The Later Prehistory of Wiltshire is included within social models built on the neighbouring counties of Dorset (Sharples 1991a) and Hampshire (Cunliffe 1984a) or general accounts of southern Britain (Barrett 1980b; Brück 1999a; Hill 1995a; Rowlands 1980). These focus on hillforts, bronze or independent farmsteads. Utilizing the wealth of new data accumulated by developer funded work, this study re-examines the evidence using a landscape scale approach influenced by community studies. It reveals that current approaches fail to explain the evidence from the study area. Towards the end of the Bronze Age, there is a trend towards transhumance with seasonal, pastoral camps and linear earthworks. Coinciding with the fall from grace of bronze as social mediator, animals became one way through which relations were negotiated. The trend continues into the Earliest Iron Age when large midden sites around Pewsey indicate the exploitation of iron deposits. The middens become centres of craft production for these transhumant communities and facilitate the growth of a broad affinity across the region. The supremacy of the middens lasts as little as 200 years before new sources of iron, continental imports and recycling cause many to be abandoned. However, the contacts made between communities at these sites facilitate the mobilization of the labour required for hillfort construction. The rational for their construction varies according to the prevailing social and economic needs but most of these goals are achieved by the Early Iron Age when most are abandoned. The developed hillforts of the later Middle Iron Age are different to their forebears, sit within an otherwise unsettled landscape and indicate a rise in the level of conflict along the western margin of the area.

This thesis is an investigation into the inscriptional and archaeological contexts of Ancient Egyptian social display, with particular emphasis on the Late Old Kingdom First Intermediate Period. As a result of the political fragmentation of Egypt at the end of the Old Kingdom, the traditional role of royal patronage was demoted, and the role of individual self-reliance and-resource was privileged in elite self-presentations. At the same time a growing regionalisation of the expression of elite culture is visible from the late Old Kingdom onwards, particularly in terms of regional tomb development. Through investigation of funerary inscriptions, architecture, and material remains, my work seeks to demonstrate how individuals at this time intended to present themselves, exploring the social and political motivations behind their crafted landscapes. The primary case-study for the thesis is the tomb complex of Ankhtifi near Mo'alla (Upper Egypt, 40 km south of Luxor). It is a key tomb from the period, notably because its lengthy inscription and monumental size exemplify the developments in self-presentation at this time. The thesis examines Ankhtifi's arrangement of elements in his tomb complex, within the context of the local landscape, tracing the ways in which Ankhtifi inscribed himself into the landscape to meet political ends. It is evident that Ankhtifi, as local ruler, pursues a legitimation strategy that presents him functioning in many of the roles of the absent king. One manifestation of this is in the choice of rhetorical and verbal tropes in his biography, which serve as generic antecedents for Middle Kingdom Konigsnovelle. Archaeologically, Ankhtifi's tomb complex occupies a dominant position within the necropolis at Mo'alla. Recent fieldwork at the tomb by Liverpool University has produced results which have significantly augmented my research. Since 2002, epigraphic and excavation work, and survey of the wider necropolis have shown Ankhtifi's tomb to be a large, culturally significant complex which dominates the mortuary landscape. The monumental size, style and setting of his tomb complex within the necropolis is reminiscent of Old Kingdom pyramid complexes, albeit on an altered scale given Ankhtifi's status and available resources. Ankhtifi never overtly claimed kingsllip, so that his monumental and inscriptional self-presentation is that of a local ruler, and as such deals with regional concerns of his lifetime. The tomb complex is a monumentalisation of the landscape in order to construct and maintain social memory; a crafted landscape that can be understood in terms of the social and economic arrangements that existed in that place and at that time. The thesis therefore provides further insights into political and social life at a regional level during this period. It also details a specific case-study of how the social, ideological, and political transformations of the First Intermediate Period culminated in the patterns ofrulership and provincial control evident in the Middle Kingdom.

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No description available.

In the aftermath of the Norman Conquest of the kingdom of England in the late eleventh century a series of castle structures were imposed on the fabric of a large number of Late Saxon towns. In the late 1980s this specific group of castles were archaeologically termed ‘urban castles’, being perceived as distinct from other forms of such structures encountered in the UK. The interpretation of these castles, whose design is widely accepted as being imported in this period from northern France, is closely entwined with culturally and nationalistically-loaded historical narrative of the Norman Conquest. This interpretive position has had a dominant role in how the urban castle is studied in historical and archaeological discourse, which in turn reinforces the validity and legitimacy of this approach. The present study will seek to question the rationale and evidence behind the present interpretive framework. This will include a historiographical analysis of the development of the study of Late Saxon and Norman England over the last century and how the conditions of research in this period has influenced and often proved divisive in how the urban castle is understood and encapsulated within perceptions of radical change in English history. In turn it will offer an alternative, interdisciplinary approach to the encounter and interpretation of the urban castle. Detailed examinations of the urban castles and settlements of Wallingford (Oxon.) and Huntingdon (Cambs.) will be followed by broader, regional studies of Sussex and the Severn Vale. The castles in these examples will be studied in the wider context of urban development across the period c.AD900-1150 which will allow them to be considered as one element amongst a hetregenous, fluid process of settlement evolution. This original methodology will be utilised to demonstrate how these sites can be used as a subject for understanding the wider phenomenon of Saxo-Norman urbanism, and that the castle is an integral, if physically distinct, element in this process.

The armed conflicts of the twentieth century have arguably been one of the most dramatic social forces to have influenced British society, its memories, identities, and the modern landscape. One of the most evident of the physical traces of the impact found in almost every parish in Britain is the ubiquitous war memorial. War memorials are a symbol identifiable to almost all Europeans, and much of the world (Davies 1993). As such the investigation of these commemorative forms can provide useful insights into how death in conflict, warfare, the community and the nation were perceived and materialised. They also provide material traces of how different conflicts and political situations have subsequently shaped their retention, destruction, use, and meaning over the course of the twentieth century. It is apparent that war memorials acted as a distinctive commemorative element, which is largely still visible today, that were constructed to help people and communities come to terms with both individual and collective losses through warfare during the 20th century. The losses commemorated by these war memorials and styles have since the 1990s not only been used to remember deaths in conflict, but other to commemorate other emotional losses and events (such as the death of Princess Diana and the abduction of Madeline McCann). The thesis analyses the twentieth century war memorials from two study areas in Devon (the South Hams and East Devon), areas which were previously much neglected in terms of their military heritage and post-medieval archaeology. The two study areas also provide a range of settlement sizes and types, as well as in terms of the dominance of the Church of England and in the size of the non-conformist communities in these areas. Both areas also had some atypical war experiences during the World Wars in particular, with various military bases and training facilities existing for varying lengths and dramatically shaping the commemorative landscapes of the regions. The commemorative patterns which emerge from the two study areas are also set against the wider regional and national patterns of remembrance in order to provide detailed discussion on the changing nature of conflict commemoration during the twentieth century. The analysis of materiality of twentieth century war memorials evidences not only the biographies of the memorials, but also their roles in memory and identity formation, articulation, and manipulation.

This thesis sets out to create a map of parts of Devon at Domesday. This will be achieved by pursuing two themes. The first is a map regression that will identify the core farmland (that is the land that was ‘anciently’ enclosed), while the second establishes an interpretative framework that will allow selected Domesday metrics to be interrogated. The Domesday metrics will be used to corroborate the results of the map regression. Five case study areas have been selected to cover a series of different pays within the county, extending from the floodplains in the south-east across to the top of the Blackdown Hills and up to the fringes of Exmoor. Each case study area was created around two parishes, and their tithe maps and associated apportionments have been transcribed into a GIS to serve as the basis of the map regression. The map regression will follow two paths. The first analyses the fieldscape, removing evidence of ‘modern’ enclosure and arriving at a map of the land that was enclosed early in the historic period, while the second concentrates upon the settlement patterns, trying to establish a counterpart to the map of the fields. The Domesday data pertaining to the agricultural exploitation of the land and to the population will be interpreted to provide two products: one that may be used to corroborate the ‘Domesday’ map of the fieldscape and the other to both inform, and assess the postulated settlement pattern of the same date The establishment of continuity is fundamental to the success of this project and a lot of effort is expended attempting to identify links between the Domesday and tithe data. Additional mechanisms that may also promote continuity have been identified and are utilised throughout. In addition to the use of the limited records, the work in each case study area is supported by palynological analyses from pollen sequences within the locale and attention has been paid to the existence of ancient woodland in each parish. Working in a county that has a dearth of early records, the combination of map regression with corroborative evidence from Domesday works very effectively at a parochial level, but difficulties in determining the extents of the Domesday manors complicate a similar check at that more local level. Credible maps for each parish, which can probably be dated to ca. 1086, have been produced, using a methodology that may be adapted for use elsewhere.

The islands and shores of the Inner Sound in the northwest of Scotland were perceived as potentially supporting human settlement during the Mesolithic Period (c. 10000-5500 BP) and subsequent survey and excavation unearthed considerable evidence of hunter-gatherer activity dating to this time. These discoveries precipitated the present study, which aims to provide an environmental background to the inferred Mesolithic populations, while seeking to detect any perturbations in the environmental record that could be ascribed to human interference. To this end, bog and lake sediments were removed from suitable locations for further analysis in the laboratory. Pollen and microscopic charcoal analyses form the backbone of the investigation, which also includes loss on ignition and sedimentological analyses, and radiocarbon dating. Environmental reconstruction using these data supports the current theory that this region hosted a rich variety of woodland habitats during the early Holocene, with geology and exposure exerting the greatest control on spatial and physiognomic variability. Close resolution pollen sampling of a loch in northern Skye provides useful insights into plant colonisation after the Loch Lomond Stadial, and is also used to detect climatic perturbations dating from c. 9500-9200 BP previously unidentified in pollen profiles from Scotland. The possibility of Mesolithic human impact is detected at two small peatland sites in northern Skye, where hydrological and floristic changes in concert with significant levels of microscopic charcoal strongly suggest a human presence. The strong evidence for increased human activity after c. 5000 BP, particularly burning and woodland clearance, contrasts sharply with the pollen profile representing the Mesolithic Period.