Zooarchaeology, or the study of ancient animal remains, is a vital but frequently side-lined subject in archaeology. Many disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, and geography, recognise human-animal interactions as a key source of information for understanding cultural ideology. Archaeological records are also composed largely of debris from human-animal relationships, be they in the form of animal bones, individual artefacts or entire landscapes. By integrating knowledge from archaeological remains with evidence from texts, iconography, social anthropology and cultural geography, Beastly Questions: Animal Answers to Archaeological Issues provides an intellectual tool-kit to enable archaeological students, researchers and those working in the commercial sector to offer more engaging interpretations of the evidence at their disposal. Going beyond the simple confines of 'what people ate', this accessible but in-depth study covers a variety of high-profile topics in European archaeology and provides novel insights into mainstream archaeological questions.This includes cultural responses to wild animals, the domestication of animals and its implications on human daily practice, experience and ideology, the transportation of species and the value of incorporating animals into landscape research, the importance of the study of foodways for understanding past societies and how animal studies can help us to comprehend issues of human identity and ideology: past, present and future.

A series which is a model of its kind. Edmund King, History This year's volume continues to demonstrate the vitality of scholarship in this area, across a variety of disciplines. There is a particular focus on the material culture of the Norman Conquest of England and its aftermath, from study of horses and knights to its archaeologies to castle construction and the representation of a chanson de geste on an Italian church facade. The volume also includes papers on royal and private authority in Anglo-SaxonEngland; the relationship between Anglo-Norman rulers and their neighbours; intellectual history; priests' wives; and noble lepers. Contributors: Sabina Flanagan, Hazel Freestone, Sally Harvey, Tom Lambert, Aleksandra McClain, Nicholas Paul, Charlotte Pickard, David Pratt, Richard Purkiss, David Roffe, Nicolas Ruffini-Ronzani, Lucia Sinisi, Linda Stone, Naomi Sykes

The maintenance of human health and the mechanisms by which this is achieved - through medicine, medical intervention and care-giving - are fundamentals of human societies. However, archaeological investigations of medicine and care have tended to examine the obvious and explicit manifestations of medical treatment as discrete practices that take place within specific settings, rather than as broader indicators of medical worldviews and health beliefs. This volume highlights the importance of medical worldviews as a means of understanding healthcare and medical practice in the past. The volume brings together ten chapters, with themes ranging from a bioarchaeology of Neanderthal healthcare, to Roman air quality, decontamination strategies at Australian quarantine centres, to local resistance to colonial medical structures in South America. Within their chapters the contributors argue for greater integration between archaeology and both the medical and environmental humanities, while the Introduction presents suggestions for future engagement with emerging discourse in community and public health, environmental and planetary health, genetic and epigenetic medicine, 'exposome' studies and ecological public health, microbiome studies and historical disability studies. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of World Archaeology.

The papers given at this conference range over many historic and prehistoric periods as well as regions. Great strides have been made in recent decades in the various forms of botanical and physical analysis of archaeological finds which have enabled students to gain greater insight into diet and cooking technologies than was possible when all they had to go on was the survival of artefacts. These papers emanate from the cutting edge of archaeological research, among postgraduates and young lecturers from here and overseas. The main articles cover the following topics: Cookery in the Ertebolle Culture in Southern Scandinavia (5th millennium BC); Lifestyles in Early Iron Age Corinthia (1200-680 BC), Greece; Provisioning and Diet in Anglo-Saxon Southampton; Food and Drink in the London Playhouses of the 16th and 17th centuries; Honey and Bees in British Prehistory; Contextualising the Animal Remains from the Kabeirion Sanctuary at Thebes; The Exploitation of Hares in British Prehistory; Malting grains; Evidence of Roman diet from the sewer at Herculaneum; Nutritional Analysis of Medieval Skeletons from Durres, Albania.

This is the first volume of a projected series from the Department of Archaeology at Nottingham University. What sets it apart is that it is a postgraduate conference, not just the usual old lags' excuse for a get-together, so the contributors are presenting research that is both new and at the cutting-edge of academic preoccupation. While the importance of nutrition for survival has long been recognised, increasing emphasis is being put on the cultural significance of the production, distribution and consumption of foodstuffs throughout all archaeological periods. The ancient Near East, the Mediterranean, Europe and the British Isles come under the microscope, even the household diet of the Willoughby family, former residents of Wollaton Hall in Nottingham is scrutinised.More than 20 researchers write on topics, including hunting in Roman Britain; how food reached the Roman frontier; what was sold in the grocery shops of Roman Pompeii and Ostia; the use of stimulants in ancient societies; feasting in Mycenae and the Aegean; food storage and production in Norse Greenland and 17th century. The format is that of academic proceedings, and the readership is expected to be wholly academic.

This is the second volume of a series from the Department of Archaeology at Nottingham University which organises a postgraduate conference on this particular theme in the early summer of each year. Save for the keynote essay by the archaeologist of Roman Britain, Hilary Cool, all the authors are postgraduate researchers. While the importance of nutrition for survival has long been recognised, increasing emphasis is being put on the cultural significance of the production, distribution and consumption of foodstuffs throughout all archaeological periods. These papers reflect an interest in the sorts of foods consumed, the ways in which they were consumed, and the consequences of their consumption. Contributions range widely over Europe and Asia and cover several forms of historical or archaeological investigation based on documentary and visual records as well as excavation and chemical analysis. In like manner, a number of different historical and prehistorical eras are under discussion.

Zooarchaeology, the study of ancient animals, is a frequently side-lined subject in archaeology. This 'important and provocative' volume, now available in paperback, provides a crucial reversal of this bizarre situation - 'bizarre' because the archaeological record is composed largely of debris from human-animal relationships (be they in the form of animal bones, individual artifacts or entire landscapes) and many disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, and geography, recognise human-animal interactions as a key source of information for understanding cultural ideology. By integrating knowledge from archaeological remains with evidence from texts, iconography, social anthropology and cultural geography, Beastly Questions: Animal Answers to Archaeological Issues seeks to encourage archaeological students, researchers and those working in the commercial sector to offer more engaging interpretations of the evidence at their disposal. Going beyond the simple confines of 'what people ate', this accessible but in-depth study covers a variety of high-profile topics in European archaeology and provides novel interpretations of mainstream archaeological questions. This includes cultural responses to wild animals, the domestication of animals and its implications on human daily practice, experience and ideology, the transportation of species and the value of incorporating animals into landscape research, the importance of the study of foodways for understanding past societies and how animal studies can help us to comprehend issues of human identity and ideology: past, present and future.