A View From The Edge: Archaeological Investigation on the Manhood Peninsula, Selsey for the Medmerry Managed Realignment Scheme.

Between 2010-2013, the Environment Agency undertook the managed realignment of the coastline at Medmerry. The project is the largest open-coast flood relief scheme undertaken in Europe and impacted on upwards of 60ha of landscape with rich archaeological potential. The opportunity for archaeological research offered by the scheme has provided a window into the evolution of this distinctive coastal landscape from the earliest period of archaeologically visible human settlement in the Bronze Age through to the modern era.

The geoarchaeological and palaeoenvironmental programme produced a significant sediment archive, an important contribution to the study of the Manhood Peninsula. Important prehistoric archaeology was uncovered including a Mesolithic flint assemblage, partly from an in situ knapping site, and five burnt mounds, radiocarbon dated to the Early-Middle Bronze Age tranisition, recorded in probable lagoon-edge locations. These are succeeded by Middle Bronze Age settlement and more widepsread Late Bronze Age activity, with two settlements within a localised co-axial field system. Historic period remains include Saxon settlement, with boundaries of possible building plots, and a series of wooden structures within the estuarine or lagoon silts, including major conserved wooden structures of 13-14^th century date, interpreted as several phases of large fish weir. Detailed recording of six pillboxes and two gunnery range buildings, together with a large assemblage of expended ordnance, allowed for a detailed consideration of the coastal defences installed during World War II.

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Buying and collecting books in person at conferences and other events means we are able to offer reduced prices due to removal of postage costs and application of special events offers.

Books can be pre-ordered and paid for in advance for collection at the event using these links. 

Event at which you will collect your books:

CBA SE Conference Lewes 18th November 2023

ASE Book Launch  23rd November 2023

RAC Conference London 11th - April 2024

Books on offer:

Please note that the Between the twittens: From Iron Age origins to burh and borough. Excavations in Lewes, East Sussex wil only be available to collect on or after 23rd November 2023.

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This volume presents the findings from four urban excavations undertaken within the historic core of Lewes in East Sussex, between 2004 and 2008. It charts Lewes’ evolution from a Late Saxon burh (fortress) to a thriving high medieval urban centre at the head of the newly formed Rape of Lewes, and on through late medieval and early post-medieval times as County Town of Sussex, placing the archaeology of Lewes within the wider historical context of English settlements and towns.

This volume presents the findings from four urban excavations undertaken within the historic core of Lewes in East Sussex, between 2004 and 2008. It charts Lewes’ evolution from a Late Saxon burh (fortress) to a thriving high medieval urban centre at the head of the newly formed Rape of Lewes, and on through late medieval and early post-medieval times as County Town of Sussex, placing the archaeology of Lewes within the wider historical context of English settlements and towns.        

The earliest activity was of a developing Middle to Late Iron Age riverside and upland agricultural settlement, with evidence for its subsistence economy, metalworking and infant burial practices. The settlement began with curvilinear enclosures and expanded uphill ending with a more formalised, linear division of the landscape.

A large Late Saxon feature recorded on the western side of St Nicholas Lane is interpreted as a possible element of the burh fortifications and if so, presents the first archaeological remains of the fortress thought to occupy the uppermost part of the town, and provides the location of the eastern limits of the burh.

Insights into the lives of Lewes’ Late Saxon and medieval inhabitants, their diet, agriculture and economy has come from numerous deep quarry and refuse pits which yielded huge assemblages of finds including pottery, animal and fish bones, plant remains and artefacts. The remains of several medieval buildings were recorded, alongside ex situ finds of clay and stone building materials. 

By the late 18th- to 19th-century, significant development and expansion was underway in Lewes, reflected on two of the sites by an abundance of brick-built remains

The Horse Butchery Site: A high resolution record of Lower Palaeolithic hominin behaviour at Boxgrove, UK.

The Boxgrove Horse Butchery Site represents a significant discovery, preserving a single landsurface associated with tight clusters of flint artefacts and the butchered remains of a large female horse, sealed under intertidal silts. This volume presents the first integrated analysis of this exceptional site. It documents the evidence used to reconstruct activities including biface manufacture, defleshing of bones, marrow extraction and the production of bone tools. 

The Boxgrove Horse Butchery Site began as a small test pit, designated GTP17, excavated in 1988. It quickly became clear that the site represented a significant discovery, preserving a single landsurface associated with tight clusters of flint artefacts sealed under intertidal silts. As excavations continued during the summers of 1989–91, it became apparent that this landsurface also preserved the butchered remains of a large female horse. It provided the first well-preserved and combined accumulation of artefacts and faunal remains from Boxgrove, representing an opportunity to study what appeared to be a hominin group working together to butcher a single animal.

This volume presents the first integrated analysis of this exceptional site. It documents the evidence used to reconstruct activities including biface manufacture, defleshing of bones, marrow extraction and the production of bone tools. Detailed analysis of site formation processes suggest the entire episode possibly occurred within a single day, with the scatters of flint and bone sealed quickly within fine intertidal silts. These silts not only preserved the spatial integrity of the activity at the site, but also sealed a record allowing behaviour of an entire hominin group, including social interactions, to be brought under direct study.

While the sediments at Boxgrove are renowned for their preservation of hominin behaviour at landscape scale, the Horse Butchery Site represents a vivid and intimate picture of group activity at human scales of time and space. With the publication of this volume we present an important case study for Palaeolithic archaeology, one through which aspects of Middle Pleistocene hominin subsistence, ecology, technology and social behaviour can be explored.

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This marshside excavation, at the juncture of the South Downs and Willingdon Levels, revealed evidence that it was home to communities that exploited and interacted with these two different landscapes from the early prehistoric to the post-medieval period.

The earliest activity was a probable Bronze Age inhumation burial, interred on a conspicuous chalk promontory, with further cremation burials added in the Middle Bronze Age. The first sustained settlement was a substantial Early/Middle Iron Age enclosure, where large-scale saltworking was undertaken as a specialist activity. A subsequent Middle/Late Iron Age settlement, occupied with alteration until the Late Roman period, acquired a specialist crop-processing function, probably when a villa was located to the immediate north in the Early Roman period.

In the later 6th–7th centuries, sunken-featured buildings and a post-built hall were constructed. This is the long-anticipated, first identification of Early Anglo-Saxon settlement at Eastbourne, and represents the second largest settlement of the period identified in East Sussex. By the 8th century, this was abandoned, and the site was bisected by a new holloway, re-establishing the connection between the South Downs and the marsh of the Willingdon Levels.

A small ‘croft and toft’ type farmstead occupied the site in the high medieval period, before a substantial masonry farmhouse was built in the mid 15th century. In the 16th century, this was converted from an open hall to a fully floored building.

The considerable artefact assemblage recovered included over 29,000 sherds of Iron Age pottery, one of the largest fired clay assemblages associated with prehistoric saltworking in southern England, and sufficient post-Roman pottery to establish a fabric type-series for the wider local area.

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