Building Anglo-Saxon England. By John Blair. 290mm. Pp xxiv + 471, 43 b&w ills, 109 col ills. Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford, 2018. isbn9780691162980. £40 (hbk).

Abstract

reported to Tim Schadla-Hall, who then contacted Martin Millett to investigate this surprising find. A team was assembled to carry out surface investigations, including magnetometer survey and field walking, complementing the crop mark mapped in Stoertz’s Ancient Landscapes of the Yorkshire Wolds (\uf731\uf739\uf739\uf737), which showed an extensive ladder settlement (socalled as its conjoined enclosures resemble the rungs of a ladder) to the south of the village pond at Thwing. Further enclosures and linear features extend northwards towards the large Neolithic round barrow of Willy Howe. A series of excavations focused on the stone foundations of a building that had survived remarkably well despite many years of ploughing. This volume, like Millett’s previous East Yorkshire publications, goes beyond the conventional excavation report, and assembles a wide range of detailed evidence to shed new light on Roman activity within this region. After Chapters \uf731 and \uf732, which set the scene, Chapter \uf733 provides an account of the detailed survey of the ladder settlement, comparing the results of geophysical survey, field walking, crop mark analysis and metal detector survey, to provide chronological phasing of the ladder settlement. The finds included some unusual objects such as a decorative copper alloy fitting from a box or piece of furniture, Roman coins and brooches, as well as quern fragments and Roman pottery. Chapter \uf734 presents the results of the excavation of the building, which was quite unusual. Unlike most Roman rural buildings of this type (the term ‘villa’ is deliberately avoided), which were elaborated by the addition of a corridor and wings, the central part of the northeastern-facing side of this simple three-roomed structure was indented. A row of posts was inserted between the ‘wings’ to support a roofed corridor, thus producing a winged-corridor effect by contraction rather than extension. Chapters \uf735 and \uf736 discuss the situation of the building in its wider settlement and landscape context, with Chapter \uf737 bringing together study of patterning of finds. In Chapter \uf738, Millett provides an insightful synthesis of the ladder settlement. He also considers the relationship that the Roman inhabitants of this landscape may have had with the nationally significant Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments of the Great Wold Valley such as Willy Howe. While the southern portion of the ladder settlement complex provides evidence for small-scale mixed farming –which, apart from the piece of marble, is not out of the ordinary – he suggests that the quality of the metal finds in the northern portion extending towards Willy Howe and the Gypsy Race itself may be the result of some form of structured deposition reflecting the ritual significance of the landscape here. Chapter \uf739 presents the results of the geophysical survey undertaken around the well-known villa at Rudston, and concludes with a discussion of the famous mosaics and their possible North African connections. Chapter \uf731\uf730 places the research atThwing andRudston into abroader context. Somewhat quirkily, the volume concludes with a chapter considering what turned out to be a cylindrical artefact from the Merlin engine of a Halifax bomber that crashed into the field near Thwing in April \uf731\uf739\uf734\uf732. The editors are to be congratulated on coordinating the contributions of thirty-three specialists, all carefully acknowledged. Lacey Wallace, in particular, deserves praise for themost attractive page layout, as one of the great strengths of this volume are its illustrations in both colour and greyscale. The use of colour greatly facilitates clarity in understanding site plans and field walking data. The combination of colour photographs and linedrawings of artefacts is particularly attractive.This volume is amost important contribution to our understanding of the archaeology of one of East Yorkshire’s most important archaeological regionsandwillbeof interest toall thosewithaparticular interest in Roman Britain. Thanks to the generosity of sponsors including the Roman Research Trust, Prehistory and Roman Sections of the Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society and the East Riding Archaeological Research Trust, this volume is available at its surprisingly low price from: http://jeremymills publishing.co.uk/bookshop/index.php?id_product =\uf733\uf734\uf736&controller=product.