Land and People: Papers in Memory of John G. Evans

by Michael J. Allen, Niall Sharples, Terry O'Connor

Overview

This volume is derived, in concept, from a conference held in honour of John Evans by the School of History and Archaeology and The Prehistoric Society at Cardiff University in March 2006. It brings together papers that address themes and landscapes on a variety of levels. They cover geographical, methodological and thematic areas that were of interest to, and had been studied by, John Evans. The volume is divided into five sections, which echo themes of importance in British prehistory. They include papers on aspects of environmental archaeology, experiments and philosophy; new research on the nature of woodland on the chalklands of southern England; coasts and islands; people, process and social order, and snails and shells - a strong part of John Evans' career. This volume presents a range of papers examining people's interaction with the landscape in all its forms. The papers provide a diverse but cohesive picture of how archaeological landscapes are viewed within current research frameworks and approaches, while also paying tribute to the innovative and inspirational work of one of the leading protagonists of environmental archaeology and the holistic approach to landscape interpretation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781782973584
Publisher:	Oxbow Books
Publication date:	09/10/2009
Series:	PREHISTORIC SOCIETY RESEARCH PAPERS , #2
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
File size:	27 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Michael J. Allen is proprietor of AEA Allen Environmental Archaeology and is one of the UK’s leading environmental archaeologists, specializing in geoarchaeology (particularly the analysis of hillwash and colluvium), land snail analysis, prehistoric landscape reconstruction and the management of environmental archaeological projects.
Niall Sharples is Professor of Archaeology at Cardiff University and has a particular interest in the archaeology of the Atlantic Fringe of Scotland and the later prehistory of Britain. He has undertaken numerous excavations, ranging from hillforts in Dorset to brochs in Shetland and has published widely on topics including the Neolithic enclosures of Wales, Iron Age burial practices and the history of archaeological research in the Western Isles.

Table of Contents

Part 1: John, Environmental Archaeology, Experiment and Philosophy

1. Professor John Gwynne Evans, 1941–2005 aka ‘Snails’ Evans – an appreciation (Michael J. Allen)
2. Culture and Environment; mind the gap (Terry O’Connor)
3. ‘We opened up a really nice porcelain door handle’ (Steve Mills)
4. Experimental Archaeology: changing science agendas and perceptual perspectives (Martin Bell)

Part 2: Trees and Chalklands

5. If you go Down the Woods Today; a re-evaluation of chalkland postglacial woodland; implications for prehistoric communities (Michael J. Allen and Julie Gardiner)
6. Land Snails and Woodland Clearances: modern ecological studies and their archaeological implications (Paul Davies and Neville Gardner)
7. Peopling the landscape; prehistory of the Wylye Valley, Wiltshire (Julie Gardiner and Michael J. Allen)
8. A Landscape Tale of Two Soil Histories in Lowland Zones of England: the fen-edge of Cambridgeshire and the downland of Cranborne Chase (Charles French)
9. Cows in the Wood (Frances Healy)

Part 3: Coasts and Islands

10. Living in the Sands – Bronze Age Gwithian, Cornwall, revisited (Jacqueline A. Nowakowski)
11. The Construction of Barrows in Bronze Age Orkney – an ‘assuagement of guilt’? (Jane Downes)
12. On the Islandness of St Kilda (Andrew Fleming)
13. Beaker Settlement in the Western Isles (Niall Sharples)

Part 4: Archaeology, Snails and Shells

14. Environmental Change in an Orkney Wetland: plant and molluscan evidence from Quoyloo Meadow (Terry O’Connor and M. Jane Bunting)
15. Mysteries of the Middens: change and continuity across the Mesolithic~Neolithic transition (Nicky Milner and Oliver E. Craig)
16. Environmental Archaeology of the Roman villa at Rock, Brighstone, Isle of Wight (George R. Speller, Richard C. Preece and Simon A. Parfitt)
17. Ena Montana (Drap.) and Neolithic Woodland Regeneration in Southern England (Mark Robinson)

Part 5: People, Process and Social Order

18. As We Were Saying: connecting people and places (Alasdair Whittle)
19. Manure and the Medieval social order (Richard Jones)
20. The Social Face of Threshing Floors (Aikaterini K. Paschali)

Editorial Reviews

Land and People is a comprehensive collection of papers relating to Evans’ diverse research interests. The standout papers in the collection, from O’Connor and Bell, set the context brilliantly for the rest of the monograph, as well as serve to outline the wider present situation and potential of environmental archaeology today. This is closely followed by the multi-disciplinary discussion of chalk downlands, an excellent suite of papers which outline the massive contribution of environmental archaeology to our understanding of British later prehistory. Part Three and Four contain solid, diverse case studies, and running through all of the papers is recognition of the social implications of changes and patterns traced in the environmental archives, a theme characteristic of Evans’ work that is fully explored in the final three papers. Supported by excellent production quality, the papers provide a benchmark for the new Prehistoric Society Research Papers series, and a worthy testimony to Evans’ career.'

Archaeological Review from Cambridge, 2011 - Robyn H. Inglis