Christopher Evans with Duncan Mackay & Leo Webley. Borderlands: the archaeology of the Adddenbrooke's Environs, South Cambridge.

Christopher Evans with Duncan Mackay & Leo Webley. Borderlands: the archaeology of the Adddenbrooke's Environs, South Cambridge. CHRISTOPHER EVANS Christopher Evans or Chris Evans may refer to: Chris Evans (presenter), a British broadcaster (born 1966) Sir Christopher Evans (businessman), a British biotech entrepreneur Christopher Evans (author), a British science fiction author (born 1951) with DUNCAN MACKAY Duncan MacKay (born 14 July 1937 in Glasgow) was a Scottish footballer who played for Celtic, Third Lanark, Melbourne Croatia, Perth Azzurri and the Scotland national team.Mackay turned professional when he joined Celtic from Maryhill Harp aged 17 in 1955. & LEO WEBLEY. Borderlands:the archaeology of the Adddenbrooke's Environs, South Cambridge(CAU (Controlled Access Unit) An intelligent hub from IBM for Token Ring networks. Failed nodes are identified by the hub and reported via IBM's LAN Network Manager software. Landscape Archives: New Archaeologies of the Cambridge Region 1).xii+212 pages, 108 illustrations, 50 tables. 2008. Cambridge: CambridgeArchaeological Unit; 978-0-9544824-7-3 paperback 25 [pounds sterling]. This publication on the archaeological landscape of the Addenbrookehospital's environs south of Cambridge is the first of a new seriesby the Cambridge Archaeological Unit under the name 'NewArchaeologies of the Cambridge Region'. The series title echoesthat of Cyril Fox's (1923) dissertation which can be consideredancestral to studies published on landscape archaeology Landscape archaeology is a body of method and theory for the study of the material traces of past peoples within the context of their interactions in the wider (typically regional) social and natural environment they inhabited. in general, andthat of Cambridgeshire in particular, in the foreword of the presentpublication, the importance of studying the pattern which the find-spotsmake on a map and how this relates to the local geological structure,contour, soils and water supply could be taken directly from Fox'swork (1947: 1-2). With the modern-day pace of development, the editorsare well aware that particular narratives may need revision before long.Therefore, Fox's title is now in the plural (archaeologies) and theeditors stress that it is a regional 'enquiry towards pattern'or 'the fabric of the past' rather than a singular narrativethat is the ultimate goal. The present study tries to adhere to adhere toverb 1. follow, keep, maintain, respect, observe, be true, fulfil, obey, heed, keep to, abide by, be loyal, mind, be constant, be faithful2. a'Fox-directive' that entails integrated examination of thegeographical possibilities of the land, the fossilisation Noun 1. fossilisation - the process of fossilizing a plant or animal that existed in some earlier age; the process of being turned to stonefossilization of long-termstructures in the landscape and analysis of its 'generalcharacter' (pp. 12-15). [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] To this end, the volume starts with introducing the researchhistory of the environs of Cambridge's Addenbrook hospital area,centred on the Hutchinton site excavated in 2002-2003. The results ofthis 3ha excavation form the bulk of the volume (chapter 2, 116 pages),supplemented by a discussion of results from extensive survey andevaluation campaigns nearby (chapter 3, 45 pages). These comprise theAdddenbrooke/Trumpington Meadows area (c. 200ha), the Shelford'sGranham's farm area (c. 52ha) and the Barrington Quarry andLongstanton areas, the latter two several kilometres to the south- andnorthwest of Addenbrooke. The volume closes with a short discussion ofhighlights in the 'fabric' uncovered and the area'sborderland bor��der��land?n.1. a. Land located on or near a frontier.b. The fringe: a shadowy figure who lived on the borderland of the drug scene.2. nature. The first chapter, richly illustrated with maps, familiarises thereader with the particularities of the Addenbrooke area. It contains adetailed discussion of various sites whose relevance is only fullyrealised after the presentation of results from the Hutchintonexcavation; this should perhaps have been placed after chapter 2. There,Hutchinton's sequence is unravelled and (very conveniently andsatisfactorily) discussed with its specialist observations by use-phase.After a Neolithic and Middle Bronze Age Bronze Age,period in the development of technology when metals were first used regularly in the manufacture of tools and weapons. Pure copper and bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, were used indiscriminately at first; this early period is sometimes called the phase identified from sparseresidues, late Bronze Age occupation is evidenced by postholes, possiblysome ditches, four-posters, pottery and a pit-complex. Phase 3, dated tothe Late Iron Age, consists of various ('organically'interrelated) enclosures and two to four possible and insecurely datedroundhouses, superseded in the conquest period (phase 4) by a more(rect)angular system of paddocks, enclosures, ditches and a possibleroad. Kilns are located along it, and an inhumation cemetery justbeyond. Various building-related enclosures are postulated, but withoutevident house-remains. This is followed by a first to mid-second centuryAD field system in phase 5. A Middle Saxon phase with pits, possiblebuildings and a ditch represents phase 6 and medieval ditches andfurrows dose the sequence. Chapter 3 discusses areas in the vicinity, with sites ranging fromthe Neolithic to the medieval period. Its value is threefold: it givesan opportunity to compare Hutchinton with sites uncovered elsewhere(e.g. the Iron Age enclosures at Rectory Farm, Shelford); it providesdarning for its 'fabric voids' (such as Early-Middle and LateRoman sites); and it supplies supplementary types of sites (such asthe--ill-dated--post/pit alignments at Rectory Farm and Bell School orthe triple-ditched Bronze Age enclosure at Addenbrooke-Site I). The sheer scale of the areas investigated means that using theirdata to their fullest is a daunting daunt?tr.v. daunt��ed, daunt��ing, dauntsTo abate the courage of; discourage. See Synonyms at dismay.[Middle English daunten, from Old French danter, from Latin task. For example, Addenbrooke siteIV's remarkable pottery concentration discovered during fieldwalking (p. 147) is not discussed in the section on its test-trenching(p. 149) or crop-marks (p. 151). Generally, however, the gazetteer gazetteer(găz'ĭtēr`), dictionary or encyclopedia listing alphabetically the names of places, political divisions, and physical features of the earth and giving some information about each. ofsites in the 'distributional case-studies' (chapter 3) is ofhigh quality and relevance. It allows a truly supra-local perspective inwhich observations on the settlement dynamics can be made with greaterauthority. Examples include pinpointing the advent of 'permanentsettlement' in the Middle/Later Bronze Age (p. 189; or Middle IronAge? (p. 193)), an estimation of settlement densities (up to 2.8site/[km.sup.2] for the Iron Age; p. 183), an interpretation ofAylesford-Swarling traits (p. 191) or an assessment of the degree ofRomanisation--as suggested by the ceramic assemblages (p. 74). Not all interpretations of the fabric of the landscape are equallywell-argued. The interpretation that differences between'organic' Iron Age and subrectangular Roman ditch systems mayrelate to openness in the landscape could have benefited from supportingpalaeoenvironmental data. A discussion of the long-term structuringpotential of Bronze Age field-system alignments is hampered by the factthat the dating of the system concerned is rather weak (pp. 30; 125;188). Similarly, the dating of the two possible Saxon buildings hingeson a single posthole post��hole?n.A hole dug in the ground to hold a fence post.Noun 1. posthole - a hole dug in the ground to hold a fence postpost holehole - an opening deliberately made in or through something cross-cutting a Roman ditch (the reverse mayperhaps be argued; pp. 58; 93; 95). One also wonders why, in a projectof this magnitude and with such a long-term perspective, no largercorpus of absolute dates was compiled (for example of the Romaninhumation cemetery, relevant to discussion of the duration of the Romanepisode). Finally, the volume could have done without references tomarginally related topics such as Le Corbusier's work (p. 4),Mongolian landscapes (p. 12) or the atlas of European novels (p. 187). Nevertheless, this volume represents a good example of anarchaeological study that integrates excavation data, evaluationtrenches, fieldwalking and cropmark-data into a reliable narrative ofthe fabric of a landscape. It does justice to its'Fox-directive' bur also shows the validity of seeing thesouthern Cambridge area in its own right and not just as a borderland toCambridge (p. 197). The ample illustrations and detailed description ofmaterials, and the many remarkable (and occasionally previouslyunpublished) sites and assemblages presented, will certainly servereaders beyond those strictly interested in the southern Cambridgelandscape. References Fox, C. 1923. The archaeology of the Cambridge region: atopographical study of the Bronze, Early Iron, Roman and Anglo-Saxonages, with an introductory note on the Neolithic age. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press (known colloquially as CUP) is a publisher given a Royal Charter by Henry VIII in 1534, and one of the two privileged presses (the other being Oxford University Press). . --1947. Reflections on 'The archaeology of the Cambridgeregion'. Cambridge Historical Journal 9: 1-21. STIJN ARNOLDUSSEN Groningen Institute for Archaeology, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands (Email: s.arnoldussen@rug.nl)