Current Archaeology is changing. Early this year the magazine was redesigned to give it a new look. There have also been several special issues – on Hadrian’s Wall, on Kent, and on Norwich. This issue marks another change. We have a guest editor – Neil Faulkner – who has made his own selection of articles and chosen how to present them. The result is quite a contrast with our last issue on rescue digs in medieval Norwich. Here we report on some very diverse research work.
Peter Reynolds has been an ‘Iron Age farmer’ since 1972, so it was high time we reviewed his work at the Butser Ancient Farm in Hampshire. This is experimental archaeology in action – but how far was Iron Age farming ‘efficient’? He is now turning to the Romans – and just how do you go about building a Roman bath house?
Then we move to North Yorkshire. In 1996, on the edge of Towton village, builders uncovered a gruesome ‘death-pit’ containing soldiers killed in the Wars of the Roses. A major project was launched to excavate the pit and study the f remains. The result is a unique insight into medieval warfare. In some cases, we y can reconstruct, blow by blow, a medieval warrior’s dying moments half a millennium ago.
Next we interview Richard Reece, recently retired as lecturer at the Institute of Archaeology, London. Richard Reece has been one of the most influential – and subversive – figures in Roman archaeology. Here we report on the ‘Reeceian’ approach to coins, Roman Britain … and rocking the boat.
Avebury is best known for its neolithic stone circle – but was it also a key point in the Anglo-Saxon defence against the Vikings? At the near-by village of Yatesbury, a student-led field project by London’s Institute of Archaeology has been making some remarkable discoveries about the villages around Avebury.
Finally, Neil Faulkner reports on his own project at Sedgeford in Norfolk, where students and volunteers are excavating an Anglo-Saxon village and cemetery, and the search is on for the manor-houses of later Norman lords. The Sedgeford project runs every year and needs lots