Product Description
This volume celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Society for Medieval Archaeology (established in 1957), presenting reflections on the history, development and future prospects of the discipline. The papers are drawn from a series of conferences and workshops that took place in 2007-2008, in addition to a number of contributions that were commissioned especially for the volume. They range from personal commentaries on the history of the Society and the growth of the subject, to historiographical, regional and thematic overviews of major trends in the evolution and current practice of medieval archaeology in Britain. Critical overviews are presented of the archaeology of medieval landscapes, buildings and material culture; new developments in the scientific study of medieval health, diet and materials; and innovations in social approaches to medieval archaeology. A series of papers on southern Europe provide a comparative perspective, featuring overviews on medieval archaeology in Italy, Spain and southeastern Europe. ... Read more

Product Description
Fieldwork and Footnotes discusses general themes within the history of anthropology in Europe and considers recent debates in the history of science on the construction of knowledge. Questioning whether it is possible to identify distinct anthropological traditions within European anthropology, it includes contributions on ethnography and ethnology in Europe, the United States, and Mexico.

Fieldwork and Footnotes represents current anthropological research in a variety of countries including Germany, Poland, Sweden, Slovenia and Spain. ... Read more

Product Description
What do Europeans have in common apart from the rights and duties deriving from the treaties? Is there such a thing as 'Europeanness' in the sense of a common identity? Can rights serve as a unifying factor in the new EU of 27 member states? And what are the sources of human identity as such? This book addresses these topical issues through a combination of theoretical and philo-sophical enquiry and empirical analysis. The nature of Political Man is investigated, as well as the sources of identity. The author argues in favour of a broad conception of political rationality and develops a new individualistic approach to the study of identity and culture summarised in the formulation 'culture is choice - and choice is culture'. The notion that culture and identity are holistic phenomena, something that citizens have to accept as a kind of destiny, is challenged, because with the exception of gender, identity and culture are very much chosen. While the existing literature tends to define culture in terms of customs and habits, the author argues that the emphasis ought to be shifted towards subjective meanings and tastes (broadly defined). But choice is also culture in the sense that humans are cultural beings with cultural needs and the simplistic notions of rational choice and globalisation, which assume that human beings are utility maximisers in a narrow, materialistic sense, must therefore be abandoned. From this perspective European identity suddenly looks quite solid. It is based on a variety of sources of identity, and some of the strongest sources of identity are immaterial and cultural. There is such a thing as a cultural community of distance; a sharing of outlook, memories and not least aesthetic experiences. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (2)

States of Grace
This is a highly original and well-researched account of the recent problems of immigration in Italy and in Western Europe more generally. Carter's penetrating analysis reveals the deeply conflictual relationship between Italian culture, the Italian Left, and African immigrants.

Carter's Invisible Immigrants
An endorsement on the back cover of STATES OF GRACE describes it as "perhaps the first... in a new phase of anthropological research carried out on African migrants in European cities." This fact alone should make Carter's study inherently valuable. But readers looking for a window into the world of his ostensible subjects--the Senegalese of Turin--may come away disappointed. Only one of the book's seven chapters concentrates on these immigrants in any depth; the remaining six offer up disquisitions on Italian history and society, criminality and marginality, and the writings of Antonio Gramsci. The Senegalese themselves virtually disappear from view, obscured in a haze of social theory.

To his credit, Carter's analysis of Italy and things Italian is well researched and persuasive. I especially enjoyed the parallels he draws between stereotyped images of the Italian south and stereotypes of Africa. He quotes the saying "Africa begins at Rome" to illustrate northern Italian prejudices. But if Africa begins at Rome where Carter's study is concerned, it pretty much ends at Palermo; anything beyond that is given rather short shrift.

This problem would be more tolerable if the text itself weren't marred all too often by errors of style and syntax. Otherwise authoritative declarations are frequently undermined by these mistakes. Consider this one: "The economic, social, and political problems of 'over there'--that is, some imagined space beyond the West--is now 'over here,' a part of the very rhythm of life in Western democracies." A fine premise, but lacking subject-verb agreement, and unfortunately this sentence is no exception. Another example: "The growth of Mouridism is somewhat dependent on the dynamic increase in its numbers." Well, yes, that's why it's called "growth." I think ultimate blame here lies not with Carter but with his editors at the University of Minnesota Press, who apparently couldn't be bothered to examine his dissertation manuscript closely enough to catch the most basic faults. One wonders how many other, more substantial errors got past them.

Still, STATES OF GRACE is a noteworthy and ambitious study that should interest scholars of Italian social history, popular media, and Gramsci. Those of us hoping for enlightenment on a particular immigrant community, or for insight into the slippery notion called "transnationalism," would be better served elsewhere. No doubt someday we shall be. ... Read more

Product Description
In Alcohol, Gender and Culture, the contributors show how different groups define the proper use of alcohol, how state policies may affect drinking behavior, as well as how beverages and comestibles are viewed in relation to each other. The study further demonstrates how the way one drinks, with whom, and where influences not only their perceptions of alcoholic substances, but also how social relations are experienced. Incorporating material from Greece, Spain, France, Hungary, Sweden and Ireland, Alcohol, Gender and Culture shows how the social construction of drinking is a valuable analytical tool for the study of different socio-cultural groups. ... Read more

Product Description
Tracing the process from the fieldwork to the analysis of results, this book demonstrates how the ethnographer arrives at an understanding not only of `culture' and `society', but also of the ways in which cultures and societies evolve. ... Read more

Product Description
Volume V in a series of inventories of 'First Neolithic Sites' in Europe. The series will consist of I) Bulgaria, II) Romania, III) Eastern Hungary, IV) Eastern Slovakia, V) Southeastern Poland. The main themes of each volume will be: 1) General information about cultural evolution at the onset of the Neolithic, 2) Additional data on cultural and economic problems specific for a given region, 3) A list of radiometric dates, 4) A catalogue of sites in alphabetical order. Contents of volume V: 1) Introduction; 2) Linear Pottery Culture in Southeastern Poland; 3) Settlement of earliest farming communities; 4) Funerary rite of the Linear Pottery Culture; 5) Final remarks; 6) Catalogue of Linear Pottery Culture sites in Southeastern Poland. ... Read more

Product Description
The first in a series of five volumes of inventories of 'First Neolithic Sites' in Europe. The series will consist of I) Bulgaria, II) Romania, III) Eastern Hungary, IV) Eastern Slovakia, V) Southeastern Poland. The main themes of each volume will be: 1) General information about cultural evolution at the onset of the Neolithic, 2) Additional data on cultural and economic problems specific for a given region, 3) A list of radiometric dates, 4) A catalogue of sites in alphabetical order. Contents of volume I: 1) Early Neolithic Cultures on the territory of Bulgaria (Yavor D. Boyadzhiev); 2) Lithic production of the earliest Neolithic on the territory of Bulgaria (Ivan Gatsov and Petranka Nedelcheva); 3) Flint raw materials in Bulgaria (Chavdar Nachev); 4) Plant economy and vegetation during the Early Neolithic of Bulgaria (Elena Marinova); 5) Catalogue of the Early Neolithic settlements on the territory of Bulgaria (Ekaterina Stamboliyska and Zhivko Uzunov). ... Read more

Product Description
This study presents a detailed comparison of cultural values and attitudes in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. It is based on survey data covering the period from the 1970s to 2003 but focusing especially on the European Values Study (EVS) as fielded in the two parts of Ireland in 1999-2000. The study confirms the deep divisions in identity and political allegiance that separate the Catholic and Protestant communities in Northern Ireland. But it also shows that on many issues, Protestants and Catholics on the island of Ireland are culturally more similar to each other than to any other national population in Europe, including Britain. ... Read more

Product Description
This book explores the construction of the Jew s physical and ontological body in Russian culture as represented in literature, film, and non-literary texts from the 1880s to the present. With the rise of the dominance of biological and racialist discourse in the 1880s, the depiction of Jewish characters in Russian literary and cultural productions underwent a significant change, as these cultural practices recast the Jew not only as an archetypal exotic and religious or class Other (as in Romanticism and realist writing), but as a biological Other whose acts, deeds, and thoughts were determined by racial differences. This Jew allegedly had physical and psychological characteristics that were genetically determined and that could not be changed by education, acculturation, conversion to Christianity, or change of social status. This stereotype has become a stable archetype that continues to operate in contemporary Russian society and culture. ... Read more

Product Description
Classical archaeology probably enjoys a wider appeal than any other branch of classical or archaeological studies. As an intellectual and academic discipline, however, its esteem has not matched its popularity. Here, Anthony Snodgrass argues that classical archaeology has a rare potential in the whole field of the study of the past to make innovative discoveries and apply modern approaches by widening the aims of the discipline. ... Read more

Product Description
Offering a social archaeology of "lesser monastic sites", this book incorporates a description and analysis of excavated remains and extant structures, a review of the relationship between historical and archaeological enquiry and a theoretical investigation of the nature of material culture and religious belief. Its main focus is on the social and economic functions defined spatially within sites and evidence is drawn from a wide range of sources: topographical setting and landscape management; structural evidence from excavated deposits and standing fabric; iconography; environmental evidence and human remains from excavated cemetaries. With particular emphasis on the transmission of religious ideas across medieval Europe, it deals with different monument types (including charitable establishments, military institutions and eremetic environments), looking at their corresponding differences in religious vocation and settlement function. Within a challenging framework, Robertson Gilchrist's approach brings to light information on a traditionally neglected area of medieval monastic history. ... Read more

Product Description
The aim of this volume is to explore Anglo-Saxon perceptions of form and order in their different manifestations, through two main strands texts of all kinds, and art, architecture and archaeology. Contributors come from many different specialisms, enabling wide-ranging discussion, as well contributions from other Insular cultures and a continental European perspective. ... Read more

Product Description
This monograph discusses two burial sites of the 5th to the 8th centuries AD excavated by Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service near Ipswich at Boss Hall Industrial Estate in 1990 and 2001, and at St Stephen's Lane and Buttermarket in advance of redevelopment in 1987?88. Further burials found at Elm Street and Foundation Street are published in the appendix. The report is in three main parts. The first two are conventionally structured reports on the cemeteries including a summary of the excavation, the site sequence, full grave catalogues, scientific and technical analyses, and discussions of chronology, material culture, cultural practice and demography. The discussion on the dating of the St Stephen's Lane/Buttermarket graves takes advantage of the latest developments in high-precision radiocarbon dating. The final section is a synthetic discussion which takes a comparative view and establishes the local, regional and wider context of the sites. ... Read more

Product Description
Archaeological investigations at seven sites within the Finsbury Square area have revealed important evidence for the medieval and post-medieval development of this former marshy area north of the city walls. At 127-139 Finsbury Pavement, quarry pits may relate to the development of the 12th- to early 13th-century Finsbury manor house, documented from 1272. Features identified within the manor include a gravel courtyard and the fragmentary remains of a building with masonry foundations. A moat existed to the east of the manor house by the 14th/15th centuries, but was backfilled by the end of the 17th century and then built over. Beyond the manor, widespread quarrying and brick manufacturing occurred during the later 15th century. At 27-30 Finsbury Square, large quantities of leather waste may have been dumped in the 15th and 16th centuries from nearby workshops. Quarrying continued on several sites into the late 16th century. A gravel surface and a boundary wall at the Honourable Artillery Company site represent the enclosure of the area to the north of the manor as the New Artillery Ground in the 1640s. A brick flue and a saw pit at 25-32 Chiswell Street reflect the increasingly industrial nature of the area to the west of the New Artillery Ground during the 18th and 19th centuries which is indicated on contempoary maps. ... Read more

Product Description
The potential of environmental evidence in the archaeological record for investigating the links between towns and their rural hinterlands is the focus of this volume. Most papers use evidence from Roman and Medieval Britain but there are also case studies from Paris, medieval Holland, and Oslo. Essential reading for specialists, this book also amply demonstrates the relevance of environmental evidence to central theoretical debates in historic archaeology. Contributors include: E Schia (Urban Oslo and its relation to rural production in the hinterland: An archaeological view); R I Macphail (The reworking of urban stratigraphy by human and natural processes); M Hill (Insect assemblages as evidence for past woodlands around York); H Kenward & E Allison (Rural origins of the urban insect fauna); H van Haaster (Plant resources and environment in late medieval Lübeck); M Maltby (The meat supply in Roman Dorchester and Winchester); Bob Wilson (Mortality patterns, animal husbandry and marketing in and around medieval and post-medieval Oxford); B Noddle (The under-rated goat); D Brothwell (On the possibility of urban-rural contrasts in human population palaeobiology); P Ciezar et al (In Suburbano: New data on the immediate surroundings of Roman and early medieval Paris); W Groenman van Waateringe (The menu of different classes in Dutch medieval society). 176p with fig & illus. (Oxbow Monograph 47, 1995) ... Read more

Product Description
The Association's 1998 conference was focused on Windsor. The castle and College of St George, with its chapel, were the main themes. The architectural papers, however, extended to the parish church at Shottesbrooke, Reading Abbey and Eton College: this volume contains most of the papers given at the conference. Following an introduction to Windsor in the context of medieval Berkshire, there are chapters considering the work of Henry III, the remarkable buildings of Edward III, and the restoration after the tragic fire of 1992. Other chapters consider decorative elements in the chapel and the College, from floor-tiles in the Aerary to Henry III's wall-paintings in the Lower Ward. The book throws new light on many aspects of the castle and the College, and confirms, surely, Matthew Paris's view that there was 'no more splendid a castle in all of Europe'. ... Read more