A review of the rich and diverse evidence for understanding past climate and environmental change in the Thames Valley, and the effects on plant and animal populations and the challenges and opportunities these presented to early humans. Part 1 of this volume covers the Pleistocene, the epoch of the Ice Ages, in an integrated review of the geological, palaeontological and archaeological data for the last half million years and more. Part 2 takes up the story from the beginning of the Holocene, the warm period in which we are still living, which began around 11,500 years ago. The authors review the evidence for early hunter-gatherer populations in the Mesolithic, the gradually increasing impact of humans in the region in the Neolithic and early Bronze Age and their rich social lives and belief systems. Much of the evidence has been recovered during extensive gravel quarrying. The volume is excellently illustrated with colour and line illustrations and maps.

About the Author
Gill Hey is CEO of Oxford Archaeology with research interests in Neolithic Britain.

Reviews
The result is a major work of synthesis - not just of local interest, for the authors constantly weave local examples of, say, causewayed enclosures into the national picture, contributing to such wider debates as whether, for example, earlier monuments tend to attract later monuments, resulting in monument clusters, or whether causewayed enclosures were built in frontier territory on newly cleared land, or whether they are associated with the sites of earlier ritual activity.' -- SALON - The Society of Antiquaries Online Newslett SALON - The Society of Antiquaries Online Newslett



Book Information
ISBN 9780954962784
Author Tony Morigi
Format Hardback
Page Count 582
Imprint Oxford University School of Archaeology
Publisher Oxford University School of Archaeology