The Solent-Thames region, comprising Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, is a recent combination of counties which provide a north-south transect across Central Southern England, and offer fresh insights into the past. Drawing upon county assessments, and written by eminent period specialists, this volume presents an overview of the current state of archaeological knowledge within this region from Palaeolithic times to the present day. This region contains some of the most important sites in England: the remarkable early Mesolithic settlements along the Kennet valley, the hillfort at Danebury and its environs, the Roman town of Silchester and the cemetery of Lankhills, and the Saxon and medieval towns and cities of Southampton, Winchester and Oxford. Portsmouth houses arguably the most important ships in the naval history of Britain, and includes the best-preserved Tudor warship, the Mary Rose. Blenheim, seat of the Dukes of Marlborough, is a World Heritage site of international renown. Following the assessments are a series of research aims and priorities both for specific periods and for wider cross-period themes, an indispensable tool for anyone contemplating research in this region. It is one of a series covering the whole of England published with the support of English Heritage.

Long before the Norman Conquest of 1066, England saw periods of profound change that transformed the landscape and the identities of those who occupied it. The Bronze and Iron Ages saw the introduction of now-familiar animals and plants, such as sheep, horses, wheat, and oats, as well as new forms of production and exchange and the first laying out of substantial fields and trackways, which continued into the earliest Romano-British landscapes. The Anglo-Saxon period saw the creation of new villages based around church and manor, with ridge and furrow cultivation strips still preserved today. The basis for this volume is The English Landscapes and Identities project, which synthesised all the major available sources of information on English archaeology to examine this crucial period of landscape history from the middle Bronze Age (c. 1500 BC) to the Domesday survey (c. 1086 AD). It looks at the nature of archaeological work undertaken across England to assess its strengths and weaknesses when writing long-term histories. Among many other topics it examines the interaction of ecology and human action in shaping the landscape; issues of movement across the landscape in various periods; changing forms of food over time; an understanding of spatial scale; and questions of enclosing and naming the landscape, culminating in a discussion of the links between landscape and identity. The result is the first comprehensive account of the English landscape over a crucial 2500-year period. It also offers a celebration of many centuries of archaeological work, especially the intensive large-scale investigations that have taken place since the 1960s and transformed our understanding of England's past.

Julian Munby has gained a reputation over half a century in many branches of archaeological and historical knowledge. His lively and warm character and sense of fun has made him many friends who also in some sense feel they are his pupils, and this collection of papers has been assembled as a tribute in honour of his 70th birthday.

This volume presents the results of excavations by MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) undertaken in 2003-4 at the former St Martin’s churchyard, Wallingford, Oxfordshire.

The Mesolithic in Britain proposes a new division of the Mesolithic period into four parts, each with its distinct character. The Mesolithic has previously been seen as timeless, where little changed over thousands of years. This new synthesis draws on advances in scientific dating to understand the Mesolithic inhabitation of Britain as a historical process. The period was, in fact, a time of profound change: houses, monuments, middens, long-term use of sites and regions, manipulation of the environment and the symbolic deposition of human and animal remains all emerged as significant practices in Britain for the first time. The book describes the lives of the first pioneers in the Early Mesolithic; the emergence of new modes of inhabitation in the Middle Mesolithic; the regionally diverse settlement of the Late Mesolithic; and the radical changes of the final millennium of the period. The first synthesis of Mesolithic Britain since 1932, it takes both a chronological and a regional approach. This book will serve as an essential text for anyone studying the period: undergraduate and graduate students, specialists in the field and community archaeology groups.

World Archaeology at the Pitt Rivers Museum: a characterization introduces the range, history and significance of the archaeological collections of the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford.

"This monograph details the results of a major archaeological project based on and around the historic town of Wallingford in south Oxfordshire. Founded in the late Saxon period as a key defensive and administrative focus next to the Thames, the settlement also contained a substantial royal castle established shortly after the Norman Conquest. The volume traces the pre-town archaeology of Wallingford and then analyses the town's physical and social evolution, assessing defences, churches, housing, markets, material culture, coinage, communications and hinterland. Core questions running through the volume relate to the roles of the River Thames and of royal power in shaping Wallingford's fortunes and identity and in explaining the town's severe and early decline."