Since its first publication in 1971, Barry Cunliffe's monumental survey has established itself as a classic of British archaeology. This fully revised fourth edition maintains the qualities of the earlier editions, whilst taking into account the significant developments that have moulded the discipline in recent years. Barry Cunliffe here incorporates new theoretical approaches, technological advances and a range of new sites and finds, ensuring that Iron Age Communities in Britain remains the definitive guide to the subject.

Wessex -- the ancient counties of Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire, Hampshire and Berkshire -- is remarkable for its economic and social cohesion as a region, and for the extraordinary wealth of its ancient remains. In this authoritative survey, Barry Cunliffe sets the great monuments and famous sites in their full cultural context. His chief concern, however, is to interpret the landscape of the region, and the people who over so many centuries created it. In his hands it becomes an archaeological artefact as eloquent as Avebury and Stonehenge themselves.

Northern Africa is dominated by the Sahara Desert, stretching across the continent from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea. This book is about the people who lived around the edges of the Desert and the different ways in which they responded to its challenges, establishing networks of communication across its expanse. But the Sahara has not always been a desert. From about 9000 BC the region began to enjoy a warm, humid period allowing vegetation to flourish and wild animals to move in. Humans soon followed practising pastoral economies but with the onset of harsher conditions once more around 3000 BC the desert reclaimed its own. Since then fluctuations in climate have continued to affect the lives of people living around the desert fringes. The communities occupying the North African Coast and in the Nile Valley have come under the influence of the states dominating the Near East and the Mediterranean but those living in in the Sahel to the south of the desert have developed their own distinctive cultures. The book tells the story of the growing links between the two worlds, showing that Africa played a crucial part in the development of the Old World before it was drawn into the story of the New World.

Since its first publication in 1971, Barry Cunliffe's monumental survey has established itself as a classic of British archaeology. This fully revised fourth edition maintains the qualities of the earlier editions, whilst taking into account the significant developments that have moulded the discipline in recent years. Barry Cunliffe here incorporates new theoretical approaches, technological advances and a range of new sites and finds, ensuring that Iron Age Communities in Britain remains the definitive guide to the subject.

Wessex -- the ancient counties of Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire, Hampshire and Berkshire -- is remarkable for its economic and social cohesion as a region, and for the extraordinary wealth of its ancient remains. In this authoritative survey, Barry Cunliffe sets the great monuments and famous sites in their full cultural context. His chief concern, however, is to interpret the landscape of the region, and the people who over so many centuries created it. In his hands it becomes an archaeological artefact as eloquent as Avebury and Stonehenge themselves.

Brilliant horsemen and great fighters, the Scythians were nomadic horsemen who ranged wide across the grasslands of the Asian steppe from the Altai mountains in the east to the Great Hungarian Plain in the first millennium BC. Their steppe homeland bordered on a number of sedentary states to the south - the Chinese, the Persians and the Greeks - and there were, inevitably, numerous interactions between the nomads and their neighbours. The Scythians fought the Persians on a number of occasions, in one battle killing their king and on another occasion driving the invading army of Darius the Great from the steppe. Relations with the Greeks around the shores of the Black Sea were rather different - both communities benefiting from trading with each other. This led to the development of a brilliant art style, often depicting scenes from Scythian mythology and everyday life. It is from the writings of Greeks like the historian Herodotus that we learn of Scythian life: their beliefs, their burial practices, their love of fighting, and their ambivalent attitudes to gender. It is a world that is also brilliantly illuminated by the rich material culture recovered from Scythian burials, from the graves of kings on the Pontic steppe, with their elaborate gold work and vividly coloured fabrics, to the frozen tombs of the Altai mountains, where all the organic material - wooden carvings, carpets, saddles and even tattooed human bodies - is amazingly well preserved. Barry Cunliffe here marshals this vast array of evidence - both archaeological and textual - in a masterful reconstruction of the lost world of the Scythians, allowing them to emerge in all their considerable vigour and splendour for the first time in over two millennia.

A sensational, interdisciplinary work which entirely reorients our understanding of Europe from 10,000 BC to the time of the Vikings In this magnificent book, distinguished archaeologist Barry Cunliffe reframes our entire conception of early European history, from prehistory through the ancient world to the medieval Viking period. Cunliffe views Europe not in terms of states and shifting political land boundaries but as a geographical niche particularly favored in facing many seas. These seas, and Europe's great transpeninsular rivers, ensured a rich diversity of natural resources while also encouraging the dynamic interaction of peoples across networks of communication and exchange. The development of these early Europeans is rooted in complex interplays, shifting balances, and geographic and demographic fluidity. Drawing on archaeology, anthropology, and history, Cunliffe has produced an interdisciplinary tour de force. His is a bold book of exceptional scholarship, erudite and engaging, and it heralds an entirely new understanding of Old Europe.

What is it about Brittany that makes it such a favourite destination for the British? To answer this question, Bretons and Britons explores the long history of the Bretons, from the time of the first farmers around 5400 BC to the present, and the very close relationship they have had with their British neighbours throughout this time. More than simply a history of a people, Bretons and Britons is also the author's homage to a country and a people he has come to admire over decades of engagement. Underlying the story throughout is the tale of the Bretons' fierce struggle to maintain their distinctive identity. As a peninsula people living on a westerly excrescence of Europe they were surrounded on three sides by the sea, which gave them some protection from outside interference, but their landward border was constantly threatened - not only by succeeding waves of Romans, Franks, and Vikings, but also by the growing power of the French state. It was the sea that gave the Bretons strength and helped them in their struggle for independence. They shared in the culture of Atlantic-facing Europe, and from the eighteenth century, when a fascination for the Celts was beginning to sweep Europe, they were able to present themselves as the direct successors of the ancient Celts along with the Cornish, Welsh, Scots, and Irish. This gave them a new strength and a new pride. It is this spirit that is still very much alive today.

Fierce warriors and skilled craftsmen, the Celts were famous throughout the Ancient Mediterranean World. They were the archetypal barbarians from the north and were feared by both Greeks and Romans. For two and a half thousand years they have continued to fascinate those who have come into contact with them, yet their origins have remained a mystery and even today are the subject of heated debate among historians and archaeologists. Barry Cunliffe's classic study of the ancient Celtic world was first published in 1997. Since then huge advances have taken place in our knowledge: new finds, new ways of using DNA records to understand Celtic origins, new ideas about the proto-urban nature of early chieftains' strongholds, All these developments are part of this fully updated , and completely redesigned edition. Cunliffe explores the archaeological reality of these bold warriors and skilled craftsmen of barbarian Europe who inspired fear in both the Greeks and the Romans. He investigates the texts of the classical writers and contrasts their view of the Celts with current archaeological findings. Tracing the emergence of chiefdoms and the fifth- to third-century migrations as far as Bosnia and the Czech Republic, he assesses the disparity between the traditional story and the most recent historical and archaeological evidence on the Celts. Other aspects of Celtic identity such as the cultural diversity of the tribes, their social and religious systems, art, language and law, are also examined. From the picture that emerges, we are - crucially - able to distinguish between the original Celts, and those tribes which were 'Celtized', giving us an invaluable insight into the true identity of this ancient people.

The Najerilla flows from the mountains of the Sierra de la Demanda to the River Ebro in the western part of the province of La Rioja in northern Spain. Here fieldwork and excavations from 2000-2003 examined the varied landscapes of the valley and focused on the excavation of two Iron Age hilltop settlements, Castillo Antiguo and Cerro Molino. The work on Cerro Molino was the most extensive and exposed close-spaced buildings of mud-brick and timber belonging to the Celtiberian period (fourth-second centuries BC), but both hilltops were occupied in earlier periods from the seventh to the fifth centuries. Full reports are given of the structures, material culture and economy of the settlements together with accounts of extensive field-walking undertaken in the vicinity. The report concludes with a wide-ranging overview of the archaeology and history of this hitherto little known area.

From 1997 to 2006 the Danebury Trust, under the direction of Barry Cunliffe, excavated seven sites on the chalk downland of eastern Hampshire to explore the rural settlement of the region in the Roman period. The project was designed to build upon our knowledge of the area following the excavation of the Iron Age hillfort of Danebury and of eight Iron Age settlements in the region. The results of the present project are published in two volumes. Volume 1 offers an overview of the programme together with a series of studies exploring the results in their wider contexts. Volume 2 is presented in seven separate parts each dealing with the results of one specific excavation. The sites covered include the Early Iron Age settlement of Flint Farm, the Early Iron Age and Roman site of Rowbury Farm and the Roman villa establishments at Houghton Down, Grateley South, Fullerton, Thruxton and Dunkirt Barn. Together the sites enliven our understanding of the development of the Iron Age and Roman rural landscape especially corn production and processing, the use of water power for milling, status and Romanness, ancestor cults, lineages and land-holding, and the social implications of the great aisled halls which dominated the Hampshire landscape. The volumes make a major contribution to our understanding of Iron Age and Roman Britain.

Le Yaudet (in Brittany, France) is a promontory of granite commanding the estuary of the river Leguer down-river from the modern town of Lannion (Cotes d'Armor). It has long been known as the 'Old Town' (Civitas vetus in Latin documents and Coz Yaudet in Breton), with Iron Age, Roman and medieval finds having been made from time to time over the last two centuries. A programme of research excavations began in 1991 and continued annually until 2002. The results of the work show the site to have been in use almost continuously from the early prehistoric period. This is the second volume and deals with the Prehistoric period, continuing up until the end of the Gallic Empire. French text.

Le Yaudet is a promontory of granite commanding the estuary of the river Leguer down-river from the modern town of Lannion (Cotes d'Armor). It has long been known as the 'Old Town' (Civitas vetus in Latin documents and Coz Yaudet in Breton) and Iron Age, Roman and medieval finds have been made from time to time over the last two centuries. A programme of research excavations began in 1991 and continued annually until 2002. The results of the work show the site to have been in use almost continuously from the early prehistoric period. This publication is the first of four volumes documenting the fascinating discoveries made at this important site. Written entirely in French, it provides an overview of the site, giving insight into the physical geography, the town's history prior to excavation, and the archaeological research programme. It is lavishly illustrated with many photographs and line drawings.

This volume makes an excellent site report in its own right, but the general, multi-period overview of social and settlement history, something which has been sadly lacking in past research, makes this a valuable addition to Iberian archaeology. Trial excavations were made at the site of Torreparedones in the Guadalquivir Valley between 1987-1992. This volume presents the results of the fieldwork and specialist studies: ceramics, small finds (metal, bone, glass, baked clay, worked stone, architectural elements), figurines, fauna, botanical remains and settlement history. This evidence is then used to postulate about the overall development of societies in central Andalucia from the Neolithic to the Medieval period. An important study of a regional area with a complex archaeological sequence - the value of this type of study cannot be over-emphasised.

Exploring Celtic Origins is the fruit of collaborative work by researchers in archaeology, historical linguistics, and archaeogenetics over the past ten years. This team works towards the goal of a better understanding of the background in the Bronze Age and Beaker Period of the people who emerge as Celts and speakers of Celtic languages documented in the Iron Age and later times. Led by Sir Barry Cunliffe and John Koch, the contributors present multidisciplinary chapters in a lively user-friendly style, aimed at accessibility for workers in the other fields, as well as general readers. The collection stands as a pause to reflect on ways forward at the moment of intellectual history when the genome-wide sequencing of ancient DNA (a.k.a. ‘the archaeogenetic revolution’) has suddenly changed everything in the study of later European prehistory. How do we deal with what appears to be an irreversible breach in the barrier between science and the humanities? Exploring Celtic Origins includes colour maps and illustrations and annotated Further Reading for all chapters.

Sark came briefly to prominence in 1719 when the Sark hoard was found - a pot containing Gaulish coins and embossed silver plaques. It was brought to England and disappeared. The Archaeological Survey of Sark began in 2004 with a view to studying the island in the context of Atlantic maritime networks to explore the themes of remoteness and connectivity. Fieldwork organized through the School of Archaeology, University of Oxford has been carried out annually and continues. A complete gazetteer of nearly 100 sites has been compiled together with a full listing of all the artefacts recovered. Notable are the large number of Neolithic stone axes, many made from the local dolerite, and the widespread use of local serpentine to make amulets Sark: a sacred island contains full reports on eight archaeological excavations including details of an early Neolithic settlement, a middle Neolithic ritual site, a Beaker cist burial a Mid-Late Bronze Age settlement, a Gallo-Roman ritual site (from which the Sark hoard came) and an early Medieval farm. Results of surveys of a Dark Age monastery and 16th century French fortifications are also given.

Europe's Atlantic facade has long been treated as marginal to the formation of the European Bronze Age and the puzzle of the origin and early spread of the Indo-European languages. Until recently the idea that Atlantic Europe was a wholly pre-Indo-European world throughout the Bronze Age remained plausible. Rapidly expanding evidence for the later prehistory and the pre-Roman languages of the West increasingly exclude that possibility. It is therefore time to refocus on a narrowing list of 'suspects' as possible archaeological proxies for the arrival of this great language family and emergence of its Celtic branch. This reconsideration inevitably throws penetrating new light on the formation of later prehistoric Atlantic Europe and the implications of new evidence for inter-regional connections.

The last Ice Age, which came to an end about 12,000 years ago, swept the bands of hunter gatherers from the face of the land that was to become Britain and Ireland, but as the ice sheets retreated and the climate improved so human groups spread slowly northwards, re-colonizing the land that had been laid waste. From that time onwards Britain and Ireland have been continuously inhabited and the resident population has increased from a few hundreds to more than 60 million. Britain Begins is nothing less than the story of the origins of the British and the Irish peoples, from around 10,000BC to the eve of the Norman Conquest. Using the most up to date archaeological evidence together with new work on DNA and other scientific techniques which help us to trace the origins and movements of these early settlers, Barry Cunliffe offers a rich narrative account of the first islanders - who they were, where they came from, and how they interacted one with another. Underlying this narrative throughout is the story of the sea, which allowed the islanders and their continental neighbours to be in constant contact. The story told by the archaeological evidence, in later periods augmented by historical texts, satisfies our need to know who we are and where we come from. But before the development of the discipline of archaeology, people used what scraps there were, gleaned from Biblical and classical texts, to create a largely mythological origin for the British. Britain Begins also explores the development of these early myths, which show our ancestors attempting to understand their origins. And, as Cunliffe shows, today's archaeologists are driven by the same desire to understand the past - the only real difference is that we have vastly more evidence to work with.

By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean is nothing less than the story of how humans first started building the globalized world we know today. Set on a huge continental stage, from Europe to China, it is a tale covering over 10,000 years, from the origins of farming around 9000 BC to the expansion of the Mongols in the thirteenth century AD. An unashamedly 'big history', it charts the development of European, Near Eastern, and Chinese civilizations and the growing links between them by way of the Indian Ocean, the silk Roads, and the great steppe corridor (which crucially allowed horse riders to travel from Mongolia to the Great Hungarian Plain within a year). Along the way, it is also the story of the rise and fall of empires, the development of maritime trade, and the shattering impact of predatory nomads on their urban neighbours. Above all, as this immense historical panorama unfolds, we begin to see in clearer focus those basic underlying factors - the acquisitive nature of humanity, the differing environments in which people live, and the dislocating effect of even slight climatic variation - which have driven change throughout the ages, and which help us better understand our world today.

Who were the Druids? What do we know about them? Do they still exist today? The Druids first came into focus in Western Europe - Gaul, Britain, and Ireland - in the second century BC. They are a popular subject; they have been known and discussed for over 2,000 years and few figures flit so elusively through history. They are enigmatic and puzzling, partly because of the lack of knowledge about them has resulted in a wide spectrum of interpretations. Barry Cunliffe takes the reader through the evidence relating to the Druids, trying to decide what can be said and what can't be said about them. He examines why the nature of the druid caste changed quite dramatically over time, and how successive generations have interpreted the phenomenon in very different ways. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

The third volume of the Le Yaudet excavation reports deals with the later history of the site from the fourth century AD to the present day. The site was reoccupied at the end of the Roman period, serving as a military enclave. It may well have received migrants from Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries when the settlement developed as an ecclesiastical centre, surrounded by fields. Occupation continued into the early medieval period. There is some suggestion of destruction during the Viking raids but thereafter the village spread to cover much of the highest part of the enclosure. By the sixteenth century the village had shrunk to its present size. The volume contains a full discussion of all the finds.

This volume is largely composed of a report of excavations in St. Peter Port in 1980-83, which revealed a later Iron Age settlement with a smithy and stone covered graves. Not only Iron Age material was discovered, Bronze Age pottery also appeared, as well as later finds from Medieval and Roman times. The rest of the study is devoted to the Iron Age cist burials, a special feature of the island, which exist in considerable numbers and have not been fully discussed since the 1920s. A gazetteer of Iron Age sites and finds in Guernsey, Herm and Sark is followed by a brief discussion on the Iron Age occupation of Guernsey and its place in the trade between Armorica and Britain.

Europe s Atlantic facade has long been treated as marginal to the formation of the European Bronze Age and the puzzle of the origin and early spread of the Indo-European languages. Until recently the idea that Atlantic Europe was a wholly pre-Indo-European world throughout the Bronze Age remained plausible. Rapidly expanding evidence for the later prehistory and the pre-Roman languages of the West increasingly exclude that possibility. It is therefore time to refocus on a narrowing list of suspects as possible archaeological proxies for the arrival of this great language family and emergence of its Celtic branch. This reconsideration inevitably throws penetrating new light on the formation of later prehistoric Atlantic Europe and the implications of new evidence for inter-regional connections. Celtic from the West 2 continues the series launched with Celtic from the West: Alternative Perspectives from Archaeology, Genetics, Language and Literature (2010; 2012) in exploring the new idea that the Celtic languages emerged in the Atlantic Zone during the Bronze Age. This Celtic Atlantic hypothesis represents a major departure from the long-established, but increasingly problematical scenario in which the Ancient Celtic languages and peoples called Keltoi (Celts) are closely bound up with the archaeology of the Hallstatt and La Tene cultures of Iron Age west-central Europe."

The Celtic languages and groups called Keltoi (i.e. ‘Celts’) emerge into our written records at the pre-Roman Iron Age. The impetus for this book is to explore from the perspectives of three disciplines—archaeology, genetics, and linguistics—the background in later European prehistory to these developments. There is a traditional scenario, according to which, Celtic speech and the associated group identity came in to being during the Early Iron Age in the north Alpine zone and then rapidly spread across central and western Europe. This idea of ‘Celtogenesis’ remains deeply entrenched in scholarly and popular thought. But it has become increasingly difficult to reconcile with recent discoveries pointing towards origins in the deeper past. It should no longer be taken for granted that Atlantic Europe during the 2nd and 3rd millennia BC were pre-Celtic or even pre-Indo-European. The explorations in Celtic from the West 3 are drawn together in this spirit, continuing two earlier volumes in the influential series.

Savage and bloodthirsty, or civilized and peaceable? The Celts have long been a subject of enormous fascination, speculation, and misunderstanding. Barry Cunliffe seeks to reveal this fascinating people for the first time, exploring subjects such as trade, migration, and the evolution of Celtic traditions, and examining such colourful characters as St Patrick, Cú Chulainn, and Boudica.