Caves have always captured the imagination. This is no less true of High Pasture Cave on the Isle of Skye, whose publication represents the latest contribution to a growing corpus in British cave archaeology. Nestled under the slopes of the…
The story of Roman Britain is often seen as a tale of two zones. To the south and east lay a ‘civil zone’, where towns and villas were at their most plentiful, while to the north and west a profusion…
With excavation at the Ness of Brodgar – one of the largest Neolithic sites known in north-west Europe – having finished in August 2024, after a remarkable 20 years of fieldwork, the long process of post-excavation analysis has now commenced.…
Richard Hodges’ most recent book takes us back to his original area of study: the economic and political conditions leading to the rebirth of towns in early medieval Britain. He starts by reminding the reader of his 1982 book Dark…
What makes this is a welcome addition to the not inconsiderable number of histories of Glasgow, is that Moffat knows how to tell a good story. The book is of interest because it extends back to prehistory and up to…
This volume was occasioned by the anniversary of the foundation charter of the burgh of Glasgow in 1175. The tongue- in-cheek title obscures the serious intent to recount the history of Glasgow through an examination of its central throughfare, which…
After exploring the Bronze Age Collapse of 1177 BC in his previous two books (reviewed in AE 85 and AE 143), Eric Cline travels back some 200 years to investigate the inter-relationships between the ‘great kings’ and vassal rulers of…
As Lucia Gahlin explains in the final chapter of this book, popular perceptions of ancient Egyptian culture are traditionally informed by the works of Graeco-Roman writers, and by modern interpretations of Egypt’s ancient history in literature and film. But in…
Colin Reader is a geologist by profession, but became fascinated by ancient Egypt, particularly the earliest phases of the civilisation. He has studied the Great Sphinx of Giza for nearly 30 years, applying his professional expertise to all the available…
A site as intensely studied as Deir el-Medina, with its wealth of written sources, has produced a huge literature – the navigation of which is immeasurably eased by the present volume. Originally published in the Dutch Egyptologische Uitgaven series in…
This is an unusual book that focuses not on excavation results and discoveries (although these are covered), but on life excavating in Egypt. Jeffrey Spencer, who directed many seasons of fieldwork for the British Museum and the Egypt Exploration Society,…
Peter Ross has made quite a name for himself in recent years. His previous books, A Tomb with a View: the stories and glories of graveyards (2021) and Steeple Chasing: around Britain by church (2023), both became bestsellers, and I…
Why do so many of us choose to share our lives – and our homes – with at least one animal? Pets & their People (published to accompany an exhibition of the same name – see here – and written…
This book is part of Jersey’s Archaeological Research Framework, which also oversaw the publication of The Neolithic in Jersey by Alison Sheridan, Emmanuel Ghesquière, and Cyril Marcigny (reviewed in CA 431). The Framework was commissioned by Jersey Heritage and led…
The end of Roman rule in Britain is not a niche topic: it is one that has been intensely studied for decades. And yet we still have so much to learn about how it unfolded and how much of a…
Ice Age art engages something within us that feels deeply and inherently human. Most of us feel it immediately: awe, curiosity, and perhaps even sometimes a feeling that borders on spiritual. Yet, while this response is nearly universal, the opportunity…
Anglo-Saxon beads are important as, along with cruciform brooches, they are among the most studied and datable of all the objects found in Anglo-Saxon graves, made useful by their long date-range and by them being the most numerous objects found…
On 3 June 1968, Italian archaeologists digging the ancient city of Paestum made an extraordinary discovery. They had unearthed a tomb fashioned from slabs of travertine, containing the bones of an individual who had been lain to rest c.480 BC,…
‘Journeys, like artists, are born and not made ’, Lawrence Durrell begins his encomium to Cyprus, Bitter Lemons. For millennia, this Mediterranean island was a staging post to the Middle East; then, in British imperial times, it was close to…
In 2024, Paul Bahn and Elle Clifford published Living in the Ice Age, adapting their 2022 publication Everyday Life in the Ice Age for a younger audience. In my review of their 2024 publication (CWA 126), I discussed how, following…
Most maritime archaeologists spend their careers trying to tease out what happened before a ship sank by asking questions like who was on board, when was it built, where was it going, and why? While poring over James Delgado’s new…
MHM’s round-up of the latest military history releases.
As Roger Moorhouse suggests in the introduction to Wolfpack, it was natural that post-war English language books about the Battle of the Atlantic would largely ignore the German perspective on the conflict. After the horrors of war, a kind of…
Under-funded and wracked by the hostility between political factions within its ranks, Spain’s military aviation was in a dire state in the period immediately before the Spanish Civil War. At this time, the air force was equipped with 60 Bréguet…
Since the late 1990s, the study of World War I has moved beyond the constraints of military history to embrace an increasingly multidisciplinary agenda. Not least in this has been the adoption and incorporation of anthropological and archaeological perspectives, focusing…
It is something of a cliché in the history of the Second World War to claim that Stalingrad, the graveyard of Germany’s Sixth Army in Russia, was the decisive turning point of the conflict: the moment when Hitler’s hopes of…
Through her TV work and writing, Professor Alice Roberts is a powerful and effective advocate for archaeology in the public realm. In Domination, she extends her coverage to explore Christianity in Late Antiquity, unpicking the intimate connection between the spread of…
Few people have made such a profound impact on the understanding of Scotland’s prehistoric and early medieval past as Anna Ritchie. In 2022, the Scottish Society for Northern Studies and the Pictish Arts Society jointly hosted a conference to celebrate…
For lovers of church archaeology, anything by Warwick Rodwell is a must. His new book covers two subjects: medieval ecclesiastical doors – the Westminster example is pre-Conquest and the Hadstock one a few years later – and the allegedly human…
The timber halls ex-cavated at Carnoustie between 2016 and 2017 are some of the most significant Neolithic discoveries in Scotland in recent decades, particularly considering that the bigger of the two halls is the largest of its period yet discovered…
This book draws together diverse excavations; geophysical, augering, and fieldwalking surveys; and other investigations carried out between 1991 and 2009 to help determine a location and explore design options for the Stonehenge Visitor Centre that opened in 2013 (see CA…
This volume comprises 11 regional or national papers and a synthesis of lipid analysis results. Several contributors note that Impressed Wares have been a ‘Cinderella’ among Neolithic pottery traditions. They echo Isobel Smith’s 1974 characterisation of Peterborough Ware (the Impressed…
Aidan Dodson’s The Libyan Pharaohs of Egypt is a detailed reappraisal of one of the most complex periods of ancient Egyptian history. Drawing on his long-standing expertise in Egyptian royal history, Dodson presents a richly illustrated, clear and balanced synthesis…
This new publication brings a welcome focus to the creative individuals behind the artistic achievements of the New Kingdom. Building on a 2022 conference in Madrid, the collection’s 12 papers examine a broad range of interconnected themes: the role and…
The Nubian empire at its height was one of the largest in the ancient world – a land rich in gold and other resources, with thriving trade. Highly skilled artisans created distinctive and finely crafted jewellery, ceramics, and architecture. And…
Thomas Sandwith was a British diplomat who served as consul in the Levant from 1855 to 1891. This is the second volume in a biography written by historian and former senior British civil servant Stephen Boys Smith, which covers Sandwith’s…