The population-level preference for the use of the right hand is one of the defining characteristics of Homo sapiens and as such, its evolutionary origins within the human genus remain a topic of interest. Identifying hand preference in extinct hominin species is complicated by the difficulty in distinguishing markers of laterality in the bones of the upper limb. These difficulties are further compounded by the range of osteological methods available to study asymmetry and the under-representation of the bones of the hand in such studies. To better understand the evolution of handedness within the hominin lineage, the effect of methodology on asymmetry expression must first be clarified, as this in turn influences our notions of handedness in individuals and groups. The current study took an inclusive approach to the measurement of upper limb asymmetry in both modern human and non-human primate samples. To assess the contribution that the bones of the hand can make to asymmetry research, data from the metacarpals and phalanges were compared with that from the humerus, a more commonly-studied region of the upper limb. Both metric and musculoskeletal stress marker (MSM) data were collected and compared in order to assess the comparability of asymmetry profiles generated by contrasting methodological approaches. Asymmetry was determined for a sample of modern human skeletons and a non-human primate sample comprising Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii and Gorilla gorilla gorilla. Two key findings emerge from these analyses: 1) The expression of asymmetry differs, in terms of both direction and magnitude, between the bones of the hand and the humerus. Differences are also apparent between the metacarpals and phalanges. 2) Metric and MSM methods differ in the asymmetry profiles they generate, with the MSM method generally underestimating the magnitude of asymmetry present in a sample, relative to that identified by a metric approach. In addition, the various skeletal samples studied exhibit variation in their relative asymmetry profiles which can be attributed to potential differences in functional recruitment patterns in the upper limbs of these individuals. Together, these findings clearly highlight the care that must be taken in analyses of asymmetry, due to the level of methodological variation present in currently inter-changeable approaches. The relatively neglected region of the hand has an important contribution to make to our understanding of asymmetry in the upper limb. The results of this study recommend the adoption of a more inclusive approach to the study of upper limb bilateral asymmetry, particular when inferences are to be made regarding handedness. By combining methodological approaches and incorporating data from across the upper limb, a more accurate picture of asymmetry expression will emerge and allow us to better understand the evolutionary development of this trait in our hominin ancestors.

The main areas of Picturesque Travel during the second half of the long eighteenth century were the Lake District, Wales, Scotland and the Isle of Wight; of these locations the Isle of Wight has been the least reviewed. This study examines Island-centred historical and topographical material published 1750-1840 in conjunction with journals and diaries kept by contemporary visitors. The available archive is examined within a framework of the developing aesthetic theories of the period that surrounded the picturesque and rise of antiquarian interests, supported by more recently proposed systems of analysis. The systems and practices of viewing the Island are considered. Foremost here are the kinds of hierarchies used by the topographers in their descriptions; were they based on man made constructions, landscape qualities or status of the individual? Further to this, the study examines the ways in which contemporary diary and travel notes inform us of the Island and conclusions that can be drawn of the attractions and alterities that the Island presented to such a wide and varied group of people. Viewing, Recording and Consumption are common threads that run throughout this discourse. The Island is identified as a location of alterity; which provided alternative social conditions for visitors and residents from the mainland. The rural cottages, villas and mansions, built as retreats during this period are considered within this context. This study, which is not exhaustive, will begin to correct the recent neglect of academic interest and show that the Island could have a higher profile within eighteenth century cultural studies.

This thesis enters a territory infrequently visited by English archaeologists – the early modern period. I have chosen a research area encompassing fifty neighbouring parish churches along the border of East Hampshire and West Sussex and studied what survives of their post-medieval material culture. Though these medieval churches have generally been altered in the 19th century many of them still retain material, architectural, landscape and documentary clues which reveal important aspects of their early modern condition and the religious experiences of their parishioners in life and death. A major aim has been to show that far from being stripped of imagery and cultural artefacts, other materials were introduced, designed to communicate new forms of Protestant ritual to parishioners who may frequently have been bewildered by the rapid religious changes of the 16th and 17th centuries. Having described the area and visited its historical biography in Part One and in order to capture a sense of what it was like to participate in parish religion, I concentrate on four themes emanating from my studies of these churches: space, sensory experience, the performance of memory and gender. Thus Part Two deals with the spatial qualities of new architectural innovations and the effects of the reorganisation of church furniture and is followed by an account of the sensory experiences which religious participation evoked. These discussions centre on the lives of parishioners. Part Three turns to parishioners’ encounters with death and their understandings of the ways in which the church and churchyard framed and enabled the performance of social memory. The final discussion chapter is a series of case studies centred on tombs commissioned by individual gentlewomen for their families and themselves and their nuanced interpretations of mortuary imagery. A major element of this study lies in the way it develops contemporary methodological frameworks within early modern social archaeology. This allows a wider synthesis to be achieved using thematic regional approaches which run alongside the contextual exploration of the sample’s locales over this long transitional period. My approach is also informed by theoretical issues emanating from a number of associated disciplines such as history, art history and anthropology. This is an unusual standpoint which aims to provide a particularly multilayered exploration of an area and time rich in archaeological material which builds on and develops current scholarly thinking in this particular realm of social archaeology.

Gross pathological lesions have been noted in the literature on non-human archaeological animal remains since the mid 19th century. In the last 20 years the accumulation of research into human skeletal remains has engendered a dynamic palaeopathological science producing highly valid in sights into the condition of people of antiquity. These advances in the understanding of osteological abnormality have, however, been seen to be of limited application to animal bone because of the nature of the primary material. The data on which the discipline of palaeopathology relies is derived from the burial of bodies. The remains available to the archaeozoologist are predominantly the highly selected residues of human consumption. The biological principles governing the presentation of pathological lesions are, however, consistent. This thesis therefore seeks to explore the potential for understanding and quantifying pathology in animal remains, basing the research on the concept of treating the assemblage as the fundamental body of evidence. An essential precept of this approach is to demonstrate the incidence of certa in selected pathologies within natural populations of specified mammals, and to define this incidence within the comparative material in a manner which is applicable to fragmentary archaeological remains. The potential indicated by the work on defined populations is then explored within actual archaeological assemblages. The sub-families selected for this thesis are the Caninae and the Bovidae, represented here by the genera Canis, Vulpes and Ovis, with a restricted contribution from Bos in the archaeological case studies. The retrievable pathological data from both comparative and archaeological sources is described and quantified, and the implications discussed. The result ssuggest that, for each species under consideration, pathology should be regarded as a quantifiable variable within the assemblage. Consequently, it is demonstrated that a pathological profile may be a practical method of assessing the range of extrinsic stresses imposed on, and experienced by, the animals represented within the archaeological assemblage.

The ‘native’ population in Roman Cumbria, the majority of whom are thought to have lived in farmsteads in the countryside beyond the civitas at Carlisle, forts, and vici, continues to be defined by its difference to the ‘invader’. This is not only a result of the nature of the artefactual record but of the history of research in the region which continues to influence the creation of archaeological narratives, with perhaps the most pervasive problem being a continuing reliance on analogies. Instead, by studying artefact assemblages from ‘native’ farmsteads on their own merits and taking a critical, self-reflective approach to their interpretation, it is possible to create a more dynamic model which posits that people and ‘things’ have the ability to move within and between two separate, yet co-dependent, ‘spheres’ of exchange. As expected, the process of analysis demonstrated that the material ‘fingerprints’ of pottery and glass assemblages are very different at farmsteads, forts, and vici in Cumbria. Existing narratives have tended to interpret this as either a result of the poverty or disinterest of the ‘native’, or that they were actively resisting the influence of the ‘invader’. However, by taking into account the form and function(s) of ‘things’, it can be argued that their selection was an active choice, and that this was influenced by a range of different social, cultural, and individual factors. Taking the same approach to the study of a number of sites in the Pennines/Northumberland, North East Wales/Cheshire, and Droitwich demonstrated that, although the size of artefact assemblages might indicate a strict North:South divide, the forms of pottery and glass implies an intermediate zone around North East Wales/Cheshire. All of these results appear to indicate that the economy of Roman Britain was composed of multiple, overlapping systems, and that individuals and groups had the power to choose if and when they engaged with them. However, at the moment, the ability to discuss this idea in depth is restricted by the number of sites available for examination. The problem in Cumbria is that the same farmsteads have been repeatedly re-interpreted and although a handful have been excavated over the last decade, a recent trend towards large-scale community projects focused on vici means that there is a danger this practice will continue. To break out of this cycle of re-interpretation requires the creation of a research project dedicated to establishing a detailed chronology of pre- and post-Conquest rural settlements in Cumbria. Doing so will enable us to truly move beyond ‘native’ and ‘invader’.

In the late 1990s Suffolk County Council Archaeology Service (now Suffolk Archaeology) began a series of excavations in advance of construction work at the US Air Force base RAF Lakenheath (Eriswell, Suffolk). During the course of this work three substantial Early Anglo-Saxon cemeteries (dated from 475 to 650 CE) were excavated. These sites are some of the largest and best preserved Anglo-Saxon cemeteries excavated in modern times. Many of the inhumations were furnished. Amongst the host of grave goods were approximately 800 non-ferrous metal objects. This presented a significant opportunity to examine Early Anglo-Saxon non-ferrous metallurgy. Previous studies of Early Anglo-Saxon non-ferrous artefacts have tended to focus on acquiring quantitative data using invasive sampling on specific (predominantly cast) object types. The data from these small subsets of objects were then extrapolated to create an interpretation of the technological and metallurgical skills of the era. As this tended to exclude sheet metal objects and the more utilitarian metalwork it is suggested by the author here that this approach is not representative and leaves something to be desired. In this study it was decided to focus on producing a broad data set that, whilst being qualitative, would allow broad trends in alloy composition to be assessed (if present) against a variety of variables. Data was predominantly acquired using handheld portable X-ray fluorescence (HHpXRF). The results showed that the usage of copper and silver alloys in the Early Anglo-Saxon period is more complex than has previously been suggested. It is thought that this is predominantly linked to decisions regarding an object’s manufacturing technique, but there is also evidence to suggest that elements of cultural identity may have also had a role to play. There is also evidence for continuity of practice between the late Romano- British and Early Anglo-Saxon periods.

his thesis explores Early Bronze Age round barrows in a distinctive landscape, the Anglo-Welsh borderland. It is a landscape of contrasts, encompassing the lowlands and plains of the Midlands counties to the east and the uplands of the west. Although the region has been recognised as a valid unit of study, many previous studies have been constrained by national and county boundaries. Recent research on the prehistoric archaeology of the region has addressed this problem but until now the area’s round barrows have received little attention. This thesis se rves to redress this imbalance and considers round barrows in their historic and regional context. A multi-scalar approach to the study has been taken. At the macro scale, the morphology, distribution and broad topographic settings are examined in addition to an analysis of factors relating to the survival and destruction of the regions barrows. It is argued that the location of the borderlands may have led to some of the distinct architectural elements present in the region. For the most part, round barrows in the study area do not coalesce in to large cemeteries as seen elsewhere; the general pattern being that of isolated or paired barrows, yet relatively dense clusters have been identified. These are analysed at the meso scale to establish the relationships of barrows within these clusters to each other, to earlier monumentality and to the wider landscape. Here it is suggested that different rationales led to their formation, in some instances rep resenting different communities’ access to resources and routeways. The analysis then proceeds at the micro - scale and considers the problem of why build a round barrow in the first place. By examining a single, well excavated site of two barrows in close proximity with a reasonable degree of contemporaneity, it is possible to mitigate against certain variables to explore the role of choice when a community built a barrow. The role of deposition, including that of human remains is considered and it is argued that such practices were strategies to effect change within the world of the living.

This thesis focuses on two main themes in the architectural history of the country house in Wales, investigating firstly its development, and secondly some of the distinctively Welsh features of these houses. It argues that both themes have been marginal in recent historiography of Welsh architecture, culture and society. In this work, houses owned by families of Welsh descent are discussed to ascertain whether ethnicity and nationhood are actually identifiable in the architecture. Critical analysis of built fabric is supplemented and supported by primary sources such as the poetry of the bards, building accounts and records, architectural drawings, travel journals, photographs, works of art and a variety of secondary sources. In this thesis, it becomes apparent that one of the most distinctive features of country houses in Wales is the unit-system. This form of dual planning is a peculiarly Welsh feature, enabling two ‘households’ to co-exist simultaneously, adjacent to each other but not necessarily physically connected. Such forms of building are absent from most regions of England, and its presence here is due to differences in the development of the Welsh family. The existence of a different legal system and associated customs in Wales, such as the prominence of gavelkind and female inheritance, are thus expressed in physical form. This practice has set a precedent for design and planning which has influenced a distinctly Welsh country house plan, based not only upon the need to accommodate several family members but also on a desire to preserve the domestic property of their ancestors as a physical manifestation of precedency, pedigree and memory. This elevation of genealogy is a defining feature among Welsh gentry families, who distinguished themselves not by wealth but by blood, which in England became reversed. The development of the Welsh country house offered an alternative form of nationalism, which was multifaceted in nature, and formed an essential element of architectural history in Wales.

No description available.

This research project takes a fresh look at the Neolithic archaeology of the Isle of Man, using that material to evaluate a number of themes in contemporary archaeology. The theme of personhood in prehistory is most central to the study. This project discusses the prevalent interpretative schemes which archaeologists use to understand prehistoric people, prehistoric bodies, and prehistoric social relationships. As such it joins with a number of current themes in archaeological interpretation, most notably; the role ofphenomenology in inferring past experience; the use of ethnographic analogy in understanding past and present ideas and experiences of the person and body; the impact of modernity in forming current ideas of the person (particularly the impact on archaeological thought); and the relationship between the material world, social activity and discourse, both in modernity and in prehistory. Two main types of theory are employed in this project. Both are geared towards understanding social relationships and the way that personhood is generated through activity. The first theory is a theory of performativity, adapted from the work of Judith Butler. The second is a relational approach to personhood, following the work of Marilyn Strathern and other social and cultural anthropologists. These approaches offer a critical basis for the re-consideration of past and present bodies, and past and present relations of personhood. They also provide the basis for reinterpreting past material culture, architecture and landscapes. The project situates archaeology as a product of different modern discourses, and argues that these have shaped the interpretation of past discourses. It sets out to deconstruct those present discourses, and re-evaluate the role of conflicting experiences of the self and world in the present. In this approach concepts of archaeological units; the house; the culture; the individual; the family; are all open to question. They are considered as types of metonym which condition archaeological interpretation. By refuting the authority of these metonyms, and by illustrating how they have become sedimented in archaeological discourse (specifically for the Neolithic on the Isle of Man), the project explores the possibilities for more context-specific interpretations. Finally, this thesis offers some new interpretations of Neolithic activity on the Isle of Man, interpretations which focus more on the social production of self and world than on capturing the 'meaning' of the past. These interpretations are not totalising, but partial, and seek to explore the possibility of conflict and subversion in Neolithic activities.