Hawkins, K. 2024. 50 Finds from Childhood: Objects from the Portable Antiquities Scheme. 50 Finds Series. London: Amberley Publishing
The many artefacts discovered by members of the public and recorded by the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) provide an unparalleled resource for information relating to childhood in the past. The 50 objects presented here have been selected from across England and Wales; they span prehistory through to the modern age and include items of national significance and those of everyday use. This unique and diverse collection by the PAS illustrates a variety of beliefs around childhood, including activities relating to childbirth, infant care, clothing, work and play. Each object, whether made for children or adapted by them, has been chosen to explore past expectations towards children and their relationships with the wider world. Collectively, these artefacts provide an insight into, and a connection with, childhood across the ages, much of which still has relevance today.1
Krmpotich, C. and Stevenson, A., eds. 2024. Collections Management as Critical Museum Practice. London: UCL Press
Collections Management as Critical Museum Practice offers a new definition of collections management by bringing into focus the knowledges, value systems, ethics and workplace pragmatics that are foundational for this work. Through discussion of varied collection types, management activities and professional roles, contributors have developed a contextualised reflexive practice for how core collections management standards are conceptualised, negotiated and enacted.
Moshenska, G. ed. 2024. Teaching and Learning the Archaeology of the Contemporary Era. London: Bloomsbury
This book is the first exploration of pedagogy in the fast-growing field of contemporary archaeology. The chapters and case studies, from Orkney to Iran, provide an overview of the pioneering courses, field schools and learning opportunities in contemporary archaeology that have contributed to our understanding of climate change, the refugee crisis and the legacies of war and conflict worldwide. The book is intended as a resource and inspiration for teachers and students of contemporary archaeology.
Tanner, J. and Gardner, A., eds. 2024. Materialising the Roman Empire. London: UCL Press
Materialising the Roman Empire defines an innovative research agenda for Roman archaeology, highlighting the diverse ways in which the empire was made materially tangible in the lives of its inhabitants. The volume explores how material culture was integral to the processes of imperialism, both as the empire grew and as it fragmented, and in doing so provides up-to-date overviews of major topics in Roman archaeology. Each chapter offers a critical overview of a major field within the archaeology of the Roman empire. The book’s authors explore the distinctive contribution that archaeology and the study of material culture can make to our understanding of the key institutions and fields of activity in the Roman empire.
Zhuang, Y. 2024. Environmental Foundations to the Rise of Early Civilisations in China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Profound socio-economic transformations and intensified regional and trans-regional interactions occurred in late prehistoric China. These changes gave rise to diverse lifeways and settlement modes that constituted the foundation for the emergence of regional civilisations. The author examines environmental and ecological conditions and distinctive technological and economic traditions of the Highlands, Lowlands and Coastal areas between 5000–4000 bp, arguing that environmental conditions and subsistence adaptations are two key engines driving the rise of civilisations in late prehistoric China.
Archaeology South-East/SpoilHeap Publications
Margetts, A., Dawkes, G., Dowsett, A. and Goodburn, D. 2024. The Honour and Safety of the Realm: The Elizabethan and later harbour works at Dover Western Docks, Kent. Portslade: Archaeology South-East/SpoilHeap Publications
Dover became the scene of repeated attempts to create a safe and effective anchorage for ships that plied the English Channel. The town suffered many setbacks in the creation of its port until the Elizabethan period, when those attempts would finally culminate in one of the greatest engineering projects of early post-medieval England. Dover’s story is one of determination, heroism and corruption. It includes individuals at the centre of national events, such as Elizabeth I, Thomas Cromwell, Francis Walsingham and the diarist Samuel Pepys.
Dowsett, A., Goodburn, D., Harrow, K., Margetts, A. and Russel, C. 2024. The Management of the River Stour from the Medieval to Modern Periods: Its waterfronts and the development of Sandwich. Portslade: Archaeology South-East/SpoilHeap Publications
The Environment Agency’s Sandwich Town Tidal Defence Scheme involved the construction of 14 km of floodwalls and embankments along the River Stour, from Richborough, to the north-west of Sandwich, to Broad Salts in the north-east. Archaeological investigations associated with the scheme showed that the modern works were part of a long history of management of the River Stour stretching back at least as far as the twelfth century. Perhaps the most interesting of the encountered remains comprise evidence for Sandwich’s post-medieval waterfront.
BAR UCL Institute of Archaeology PhD Series
In 2019 the Institute launched a new series with BAR Publishing to disseminate PhD theses. This substantial series promotes the Institute’s outstanding postgraduate research programme across the theory and practice of archaeology, conservation and heritage. In 2022 BAR Publishing won the prestigious IPG Academic and Professional Publisher of the Year award. We have now published 10 titles in this series. A full list of these can be found on the Institute’s website.2
Sharrock, J. 2024. WWII Bombing of British Cities and Contested Remembrance: Civilian experience and its commemoration since 1945. UCL Institute of Archaeology PhD Series 10. Oxford: BAR Publishing
Conflicts in Ukraine, Israel and Gaza highlight the terrible price paid by civilians in war. This book (the latest title since Archaeology International 26) focuses on the present-day myth of the Blitz and civilian deaths. It contends that the evolution, politics and resonance of this myth have marginalised the civilian death toll from the bombing of cities. It uses interdisciplinary methodologies to research the impact of acts of commemoration, the exposure of private memory and an archaeology of civilian remembrance.
The World Archaeology Series and the Critical Cultural Heritage Series
The Institute of Archaeology also produces two series in partnership with Bloomsbury Academic: the World Archaeology Series, General Editor Ruth Whitehouse; and the Critical Cultural Heritage Series, General Editor Beverley Butler.
The World Archaeology Series promotes a programme that includes theory, research, pedagogy, reference material and good practice of the highest quality across archaeology, cultural heritage and cognate disciplines, including ethnographic work and conference proceedings. The Critical Cultural Heritage Series specifically asks new questions about what heritage is and does, and why it is important. It seeks out as-yet-unconceptualised notions of heritage that traverse disciplinary boundaries and draws on perspectives from a similarly wide range of material.
Both series welcome submissions for authored and edited volumes from scholars and practitioners worldwide. In the World Archaeology Series, one title (the second in the series) has been published since Archaeology International 26, with another two in progress. In the Critical Cultural Heritage Series, three new titles are under active consideration and three more proposals have been encouraged.
The Institute has been publishing prestigious books since 1977. In that time, more than 90 titles have been published by, successively, the Institute of Archaeology, UCL Press, Left Coast Press and Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group. A full list of these older titles, now distributed by Routledge, can be found in the Institute’s website.3
Whitehouse, R. 2024. Writing Matters: Italy in the first millennium BCE. UCL World Archaeology Series 002. London: Bloomsbury Academic
First millennium-bce Italy epigraphy studies have concentrated largely on the language and meanings of inscriptions. This book looks not only at their content, but also at archaeological contexts and the artefacts and monuments on which the inscriptions occur. It explores how writing was used in turn by Phoenician, Indigenous and Roman communities. It considers how writing, adopted from neighbouring Greeks and Phoenicians, was used by the Indigenous communities. Placing materiality at its centre, the study reconsiders the role of writing for those living in Italy in the first millennium bce.
Äikäs, T. and Matila, T., eds. 2024. Connecting with Ambivalent Heritage: Creative uses of postindustrial spaces. UCL Critical Cultural Heritage Series 002. London: Bloomsbury Academic
This volume looks at difficult and contested sites of deindustrialised society on the brink of transformation to either heritage or wasteland. It explores the creative ways in which such sites are (re)used thereby enhancing their meanings. Multidisciplinary methodologies from archaeology, ethnography and sociology are used to examine northern-European case studies of a former sanatorium, a prison or the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone, for example. It concludes that in a time of rapid societal change, heritage professionals must acknowledge and deal with the difficulties posed by ambivalent heritage sites.