FORTHCOMING: The Romano-British Villa and Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Eccles, Kent A Summary of the Excavations by Alex Detsicas with a Consideration of the Archaeological, Historical and Linguistic Context by By Nick Stoodley and Stephen R Cosh with contributions by Jillian Hawkins and Courtnay Konshuh. Paperback; 205x290mm; 276 pages; 132 figures, 22 tables (colour throughout). Print RRP: £45.00.ISBN 9781789695878.

The Romano-British Villa and Anglo-Saxon Cemetery at Eccles, Kent presents a study of the central and lower Medway valley during the 1st millennium AD. It takes as its focus the Eccles Roman villa and Anglo-Saxon cemetery, excavated between 1962–1976 and directed by Alec Detsicas. An account of this important villa throughout its long history is outlined, and a re-assessment of the architectural evidence which Detsicas presented, with fresh interpretations, is provided. In the middle of the 7th century, a large Anglo-Saxon cemetery was established south of the villa. It started as a typical ‘Final Phase’ cemetery but continued into the late Saxon period. The evidence from the cemetery is presented as a site report, with a burial catalogue, a discussion of the grave goods and a study of the wider aspects of mortuary practice. The monograph also includes a chapter on some fragmentary Iron Age evidence and a discussion of an Anglo-Saxon timber building and its relationship to the cemetery. The evidence from the villa and Anglo-Saxon cemetery is discussed within the context of the Medway valley, which highlights the important contribution that Eccles makes to archaeological knowledge. The significance of the area is further investigated by studies devoted to the pre-English place-names of the valley and the documentary evidence of the area during the Anglo-Saxon period. The volume concludes with a general discussion, which draws together all the strands of evidence and evaluates the significance of the Medway valley during the 1st millennium AD.

About the Authors
Nick Stoodley was awarded his PhD from the University of Reading and is currently an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Winchester. His research interests concern the archaeology of early Anglo-Saxon England, with a particular interest in the region of Wessex. He has published monographs on Anglo-Saxon cemeteries and contributed papers on aspects of the period’s mortuary ritual to edited volumes. He is the lead archaeologist for the community-based Meon Valley Archaeology and Heritage Group, which is currently investigating settlement patterns in this Hampshire valley. ;

Stephen R. Cosh is an archaeological writer and illustrator specialising on the Roman period. He is the co-author of the four-volume corpus of Romano-British mosaics and has written numerous articles and specialist reports. He was awarded the degree of D Litt from the University of Reading in 2006.

Chios dicta est… et in Aegæo sita mari: Historical Archaeology and Heraldry on Chios by Ioanna N. Koukouni. Paperback; 205x290mm; 330 pages; 18 figures, 6 maps, 125 plates. 743 2021. Available both in printed and e-versions. Printed ISBN 9781789697469. £54.00 (No VAT). Epublication ISBN 9781789697476. £16.00 (Exc. VAT) Institutional Price £54.00 (Exc. UK VAT)

Historical Archaeology and Heraldry on Chios presents the results of research into the island’s medieval period, a terra incognita in the contemporary scholarly record. It is the first to be devoted to this topic in more than 100 years, following the publication of the seminal History of Chios by G. Zolotas in the 1920s. The book discusses the archaeology and history of Chios during the Byzantine and Genoese periods, focusing on Mount Amani, the region on the north-western part of the island. Harsh, remote, and poor, Mount Amani is nevertheless surprisingly rich in material for the landscape archaeologist and the student of historical topography, yet unknown in scholarly literature. Different types of evidence—both tangible and intangible—are used to discuss aspects of the local history and culture, from the evolution of the Byzantine settlement pattern, the rural economy, communications by land and sea and the chain of watchtowers, to the genealogy, the prosopography and the insignia of the local aristocracy, with many stone carvings illustrated for the first time.

About the Author
Ioanna N. Koukouni is a medieval archaeologist and expert in Cultural Heritage Digitisation, a graduate of the National & Kapodistrian University of Athens and the University of Birmingham. After holding a European research fellowship, she co-founded the Centro degli Studi sui Genovesi in Oltremare – NPO together with Professors Sandra Origone and Gabriella Airaldi, aiming to promote and disseminate research on the medieval Genoese network overseas.

St Gregory's Minster, Kirkdale, North Yorkshire: Archaeological Investigations and Historical Context by Philip Rahtz and Lorna Watts. Paperback; 205x290mm; 300pp; 140 figures, 39 tables, 21 plates. 611 2021. Available both in printed and e-versions. Printed ISBN 9781789694826. £48.00 (No VAT). Epublication ISBN 9781789694833. £16.00 (Exc. VAT) Institutional Price £48.00 (Exc. UK VAT)

St Gregory’s Minster, Kirkdale, North Yorkshire: Archaeological Investigations and Historical Context is the result of c.20 years of work on and around the Anglo-Saxon church of St Gregory’s Minster, Kirkdale, North Yorkshire. It is primarily concerned with material relating to approximately the late 8th century onwards, detailing the fabric as well as excavations around the church and in the fields immediately adjacent. A succession of three church buildings are linked to a putative focus on the north side of the church, to which, it is argued, pre-Conquest elite burials were orientated. A pre-Conquest ‘building site’ to the north of the churchyard overlay an area of earlier burials. While the building is best-known for its mid-11th century inscription, the report extends the time-period of this isolated site, particularly for the post-Roman to middle Saxon period, but also as an earlier probably religious landscape. The volume integrates archaeological, landscape, place-name and historical approaches to consider the church in its wider setting, exploring the changing character of lordship from post-Roman to Anglo-Saxon and proposing an explanation for the long use of this non-settlement locale.

About the Authors
Professor Philip Rahtz† was founder of the Department of Archaeology at the University of York, where he was primarily interested in equipping students with techniques that would enable them to be able to excavate and produce reports on all periods.

Lorna Watts has worked as a freelance archaeologist since the 1970s.

The Archaeological Activities of James Douglas in Sussex between 1809 and 1819 by Malcolm Lyne. Paperback; 148x210mm; vi+60 pages; illustrated throughout in black & white with 5 plates in colour. 350 2017 Archaeological Lives . Available both in printed and e-versions. Printed ISBN 9781784916480. £15.00 (No VAT). Epublication ISBN 9781784916497. £10.00 (Exc. VAT) Institutional Price £15.00 (Exc. UK VAT)

James Douglas (1753-1819) was a polymath, well ahead of his time in both the fields of archaeology and earth-sciences. His examinations of fossils from the London Clay and other geological formations caused him to conclude that the Earth was much older than the 4004 BC allotted to it by his contemporaries. He had come to this conclusion by 1785 and published these findings in that year, long before other researchers in the same field. His Nenia Britannica, published in 1793, reveals a remarkably accurate grasp of the dating of Anglo-Saxon burials; further illuminated by the contents of his common-place book for 1814-16, discovered by the author in a second-hand bookshop. This common-place book, correspondence with his contemporaries and other sources resulted in the present publication recounting his archaeological and other activities in Sussex during the first two decades of the 19th century.

FORTHCOMING: Winchester in the Early Middle Ages An Edition and Discussion of The Winton Domesday edited by Martin Biddle. Hardback; 215x276 pages; 680pp. Print RRP: TBC. 775 2021 Winchester Studies 1. ISBN 9781803270166.

This is a reprint of the volume originally published in 1976 (Oxford, ISBN 9780198131694). The reprint is based on scans of the original publication, with minor changes to present folding or pull-out sections on standard folio pages. A brief introduction to the reprint is provided by Winchester Studies Series editor, and editor of this volume, Professor Martin Biddle CBE, FBA.

London and Winchester were not described in the Domesday Book, but the royal properties in Winchester were surveyed for Henry I about 1110 and the whole city was surveyed for Bishop Henry of Blois in 1148. These two surveys survive in a single manuscript, known as the Winton Domesday, and constitute the earliest and by far the most detailed description of an English or European town of the early Middle Ages. In the period covered Winchester probably achieved the peak of its medieval prosperity. From the reign of Alfred to that of Henry II it was a town of the first rank, initially centre of Wessex, then the principal royal city of the Old English state, and finally `capital’ in some sense, but not the largest city, of the Norman Kingdom. This volume provides a full edition, translation, and analyses of the surveys and of the city they depict, drawing on the evidence derived from archaeological excavation and historical research in the city since 1961, on personal- and place-name evidence, and on the recent advances in Anglo-Saxon numismatics.

Reviews of the 1976 edition:
This book opens the definitive record of one of the greatest triumphs in urban archaeology: a triumph due … to the masterly way in which the whole operation, spread over many years, has been conducted. – Sir Walter Oakeshott, The Antiquaries Journal (1980) ;

It is roses, roses, all the way … forming in the, for once justified, words of the blurb, “an unparalleled account of one of the principal European cities of the eleventh and twelfth centuries”. – Prof. R.A. Brown, Economic History Review (1977)