall, this is excellent value in view of the cover price, it is important for those working on early Anglo-Saxon burial in a regional context, and it forms a most valuable addition to the growing number of well-recorded and fully published late Anglo-Saxon settlement sites.'
Reviewed online by Patrick Clay for the Prehistoric Society.
The authors are congratulated for ‘adding yet another high quality publication to the great number they have produced for this fascinating area of prehistoric Britain’.
‘As usual the results are very well presented and the information is very well integrated and illustrated. What is particularly impressive about this report, as one expects from these two authors, is the integration of the geomorphology and the archaeology … the relationship is always apparent and the dynamics of how the landscape was exploited and changed over time is clearly interpreted. While I am often in favour of synthetic reports, in this case, with a wide range of specialist contributions which all contribute to the holistic story, it is good to see that the detailed specialist reports are all included in printed format’.
Reviewed online by Trevor Ashwin for the Prehistoric Society.
‘The report’s structure is innovative, and offers a contribution in its own right to ongoing discussion about how we write and present field reports. Evans and his colleagues present familiar subject matter in unfamiliar and stimulating contexts … Chapter 3 presents the palaeoenvironmental evidence, and the decision to reverse the usual system of considering ecofacts after artefacts is vindicated by its synthetic strength.’ Ashwin also observes ‘how little [the report] invokes the documented events of the period of the Roman conquest, depending instead on exhaustive interrogation of the available archaeological resource in all its forms … Future archaeological research into the Iron Age and conquest period in East Anglia would do well to consider the advantages of the rigorously questioning approach to archaeological evidence that is the hallmark of this report.’
Reviewed in Heraldisk Tidsskrift 9 (2000–04).
The author’s ‘outstanding drawings’, ‘systematic description by arms’ and ‘alphabetic index of the owners’ are complimented and the reviewer concludes by saying ‘This work brought Steven Ashley the English Heraldry Society’s Diploma in Heraldry — a well deserved acknowledgement of an exemplary work within a neglected field — applied heraldry’.
Reviewed by Martin Carver for Antiquaries Journal 83 (2003).
Carver debates the authors’ thesis that the wide range of burial rites evident at the site owes more to ritual choice than to social and political change but says `it needs no emphasis that Snape and Sutton Hoo do not just complement each other: they are in dialogue. The same burial rites occur at both, but Snape reports on a longer experience and broader community: a different window on a shared world’. He also notes that `while Sutton Hoo (drafted 1997) is still in press, the Snape publication has appeared with admirable expedition’ and is `attractively produced, illustrated and edited.’ He concludes by saying that the report, `full of good archaeology and interesting ideas, will be essential reading for everyone interested in the Anglo-Saxons, East Anglia and Sutton Hoo.’
Reviewed in Medieval Archaeology 45 (2001) by Helen Geake.
The author provides a `thorough concluding chapter’ in which `It is convincingly argued that 7th-century changes in burial practice came about from changes in society which accompanied the arrival of Christianity, rather than through Christian requirements’. `Penn, attractively, does not restrict himself to uncontentious conclusions. He suggests, for example, two influences behind the later shift to churchyard burial’ and the reviewer feels that `such thoughts are refreshing’.
Despite `some minor irritations’ such as the delay between completion of the report and its publication, the reviewer concludes that `Ken Penn and EAA deserve congratulations for this scholarly, readable and excellent-value report’.
Reviewed by Peter Drewett for Essex Archaeol. Hist. 32 (2001)
`Now at last we have a fuller story of this classic site in its wider context published in this handsomely produced 195-page monograph. Written by Nigel Brown with fourteen specialist contributors it continues the high standards we have come to expect from the Heritage Conservation Branch of Essex County Council’s EAA volumes.’
`Although at first one may skim over the detailed descriptions and drawings of 185 Ardleigh style pots ... these forty-one pages put this volume alongside David Clarke’s Beaker Pottery and Ian Longworth’s Collared Urns as a work of reference which will stand the test of time.’
`This is a first-rate data report, made more by an informed and up-to-date discussion bringing in current theory but being led by the data recovered. Much is hung on the excellent illustrations ... Although the future of archaeological publication is in a state of flux this is a model to be used until we are certain new approaches to publication and technologies can truly deliver.’
Reviewed by Fred Hammerton in the Essex Chronicle (April 2004).
‘The life and times of our Essex ancestors over 700 years ago have been revealed in a remarkable book on a rare medieval moated settlement complete with windmill … The 85-page report, part of the East Anglian Archaeology series, will be seen throughout the world … The book, even though written for experts, is a must for anyone interested in Essex history.’
Reviewed by Michael Thompson in Medieval Archaeology 42 (1998).
Despite one or two misapprehensions about the scope of this report and its terminology, the comments are generally favourable: `As a reference compilation it is an excellent piece of work but resource assessment is surely a little pretentious: excavated sites by their nature are an ex-resource’. The review concludes: `One could go on and on but it is best left to readers to explore their own particular interests in this admirable survey’.
Mentioned in the editorial for Antiquity 74(285) (Sept. 2000) which devoted quite a bit of space to `the extraordinary level of activity by English Heritage and other outfits throughout the country ... to review policy, rewrite the priorities for the historic environment and consult with all and sundry ...’. The tone of the piece is positive and the new initiatives are welcomed: `The fact that `Research’ is so prominent will be a positive sign for many archaeologists, because archaeological work has for too long been overly responsive to developer needs, rather than the needs of the discipline and its quest for knowledge’.
`As an update and crib of a region’s archaeology, these Frameworks are a useful and timely contribution, but will they be read by the academic archaeologists who, in one way or another, should be amongst the shakers and movers of change in archaeological research direction in the future?’
Reviewed by Trevor Ashwin in Essex Archaeol. Hist. 30 (1999).
The report is described as `a traditional monograph report’ in which `many of the figures themselves are excellent’ but the point is made that `It is not always easy for the reader to extract information from this densely-written account’.
The review identifies the Detailed Interpretation chapter as `The boldest section of the monograph – and that most likely to be queried by critical readers’, because while `The author’s approach offers a renewed challenge to excavators to engage as fully as possible with the valuable evidence which post-holes, gullies and other structural features provide, ... the resulting analysis surely pushes the spatial interpretation of post-holes from a plough-truncated rural site to the absolute limits of what is possible, and probably sometimes beyond them’. Ashwin recognises that `It is often difficult to decide how – or if – an archaeological field report should present more developed or speculative interpretations’ and observes that in this case, even if the emphasis on them is `disproportionate’, `tenuous hypotheses’ are not presented as factual evidence in the site description but are confined to the relevant chapter.
The review concludes `Despite the qualms which some readers may feel, this is an interesting case-study of an imaginative and ruthless approach to spatial and structural analysis. It may well stimulate and contribute to important future debate of the issues involved. Given the significance of the site, and the time which has elapsed ... it has surely been right for Essex CC to proceed to publish the monograph in its present form without further ado’.
Reviewed by Susan Oosthuizen in Landscape History 21 (1999).
The report is described as `at once fascinating and frustrating ... fascinating for the wealth of archaeological and documentary evidence which it provides ... frustrating because it is not so much a landscape history as a – wonderful, if parochial – description.’
Reviewed by Owen Bedwin in Essex Archaeol. Hist. 30 (1999).
The reviewer provides a very readable account of the report’s contents and the significance of the site, which should encourage potential users to explore it.
The review concludes: `This report is well-constructed, with the (unavoidable) detail of the dating evidence for the various phases ... clearly laid out. The discussion sets the development of the Roman landscape into the broader context of what is known elsewhere in mid-Essex’ ... `A minor but important point is the excellent quality of the finds reports and the illustrations which accompany them’. `The publication of this book, 17 years after the fieldwork ended, is something of a tribute to the tenacity of the author and of the county council’s Archaeology Section’.
Reviewed by A.E. Brown in Landscape History 20 (1999).
`The volume is well produced and the diagrams of fieldwalking results very effective ... As it stands, the excavation report has the air of something tagged on to the fieldwalking survey. It might have been better to put the concluding remarks about Barton Bendish after it and try to integrate the two investigations’.
The reviewer concludes: `There is considerable discussion of techniques and the interpretation of the results of fieldwalking which is of wider significance generally’.
Reviewed by Anthony Sinclair in Antiquity 72 (275) March 1998.
`Barton Bendish and Caldecote is an example of the high standard of landscape fieldwork undertaken in co-ordination with Norfork Archaeological Unit (Norwich, UK). The two intensive, relatively small-scale field surveys (Barton Bendish and Caldecote) give accurate details of fieldwork method and intensity and the chronological distribution of finds on a clearly articulated series of maps. In the case of Barton Bendish these are in turn integrated (for the later periods) with historical records. The illustrations are to be commended for their clear presentation of varying intensities of human activity'.
Comment by Stephen Rippon in Landscape History 20 (1999).
`All together, this report illustrates the complex landscape history of gravel terraces in lowland Britain’.
Reviewed by Robert Van de Noort in Archaeological Journal 154, 312–3 (1997).
`The implicit rate of erosion is of the order of a hundred years of settlement per annum. Once digested, this one sentence (on p. 177) sums up more than any other argument, illustration or statistic the incredible destruction of landscape and its archaeology that takes place in the wetlands of the East Anglian Fens, and undoubtedly similar landscapes elsewhere. Frances Healey draws this conclusion by comparing the discoveries made by, among others, Frank Curtis in the 1960s and Tony Gregory in the 1970s with the more recent results from the Fenland Survey (Silvester 1991). In the 1960s, the frequency of new (surface) finds was already moving from bronze age material to Beaker ware, while in the 1980s, during the Fenland Survey, material of earlier neolithic and mesolithic sites dominated the assemblage.
Frank Curtis in particular was active in the right place at the right time, that is to say when new drainage works were undertaken which involved not only large scale excavation, but also caused acceleration of peat desiccation and wastage. His track record as finder is undoubtedly the envy of many professional field archaeologists. However, being neither trained nor adequately equipped, a considerable undertaking was necessary to provenance the many finds and tie this with the appropriate but dispersed information. The reproduction of three field-based sketch maps (pp. 12–16) illustrates what this task must have involved.
The volume consists primarily of a descriptive gazetteer of finds from the Wissey Embayment made up to 1987, excluding Fenland Survey data, and includes mesolithic to bronze age material. Following an introduction and discussion of the environmental setting, the gazetteer discusses settlements, burials, metalwork, flint, pottery, worked bone, antler and wood, skeletal material and some environmental work. It is lavishly illustrated, contains several specialist contributions, and the commentaries and conclusions show an awareness of current theoretical debate without losing anything of the no-nonsense style. A bibliography and index, plus the full data and appendices on fourteen microfiches complete the volume. Healey concludes that the pattern of occupation of the Wissey Embayment is closely associated with environmental change and particularly sea-level change. This may be too 'environmentally deterministic' for some, but the mass of data gathered in this volume and others in the Fenland Project series provides ample evidence for the effect of the various marine transgressions and regressions on life in the past.
Of course, the significance of this volume must be sought above and beyond its own remit of documentation and synthesis of the data from this region. It is mainly found in the provision of an invaluable long-term perspective on one of the largest-scale field projects ever undertaken in the U.K. (Hall and Coles 1994), but it should also remind us of the importance of co-operation with non-professional colleagues. In short, this book is strongly recommended'.
Reviewed — along with the BM report Excavations at Stonea, Cambs — by Simon Esmonde Cleary in Britannia 30 (1999).
`The two monographs ... both make substantial efforts to engage with the problems of how we should think about the fenlands’. Orton Hall Farm was `a difficult one to excavate, consisting largely of `negative’ features not easy to periodise’ but the site narrative `convinces that the author has command of the evidence’. The reviewer concludes `Orton Hall Farm adds to the growing list of sites in East Anglia where this material [Anglo-Saxon] is found in association with what I have termed above ultimate Romano-British, and the relationship between the two cultures in this region will need re-thinking, but this site suggests important differences in building and artefact types, scale of settlement and probably economic configuration between the two periods, so change will have to be confronted as well as continuity. In sum, these two high-standard reports mark an important advance in our perceptions of this enigmatic but fascinating region’.
Reviewed by Alison Taylor in Proc. Cambridge Antiq. Soc. 86 (1997).
`This excavation by the Nene Valley Research Committee in the early days of Peterborough New Town has long been recognised as the site which produced important new evidence for the crucial years spanning late Roman and very early Anglo-Saxon settlements, and this immensely detailed report does full justice to this and other significant aspects of the work that was carried out at that time.
The site consisted of a fully working farmstead which included 4 aisled barns, one very large rectangular building, a mill-house, 5 driers, and assorted features interpreted as furnaces, hearths and ovens. It was in use from the 1st century AD, with many of the structures belonging in the very late 4th century. Then, without any breaks, the still-functioning farm and its buildings were used by people using Anglo-Saxon pottery, some of which was even made in Roman styles, as if to satisfy traditional requirements for equipment such as mortaria. Subsequently there were changes to the whole layout of the farmstead. Because of the quantities of residual Roman pottery on the site it was not always easy to disentangle later features, but it seems that at least one, and possibly three, rectangular houses, one sunken- floored building, a granary, hearths (one of which may have been used for smithing), and various fences definitely belonged in this phase, which ended in the early 6th century. The site was subsequently used for open fields, and ridge and furrow survived.
There are several useful discussions within the publication which help our understanding of similar issues elsewhere. These include the long use of some pots in a rural context (up to 50 years, sometimes followed by re-use of broken or adapted sherds in the Anglo-Saxon period), cattle management and brewing on the late Roman farm, and the use of Car Dyke as the boundary to an Imperial estate’.
Reviewed by Nicholas Stoodley in Medieval Archaeology 42 (1998).
The report is praised for the reproductions of the photographs, the `excellent’ illustrations and the `logically laid out’ catalogue. Stoodley observes that `... with this catalogue a very considerable amount of data has been made available.... is it not time to put such catalogues on to CD ROM thus giving more flexible and powerful ways to search the data?’ The review concludes `Complaints could be voiced about the lack of interpretation and integration with previous reports but this was not the aim, rather it is to the authors’ credit that they have succeeded in bringing this final catalogue to publication and disseminating the evidence for what is still a very important cemetery. One waits with anticipation the publication of the interpretive volume’.
Reviewed by Michael Heyworth in British Archaeological News 7(6) 1992
`Two of the most recent reports to be published in East Anglian Archaeology are Excavations in Thetford, 1980-1982, Fison Way by the late Tony Gregory, and The Iron Age forts of Norfolk by John Davies, Tony Gregory et al. Both volumes are a sad reminder of the untimely death of Tony Gregory, and the Thetford volume contains an appreciation of his work by Andrew Rogerson together with a full- page photograph of Tony in characteristic pose with his shirt open to the waist. The Fison Way excavation was largely undertaken using youngsters employed on the Youth Opportunity programme and the fact that such remarkable results were achieved bestows great credit on Tony's leadership qualities and his skill as an excavator.
The first volume of the Fison Way report contains the description of the largely Iron Age and Early Roman site and the finds that came from it (including some earlier prehistoric material), together with sections on the history of the site and a final discussion and conclusion. Gregory argues that the site was an important tribal centre with a major religious and ceremonial context in which activities such as coin minting and metal-working took place, with one large building interpreted as a timber Celtic temple. The second volume contains several large figures.
The report on Iron Age forts is largely concerned with excavations at Thetford Castle, Ford Place and Tasburgh (now thought to be Late Saxon in date), together with four other sites which make up the known Iron Age forts in the county of Norfolk’.
| last updated 4 December 2008 |