A definitive account of Sutton Hoo, its discovery, history and famed treasure. The Sutton Hoo ship-burial is one of the most significant finds ever made in Europe. It lies in a burial ground which contains all the elements of archaeological mystery: seventeen mounds, buried treasure, and sacrificed horses. In this very accessible book, Martin Carver explains what we know of this site, at which the leaders of the Dark Age kingdom of East Anglia signalled the pagan and maritime nature of their court. This is the story not only of this dramatic place, but also of its exploration over half a century, which amounts to a potted history of British archaeology.

Formative Britain presents an account of the peoples occupying the island of Britain between 400 and 1100 AD, whose ideas continue to set the political agenda today. Forty years of new archaeological research has laid bare a hive of diverse and disputatious communities of Picts, Scots, Welsh, Cumbrian and Cornish Britons, Northumbrians, Angles and Saxons, who expressed their views of this world and the next in a thousand sites and monuments. This highly illustrated volume is the first book that attempts to describe the experience of all levels of society over the whole island using archaeology alone. The story is drawn from the clothes, faces and biology of men and women, the images that survive in their poetry, the places they lived, the work they did, the ingenious celebrations of their graves and burial grounds, their decorated stone monuments and their diverse messages. This ground-breaking account is aimed at students and archaeological researchers at all levels in the academic and commercial sectors. It will also inform relevant stakeholders and general readers alike of how the islands of Britain developed in the early medieval period. Many of the ideas forged in Britain's formative years underpin those of today as the UK seeks to find a consensus programme for its future.

37 studies of the adoption of Christianity across northern Europe over1000 years, and the diverse reasons that drove the process. In Europe, the cross went north and east as the centuries unrolled: from the Dingle Peninsula to Estonia, and from the Alps to Lapland, ranging in time from Roman Britain and Gaul in the third and fourth centuries to the conversion of peoples in the Baltic area a thousand years later. These episodes of conversion form the basic narrative here. History encourages the belief that the adoption of Christianity was somehow irresistible, but specialists show theunderside of the process by turning the spotlight from the missionaries, who recorded their triumphs, to the converted, exploring their local situations and motives. What were the reactions of the northern peoples to the Christian message? Why would they wish to adopt it for the sake of its alliances? In what way did they adapt the Christian ethos and infrastructure to suit their own community? How did conversion affect the status of farmers, of smiths, of princes and of women? Was society wholly changed, or only in marginal matters of devotion and superstition? These are the issues discussed here by thirty-eight experts from across northern Europe; some answers come from astute re-readings of the texts alone, but most are owed to a combination of history, art history and archaeology working together. MARTIN CARVER is Professor of Archaeology, University of York.

Formative Britain presents an account of the peoples occupying the island of Britain between 400 and 1100 AD, whose ideas continue to set the political agenda today. Forty years of new archaeological research has laid bare a hive of diverse and disputatious communities of Picts, Scots, Welsh, Cumbrian and Cornish Britons, Northumbrians, Angles and Saxons, who expressed their views of this world and the next in a thousand sites and monuments. This highly illustrated volume is the first book that attempts to describe the experience of all levels of society over the whole island using archaeology alone. The story is drawn from the clothes, faces and biology of men and women, the images that survive in their poetry, the places they lived, the work they did, the ingenious celebrations of their graves and burial grounds, their decorated stone monuments and their diverse messages. This ground-breaking account is aimed at students and archaeological researchers at all levels in the academic and commercial sectors. It will also inform relevant stakeholders and general readers alike of how the islands of Britain developed in the early medieval period. Many of the ideas forged in Britain's formative years underpin those of today as the UK seeks to find a consensus programme for its future.

Field practice in archaeology varies greatly throughout the world, mainly because archaeological sites survive in very different ways in different counties. Many manuals see this as a problem - to be defeated by the imposition of standardised procedures. In this book we relish the variety of field practice, seeing it rather as the way the best archaeologists have responded creatively to the challenges of terrain, research objectives and the communities within which they work. While insisting on the highest levels of investigation, we celebrate the different designs, concepts, scientific detection methods and recording systems applied - so embracing standards, but not standardisation. The book is organised in four parts: Part 1 offers a summary of field procedures. Part 2 reviews the principal methods applied, above and below ground, and how the results are analysed. Part 3 illustrates the huge variety confronted by field workers with a series of exemplary commercial and academic projects enacted in downland, jungle, desert, permafrost, road schemes and towns. Approaches also differ according to the traditional methodologies that have evolved in particular countries. In Part 4 we give examples of some the strongest and oldest of those practised on four continents.

Time passed in relative prosperity of the frontier regions. With few if any real indications of the passing of time. Alas though there were changes that went almost unnoticed. First the druids slowly faded from prominence in society. There were even rumors of a division in their ranks called the shadow circle. A circle of druids who wanted to retain control and status in society or took a stance on a more militant attitude towards the populace and its abuses of nature. They remained just a secretive rumor about the elusive druids. Now word of an artifact which could achieve their ideals comes to light. The magical circle stones if reassembled would give them this power. They are not the only ones seeking this artifact and its reassembly. It is on this path that five unlikely adventures would be set. Talasine the druid, a secretive priest of nature. Raveena a sorceress, of fiery hair and demeanor. Raven a swords man, and mysterious mentor. Khonnar the Danean, a youth of fair hair and boisterous youthful attitude. And finally Mahlvakar the ranger, of dark hair and travel wonder. They are a force of nature to be reckoned with, but which force will they side with good or evil. Each side is betting on their good auspices... one will be disappointed.

This book deals with a key archaeology of one of the prime Pictish settlements in north east Scotland. This updated 2nd edition continues and develops the interpretation of a prime Pictish settlement site in north east Scotland, with new chapters exploring Iron Age, Medieval and European contexts of the settlement. Before 1996, no one assumed Portmahomack held a key to the understanding of the mysterious Pictish world. On discovery of an apparent monastery and settlement, the area soon became the subject of one of the largest research excavations ever to have taken place on the Scottish mainland. The monastery was destroyed between 780 and 830 AD and was then lost to history before being unearthed by Martin Carver and his colleagues. In this highly illustrated book, Martin Carver describes the discovery of the site and the design and execution of the research programme, then traces the events that occurred from the mid 6th century to the 11th century when the parish church was founded on the former monastic site. The book ends with the subsequent history of the church of St Colman and a study of the Tarbat peninsula. The author's conclusions advance the theory that this was a prehistoric place before the monks arrived, and that they marked out the boundaries of their estate in the late 8th century with the lives of local saints carved on some of the greatest stone sculptures of the age. This updated new edition presents results of 18 years of archaeology. It includes three new chapters. It features expanded conclusions and theories of Pictish life. It is a heavily illustrated edition.