By investigating the sites of historical battlefields, this book shows that an insight can be developed into the minds of those who fought, and into some of our own expectations about war. It reveals differences in landscape type between battlefields from the tenth to nineteenth century in Britain, Belgium, France, Spain and Portugal.

This ambitious and innovative book sets out to establish a new understanding of human aggression and conflict in the distant past. Examining the evidence of warfare in prehistoric times and in the early historical period, John Carman and Anthony Harding throw fresh light on the motives and methods of the combatants. This study marks a significant new step in this fascinating and neglected subject, and sets the agenda for many years to come. By integrating archaeological and documentary res...

What is -- or makes a place -- a 'historic battlefield'? From one perspective the answer is simple -- it is a place where large numbers of people came together in an organised manner to fight one another at some point in the past. Yet from another perspective it is far more difficult to say. Why any such location is a place of battle rather than any other kind of event, and why it is especially historic, is hard to identify. This book sets out an answer to the question of what a historic b...

This book is of relevance to all archaeologists and all others concerned with how an interest in the past impacts on the present.This book explores the manner in which archaeology as a discipline and a field of endeavour contributes to the modern world. The focus throughout the book is on practices - the range of different things that archaeologists do and how they do and have done it in order to explore the field as a distinctive aspect of social practice over time. It also concer...

The Oxford Handbook of Public Archaeology seeks to reappraise the place of archaeology in the contemporary world by providing a series of essays that critically engage with both old and current debates in the field of public archaeology. Divided into four distinct sections and drawing across disciplines in this dynamic field, the volume aims to evaluate the range of research strategies and methods used in archaeological heritage and museum studies, identify and contribute to key c...

The Oxford Handbook of Public Archaeology seeks to reappraise the place of archaeology in the contemporary world by providing a series of essays that critically engage with both old and current debates in the field of public archaeology. Divided into four distinct sections and drawing across disciplines in this dynamic field, the volume aims to evaluate the range of research strategies and methods used in archaeological heritage and museum studies, identify and contribute to key c...

This volume provides a forum for debate between varied approaches to the past. The authors, drawn from Europe, North America, Asia and Australasia, represent many different strands of archaeology. They address the philosophical issues involved in interpretation and a desire among archaeologists to come to terms with their own subjective approaches to the material they study, a recognition of how past researchers have also imposed their own value systems on the evidence which they presented...

Archaeological resource management (ARM) is the practice of recording, evaluating, preserving for future research and presenting to the public the material remains of the past. Almost all countries uphold a set of principles and laws for the preservation and professional management of archaeological remains. This book offers a critical and comparative perspective on the law and professional practices of managing archaeological remains. Beginning with a global history of ARM, John Carman pr...

Ethnographic perspectives are often used by archaeologists to study cultures both past and present - but what happens when the ethnographic gaze is turned back onto archaeological practices themselves? That is the question posed by this book, challenging conventional ideas about the relationship between the subject and the object, the observer and the observed, and the explainers and the explained. This book explores the production of archaeological knowledge from a range of ethnographic p...

Effective management is becoming increasingly important in all aspects of archaeology. Archaeologists must manage the artefacts thay deal with, their funding, ancient sites, as well as the practice of archaeology itself. Managing Archaeology is a collecton of outstanding papers from experts involved in these many areas.The contributors focus on the principles and practice of management in the 1990s, covering such crucial aeas as the management of contract and field archaeol...

This is the first volume specifically dedicated to the consolidation and clarification of Heritage Studies as a distinct field with its own means of investigation. It presents the range of methods that can be used and illustrates their application through case studies from different parts of the world, including the UK and USA. The challenge that the collection makes explicit is that Heritage Studies must develop a stronger recognition of the scope and nature of its data and a concise yet ...

"A 'must have' book for anyone who has an interest in edged weapons . . . Loades holds the reader's full attention with each sword's story that he tells." —The Lone Star Book ReviewThis magnificent book tells the story of the evolution of swords, how they were made, how they were used, and the people that used them. It doesn't claim to give comprehensive coverage but instead takes certain surviving examples as landmarks on a fascinating journey through the history o...