Description
In this issue:
– South Uist: 19th century clearances
– Taplow: hillfort
– Great Bernera: Excavation and reconstruction
– Jope, Martyn: Review of Celtic Art
– Sheffields Hill, Scunthorpe: 2 Anglo-Saxon Cemeteries
Plus: News, Reviews, Comment, Diary, and more!
From the Editor:
Scotland features prominently in this issue, with two articles from the Outer Hebrides,balanced by two articles from further south.
We begin with South Uist – An Island Story. The Industrial Revolution was not kind to the Celtic fringes, as shown by the Highland Clearances and the Potato Famine in Ireland. Should we re-assess these events in the light of the archaeology of the Outer Hebrides?
In the first millennium AD, the west coast of Scotland displayed a wide range of exotic housing, from brochs and duns to wheel houses and figure-of- eight houses. But how did they all work? At Bosta beach on Great Bernera, a figure-of-eight house has been excavated and (controversially) reconstructed.
Taplow, on the banks of the River Thames, is one of the great sites in Anglo Saxon archaeology, where a splendid treasure was discovered in 1883. But why was the barrow situated here? Recent work has revealed that it was in fact built inside an Iron Age hillfort.
One of the interesting phenomena of Anglo Saxon cemeteries is the existence of paired cemeteries, – two cemeteries laid out side by side. One such paired cemetery has recently been excavated at Sheffield Hill, near Scunthorpe, in North Lincolnshire. But why were there two cemeteries, and how do they differ?
This issue has been partly guest-edited by Jeffrey May, an old friend from University days, who has recently retired from Nottingham University. He has also master-minded two special features, firstly a magisterial conspectus of Celtic Art, reviewing the posthumous work of the late Professor Martyn Jope, and secondly an extended Science Diary on the work at Nottingham University; this includes news on the redating of the Battersea Shield, and a fascinating reassessment of the impact of the Black Death as a result of tree ring dating.
Cover Date: Aug-2001, Volume 15 Issue 7