'Closure' and the urban Great Rebuilding in early modern Norwich

Abstract

Urban buildings have been largely ignored in the debate over the 'Great Rebuilding' of vernacular houses in 16th- and 17th-century England and in Matthew Johnson's influential thesis of 'closure'. This paper reviews the extensive archaeological evidence (from both standing buildings and excavations) for houses in post-medieval Norwich, focusing on the dwellings of the prosperous 'middling sort'. Norwich experienced a significant period of housing development between the late 15th and mid-16th centuries, with rebuilding continuing through the later 16th and 17th centuries. Accordingly, the concept of 'closure' must be adapted to incorporate the distinctive character and chronology of urban buildings.     

Medieval Architecture Illustrated from Illuminated Manuscripts

Abstract

Following examination of a number of post-medieval perceptions of Peak, or Peveril, Castle in Derbyshire, the topographical setting of the castle is discussed. It is suggested that late-12th-century literature can give clues as to the way in those who built and used the castle in the 12th and 13th centuries might have appreciated the site.     

An 18th-Century Mansion,a Fishpond,and Post-Medieval Finds from St. Neots,Huntingdonshire

Abstract

The remains of Hall Place, St. Neots, a late 17th- or early 18th-century house facing Church Street, were encountered during the excavation of an Anglo-Saxon settlement in 1961. Hall place had been built over the site of a large timber-lined cutting, perhaps a fishpond, which had been filled up with domestic rubbish and demolition debris during the course of the 16th century. The fishpond contained a large group of finds including both local and imported pottery, metalwork and leather objects. Pits, wells and other late and post-medieval structures and features were also found in the garden areas behind Hall Place and other Church Street houses.     

The Geoff Egan Memorial Lecture 2011 Artefacts,art and artifice: reconsidering iconographic sources for archaeological objects in early modern Europe

Abstract

This paper reviews a key dynamic in post-medieval archaeology, that is, the relationship between artefacts and images, and in particular the questions raised in the study of historic domestic material culture depicted in contemporaneous painting and prints. Both media underwent a major transformation from c. 1400. Two main groups of pictorial art containing domestic material culture are reviewed, namely pre- and post-Reformation art in the Netherlands and Germany and genre paintings of the Dutch Golden Age. The historical iconographic record may shed a potentially rich qualitative light onto the quantitative archaeological patterning. Excavations at Duisburg in the Lower Rhineland are selected as a rich source of archaeological correspondence.     

Post-medieval archaeology in Portugal

Abstract

Portuguese post-medieval archaeology corresponds to the period between the early 16th century and the late 18th century, identified in the archaeological record through several distinct artefact categories, of which ceramics are the most abundant. New products such as thin-walled moulded coarsewares and faience are found together with imports from different European countries, China and other Eastern lands. Although sites and finds are mentioned in Portuguese archaeological and art-historical literature from the late 19th century, it only became a scientific discipline in the 1980s. This paper aims to provide a general view of investigations in post-medieval archaeology for more than a century, focusing on contexts and finds, but also looking towards the discipline’s future.     

Seventeenth-century Pottery from Ash,Surrey

Abstract

About 2,000 sherds, mainly in white fabric, were found on a site at Ash which was one of several producing similar wares on the West Surrey and Hampshire borders. Some of the sherds were medieval, but the remainder were 17th century and are analysed in an attempt to assess the forms and characteristics of the post-medieval pottery made at Ash. Documentary evidence discloses the presence of potters in Ash in the 17th and 18th centuries, although there is no direct link with the site, and also indicates possible sources for the potters’ clay.     

The Changing Vernacular: archaeological excavations at Temple End,High Wycombe,Buckinghamshire

Abstract

Excavations beneath and around the late Georgian Glinester House at Temple End, in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, revealed the presence of at least three major phases of building. Dating from the 16th century these structures appear to be a succession of farmhouses lying at the centre of wider farm complexes. While these buildings are located within the former lands of Temple Manor, from which the area and farm name derives, no evidence of a medieval manor complex was located within the excavation area. Rather the pattern of development is more indicative of wider transformations in vernacular housing and domestic life between the 16th and 19th centuries.     

“He is Worst Than the [Shawnee] Prophet”: The Archaeology of Nativism Among the Early Nineteenth Century Potawatomi of Illinois

Abstract

During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries many Great Lakes Native American groups splintered into nativist and accomodationist factions that advocated opposing strategies for dealing with Euro-Americans. Nativists urged a return to a so-called traditional Algonquin way of life while accomodationists adopted varying degrees of Euro-American ideology, material culture, and subsistence practices. The mid-1990s excavation of an early 1800s Potawatomi village (the Windrose site) in northern Illinois once led by Main Poc, one of the fiercest Potawatomi nativist leaders and an ally of the Shawnee Prophet, provided detailed information on the material culture, subsistence, and ideology of the early nineteenth century nativist movement among the Illinois Potawatomi.     

Citizen and Monument. The Case of the Greek Island of Naxos

Abstract

Naxos, the largest island of the Cyclades in the Aegean Sea in Greece, has been continuously inhabited from Neolithic times to the present and is full of architectural remains from all historical periods. Traditional settlements, castles, towers, numerous Byzantine and post-Byzantine churches, and several archaeological sites testify to its long and significant history.

The relationship between inhabitants and their archaeological heritage is multifaceted and of special interest. This article analyses the history of this relationship, the reasons that shaped its quality, the problems, and perspectives. It also explores the ways in which citizens, in this particular case the Naxians, participate in the protection of their monuments at a time when tourist development dominates the Naxian economy.     

A sugar-boiling house at Galways: An Irish sugar plantation in Montserrat,West Indies

Abstract

The former village of Cowlam lies on the Chalk Wolds of the old East Riding of Yorkshire at SE/965657. When the village earthworks were threatened with destruction in the early 1970s, the late T.C.M. Brewster carried out a series of rescue excavations for the East Riding Archaeological Research Committee. He examined the remains of four structures within the ‘courtyard farm’ complex of one croft. His excavations demonstrated that this courtyard farm represented the amalgamation of two earlier croft units, probably at some time towards the end of the medieval period.

Three of these four structures had ground plans of typical ‘longhouse’ form, with dwarf chalk footing walls and opposed central doorways. Their similarity of form raised problems of their respective functions and the changing role of buildings within the complex. The wide range of artefact material recovered from the vicinity of these buildings provided additional evidence for their use.

The pottery demonstrated that this courtyard farm had remained in occupation until the later 17th century, a date which correlated with the documentary evidence for the desertion of the village. Cowlam is only one of a number of Wold villages which were abandoned in the post-medieval period.     

A local response to a wider situation: the archaeology of the clan stronghold of Dùn Èistean,Isle of Lewis

Abstract

Dùn Èistean stands at the end of a long tradition of clan strongholds seen in the MacLeod lordship of the western seaboard of north-west Scotland in the medieval and early post-medieval periods. Excavations on the site have shown that it was in repeated use for refuge in times of trouble in the 16th and early 17th centuries, acting as a power centre caught up in the wider political scene. The inhabitants of Dùn Èistean were a people with a strong local identity, using their traditional building techniques, adapting to available raw materials and drawing on the resources of the surrounding environment to support and defend the inhabitants in the face of incoming attack.     

Post-medieval sheep (Ovis aries) metapodia from southern Britain

The ‘improvement’ of sheep (Ovis aries) in southern Britain during the post-medieval period is examined using measurements taken on the metacarpals and metatarsals from the late 18th to 19th centuries AD site of Tumbling Fields, Tiverton, Devon. This data set is a rare and important metric archive from which is derived information on the conformation (size and shape) of sheep. Comparisons are presented from other medieval and post-medieval sites, which demonstrate that Tumbling Fields is comparable to other sites of a similar period. The comparisons presented also reveal temporal variation with bones from later sites being taller and more robust on average than those from earlier sites. In addition, the abnormalities of sheep (O. aries) metapodia are examined. In particular, two different conditions are discussed: small, oval cavities in the proximal articulation of the metacarpals, and a ridge of bone on the proximal anterior shaft of the metatarsals. Comparisons are presented from other medieval and post-medieval sites, and potential aetiologies are discussed.     

From the sublime to the Druidical: changing perceptions of prehistoric monuments in southern Anglesey in the post-medieval period

Abstract

The prehistoric monuments of southern Anglesey have been interpreted in various ways over the past three centuries, as an examination of the work of antiquarians, artists, landscape designers and other contemporary commentators reveals. During the post-medieval period, the meanings of these monuments shifted, as perceptions of the pre-Roman era changed. As embodiments of the past, megalithic monuments were embraced by Welsh historians, antiquarians and artists in the movement to formulate a Welsh national identity. Moreover, their incorporation into landscape gardens was indicative of the extent to which they captured the contemporary imagination. Local communities, meanwhile, reacted in differing ways to the megaliths, influenced concurrently by superstition and agrarian pragmatism.     

An Aegean Fire-Stand from Tel Nagila

Abstract

In this short paper we present a detailed study of a unique ceramic vessel fragment that was found in the excavations at Tel Nagila. The interpretation of this fragment as an Aegean fire-stand has implications for our understanding of the origin and development of Philistine material culture in Iron Age Philistia.     

Late Paleolithic and Mesolithic Coastlines of Greece and the Aegean

Abstract

Reconstructions of the late Quaternary paleogeography of Greece and the Aegean show that at 18,000 years B.P. the northern Aegean and northern Adriatic formed large coastal plains traversed by many rivers. Broad plains also existed off the coast of Elis and the present Gulf of Korinth, and along the Anatolian coast. Many islands, such as Kerkira, Euboea, and the northern Sporadhes, were connected with the mainland, and most of the Cycladic islands were joined together in a Cycladic semi-peninsula. The post-glacial rise of sea level beginning ca. 15,000 B.P. restored around 9,000 B.P. the coastal geography to approximately its present configuration. The late Quaternary paleogeography and its subsequent changes have many archeological implications that are worth serious consideration. The well-watered northern coastal plains may have furnished subsistence for a plains population quite independent of the resources of the northern mountain regions, and they constituted easy access to the Greek peninsula from the NE and NW. Loss of coastal plain land during the post-glacial rise of sea level drastically changed the resource base in many areas. The island of Melos, known source of obsidian for toolmaking since at least 10,000 B.P., may have been discovered considerably earlier when access to the island was largely over land.     

The Excavation of a Brick Clamp at Shotesham St. Mary,Norfolk, 1969

Abstract

Rescue excavations in the small village of Llanmaes investigated an area of earthworks indicating the presence of several buildings. Medieval evidence was largely confined to finds. Three late 17th-century properties were examined; it is possible that they represent a planned development on the east side of the village green in response to population expansion in the Vale of Glamorgan. The buildings are of simple two-roomed plan, and would appear to be tenements of low status. One of the buildings produced evidence of smithying. A large group of metal finds of agricultural and domestic use was found, as was a closely-dated assemblage of wine bottles; a large midden deposit on the north edge of the site contained a very large group of post-medieval pottery. The buildings were abandoned by the end of the 18th century, presumably following rationalization of the local settlement morphology and farming. Thus the site represents a short-lived expansion in low-status rural housing at the time of the ‘Great Rebuilding’.     

Isotopic and zooarchaeological investigation of later medieval and post-medieval cattle husbandry at Dudley Castle,West Midlands

Abstract

Zooarchaeological analysis of a substantial assemblage of animal bones excavated from Dudley Castle, West Midlands, revealed two significant changes in cattle management in the late medieval and post-medieval periods: a statistically significant increase in size in the later 14th century; and a gradual reduction in slaughter age. To explore whether these altered husbandry practices were accompanied by modifications to the diet and environment of these animals, a targeted study of carbon and nitrogen stable isotope values from 135 cattle bones was conducted. This analysis revealed that δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N values were broadly consistent between the mid-13th and mid-18th centuries. Only two statistically significant diachronic variations were identified: a temporary decrease in δ¹³C values in phase 7 (1397–1533); and lower variation in δ¹³C values in phase 9 (1647–1750). A number of explanations for these changes are offered. While the zooarchaeologically attested shifts in cattle husbandry were not accompanied by isotopically detectable changes to diet and environment, the analysis of stable isotopes highlighted other changes that were not detected using traditional zooarchaeological analysis. The complimentary benefits of zooarchaeological and isotopic approaches are extolled.     

PAUL COURTNEY BSc,MA, PhD,FSA1955–2013

Abstract

Based on the first extensive research into Bavarian clay tobacco pipes dating from 1600 to 1745, this paper synthesizes written sources and material culture with the aims not only of contributing to post-medieval ceramic studies but also of examining the implementation and impact of a tobacco monopoly within an early modern state. After discussing the methodology, pipes are examined as a medium for mercantilist-driven actions and as indicators of socio-cultural change. The archaeology of Bavarian clay tobacco pipes throws light on the operation of an economic system and on only partly recorded or unrecorded activities such as smuggling and illicit manufacture.     

Byzantine History in late Ottoman Turkish Historiography

Abstract

The present Short Note is intended as a brief introduction to a subject which is part of a wider research project on Greek (ancient, Byzantine, and modern) as well as Roman history and culture as described and discussed in Ottoman literature, particularly in late Ottoman historiography. As an attempt to familiarise the reader with, at this stage, no more than a few aspects of the subject in question, the following sketch does not pretend to be exhaustive. It is hoped, however, that it will provide a general idea of the context, as well as of the relevant sources, some of which will be described in more detail. Our note is, in addition, intended to arouse interest, particularly from the point of view of Byzantine and modern Greek studies, and to invite comments.     

The structure of the pomor settlement complex on the Schønningholmane site (Hornsund,West Spitsbergen) archaeological data

This article is an attempt to develop a discussion within the archaeological world, with reference to a particular aspect of Russian hunting on Svalbard.

In general, such a discussion is vital, because the written sources concerning the Russian activity on Svalbard are rather weak (as is frequently the case with areas on the periphery of cultural centers).

Archaeology must therefore play an important role in the reconstruction of the archipelago's cultural history, even as recently as the 17th ‐19th centuries.