Book 1

A review of the rich and diverse evidence for understanding past climate and environmental change in the Thames Valley, and the effects on plant and animal populations and the challenges and opportunities these presented to early humans. Part 1 of this volume covers the Pleistocene, the epoch of the Ice Ages, in an integrated review of the geological, palaeontological and archaeological data for the last half million years and more. Part 2 takes up the story from the beginning of the Holocene, the warm period in which we are still living, which began around 11,500 years ago. The authors review the evidence for early hunter-gatherer populations in the Mesolithic, the gradually increasing impact of humans in the region in the Neolithic and early Bronze Age and their rich social lives and belief systems. Much of the evidence has been recovered during extensive gravel quarrying. The volume is excellently illustrated with colour and line illustrations and maps.

Book 39

Yarnton

by Gill Hey

Published 20 September 2004
From 1989 to 1998, Oxford Archaeology investigated an extensive area of landscape around Yarnton and Cassington, Oxfordshire. Remains dating from the Neolithic up until the Post-Medieval period were examined, revealing a remarkable story of changing settlement and landscape over five millennia. This volume describes the Saxon to Post-Medieval discoveries made between 1990 and 1996, tracing the developments from small-scale early Anglo-Saxon farmsteads to the medieval village, and reveals the profound changes that occurred at Yarnton in settlement, agriculture and social organisation between the end of the Roman empire and the Post-Conquest world. Rare evidence from multi-disciplinary studies shows that many of the key features of this transformation took place during the late 8th and 9th centuries AD, at an earlier date than conventionally believed.