Across Iron Age Europe the human head carried symbolic associations with power, fertility status, gender, and more. Evidence for the removal, curation and display of heads ranges from classical literary references to iconography and skeletal remains. Traditionally, this material has been associated with a Europe-wide 'head-cult', and used to support the idea of a unified Celtic culture in prehistory. This book demonstrates instead how headhunting and head-veneration were practised across a range of diverse and fragmented Iron Age societies. Using case studies from France, Britain and elsewhere, it explores the complex and subtle relationships between power, religion, warfare and violence in Iron Age Europe.

The brochs are among the best-known ancient monuments in Scotland. However, despite a long and colourful history of research, it is only in the last 20 years that the results of field survey, excavation and radiocarbon dating have begun to flesh out a picture of their evolution and development from around 600 BC to AD 100. This well-illustrated book describes the current state of our knowledge, probes the long-running controversies over their origins and function, and provides an annotated list of the most accessible and best-preserved broch sites. Individual chapters cover: Beginnings; Anatomy of a broch tower; Broch landscapes, broch people; Lords of the north; Lords of the south; Beyond the brochs.

A study of the development of settlements in the Hebrides in the period from 1000 BC to 800 AD. Armit proposes a new classification of sites to take account of their particular characteristics; he reasses older excavations in the light of the new classification and comes up with a coherent sequence of settlement and architectural development. He puts forward models for the interpretation of settlement changes in the light of changes in culture and social relationships between the islands and emergent Scotland. Based on an Edinburgh doctoral thesis.

Recent excavations have revealed that the Hebrides-the Isle of Skye and the Western Isles-have their own regional archaeology, as distinctive as other better-known areas such as Wessex and Orkney.

Tracing the history of human settlement and society in Skye and the Western Isles, this book brings new material to a wide audience for the first time. It examines the monuments and their context from the time of the first hunter-gatherers to the post-medieval period, including descriptions of the stunning Callanish stones on the Isle of Lewis and the great broch towers found along the Western coastline. With illustrations and material from recent excavations, it recounts the area's history from prehistoric times to the Clearances and the subsequent devastating emigration to North America and Canada.

No other book gives such an accessible and up-to-date account of this important region's archaeological history- "The Archaeology of Skye and the Western Isles" will appeal to all those who can trace their ancestry to Skye, Lewis, Harris, the Uists or Barra.