Notes on Some Vestiges of Roman Occupation in Dorset

An area of Mid-Anglo-Saxon deposits at Sandtun in West Hythe first studied in 1947–48 by Gordon Ward was re-examined between 1993–98 during assessments made in advance of housing development and in a research excavation. The site was occupied from at least c. 700 until 850–75 with some later reuse. It lay among sand dunes formed on a sand bank near the mouth of a gradually silting inlet. A range of activities was practised by the community there, including fishing, spindlewhorl manufacture and bone-working, in addition to salt-making recorded in a charter of 732. The metalwork was not significantly different from finds on contemporary rural sites. Amongst the bones was a considerable number from fish and birds which were caught locally. The ceramic assemblage included a high proportion of imported continental pottery and it is concluded that the site may have been a landing-place for trading ships. The implications of the site for the interpretation of the development of urbanism in Mid-Anglo-Saxon England and the operation of trade are examined.     

Pre-Roman glass from Mozia (Sicily-Italy): the first archaeometrical data

This study present the results of an archaeometrical investigation performed on a series of opaque pre-Roman glass (vessels and ornaments) dated from the 6th to 4th century BC coming from Sicily. Sixteen core formed vessels, twelve beads, three pendants and one spindle-whorl recovered in the Phoenician-Punic sites of Mozia and Birgi were analysed thought a micro destructive approach. The complete chemical analyses and X-Ray diffraction analyses were performed on small fragments of glass. The aims of this work are: 1) to obtain a chemical characterization of these samples in order to understand the raw materials employed for their production; 2) to obtain information regarding the opacifying phases dispersed in the glass; 3) to make a comparison with the results recently obtained on coeval and similar finds recovered in other cultural context, in particular in Northern Italian Etruscan contexts in order to understand whether they could belong to the same Greek-Eastern production.     

中国新石器时代早期文化遗存的新发现和新思考

本文依据中国新石器时代早期文化遗存的新发现,提出稻作农业的起源和早期发展形式是中心起源、边缘发展的看法,即稻作农业大约在公元前１００００年起源于自然食物来源充足的中国南方腹心地带,于公元前７０００年后发展于“富裕的食物采集文化”区边缘的两湖平原西部地区和钱塘江流域,并逐步向淮河流域推进。     

Vestiges and Witnesses: Archaeological Finds from the Nazi Euthanasia Institution of Hartheim as Objects of Research and Education

In Hartheim Castle, more than 30,000 people became victims of National Socialist euthanasia programs. In the course of building the memorial at the end of the 1990s, numerous structural remnants of the killing institution were found. In 2001 several pits with structural elements, some human remains, as well as belongings of people murdered were found by chance in the former castle garden. This contribution establishes the meaning these items have for research, as well as considerations and discussions about the possibilities of presenting the vestiges in museum form and how to use the latter for teaching projects.     

Roman London

This paper discusses two fragmentary stone pillars, one decorated, which were recently discovered at Trefollwyn, near Llangefni, Anglesey. These are the first examples of their kind from Britain but they belong to a tradition of La Tène carved stone pillars from the Rhineland, Brittany, and Ireland. They may be connected with burial. In antiquarian sources an early Christian inscribed stone (fifth-sixth centuries A.D.), now lost, was reported from Capel Heilin in the same immediate vicinity and suggests that the area was used for burial in the early medieval period.     

殷墟乙十一建筑基址的年代与相关遗迹的讨论

殷墟乙十一基址是殷墟建筑基址中遗迹现象与层位关系最为复杂的一处 ,原始发掘报告对此即有陈述未清和淆乱之处 ,后人的看法也不尽一致。本文根据乙十一基址的层位关系及各方研究成果进行了分析 ,认为其上限自殷墟文化二期 ,下限至殷代晚期。     

Monthly London Meeting

When the Catholic Mass was outlawed by Edward VI, ‘The sacrifice of Masses, in which it was commonly said that the Priests did offer Christ for the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain or guilt, were blasphemous fables and dangerous deceits’—the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, 1553, Article Thirty-one (Bickwell 1955, 410), not only were priests loyal to Rome forced underground, but altars, vestments and chalices used in the Mass were destroyed. Clandestine priests had to either rescue and hide such items or purchase new ones.

Few chalices survived this iconoclasm and most Catholic priests must have had to purchase new plate, and there is evidence that some such plate was made in base-metals, an area which has so far been little researched.     

The Pre-Roman Iron Age in Britain and Ireland (ca. 800 B.C. to A.D. 100): An overview

Those communities that lived in Britain and Ireland ca. 800 B.C. to A.D. 100 represent particularly well-researched examples of the complex agrarian, nonurban, societies with high population densities that characterize the Pre-Roman Iron Age across temperate Europe. This paper provides a critical introduction to the extensive recent literature on the Pre-Roman Iron Age in Britain and Ireland. Evidence from the large number of salvage excavations and surveys, the application of a wide range of analytical techniques, and important changes in interpretative frameworks are transforming understandings of this period. After reviewing these developments, a chronological account of the period is outlined which attempts to integrate these new results. This suggests that current interpretations of social processes across Iron Age Europe in terms of state formation, urbanization, and core-periphery relations with Mediterranean civilization need revision.     

Life in Medieval London

Abstract

This is the first detailed published study of the stained-glass ‘band’ window which survives in the east end of St Mary’s church, at Selling in Kent. It is argued that the Selling window was installed in the second decade of the 14th century; not, as is usually thought, the first. The window is a hierarchical statement, embodying a number of interrelated levels of meaning. Its primary function is to celebrate Christ’s incarnation, and the role of the Virgin and other saints as intercessors for mankind at the Last Judgement. The window clearly also commemorates the glory days of Edward I, who died in 1307. The historical evidence and the iconography suggest that, in addition, it is a memorial to the Clare family, installed after the English defeat at Bannockburn in 1314, commemorating the death of Gilbert III of Clare, earl of Gloucester and Hertford. The window was probably commissioned by the local lord Bartholomew Badlesmere and his wife, who was Gilbert’s cousin, between 1314 and 1317, when Bartholomew was executor of Gilbert’s estate.