Issue no 3, April 1995

THE SUTTON HOO SHIP BURIAL
Angela Care Evans
British Museum, £7.99
ISBN 0-7141-0575-9 pb

There is nothing like a good treasure to stimulate public interest in the past, and the spectacular finds made at Sutton Hoo in 1939 have still to be surpassed, both for their beauty and historical significance. This book is a new version of the late Rupert Bruce-Mitford's The Sutton Hoo Ship Burial: a Handbook, which has been through many editions since it was first published in 1947. Angela Care Evans, the author of this version, was a colleague of Dr Bruce-Mitford in the British Museum's Department of Medieval and Later Antiquities, and has studied the Sutton Hoo finds for over 20 years.

So how different is it? The finds from the Mound 1 ship burial still dominate, but the text has been completely rewritten and there are new sections on the restoration of the objects and on the history of excavation at the cemetery. There are new illustrations and some new interpretations, but it is essentially the same story. Since the last edition, the cemetery as a whole is better understood, as Prof Martin Carver of York University has completed a new campaign of excavation on the site, with Angela Evans on his team. Carver's work is summarised only, and details must await his definitive account which is to be published in two years' time.

There is much in the book about the European context of the Mound 1 ship and its objects, especially the Scandinavian connections, but little about its relationship to the East Anglian kingdom, despite the considerable increase in knowledge on that subject over the last 20 years. Presumably this must wait for the next edition.

Keith Wade is Principal Archaeological Officer for Suffolk County Council

by Barbara Bender

THE ANCIENT MIND
eds C Renfrew and E Zubrow
Cambridge, £35.00
ISBN 0-521-43488-2 hb

Cognitive processualism? Never heard of it. Renfrew assures us that `cognitive-processual archaeology has developed directly... from the functional-processual archaeology of earlier decades'; but it has not. Cognitive processualism is a direct response to the perceived threat posed by the post-processual colonisation of matters pertaining to culture, symbol and meaning.

Renfrew attempts to draw a line between post-processual (PP) anti-science interpretationists content to explore meaning, and cognitive-processual (CP) empiricists who eschew meaning in favour of how the mind works, and how this working shapes action. But the line between empirical finding and interpretation is artificial. PPs may be anti-science but they are not anti-data, and CPs may be pro-science, but they spend their life interpreting their findings. Moreover, given half a chance, the CPs in this volume cheerfully discuss the meanings of things.

The papers are slotted into sections, such as `Cult Practice and Transcendental Belief Systems', `Conceptions of Time and Space', and so on. Already there's a problem. Why these categories? They make sense only within our western notion of what fits with what. They create boundaries when the boundaries are precisely what need to be questioned. Renfrew himself admits that abstracting religion from the rest of life may say more about us than them. Many of the authors recognize that they are having to artificially isolate parts of larger inter-related cognitive and social processes and of the material record.

My own feeling is that it would have been far more interesting to have combined the insights offered in this volume with those of a broad range of PPs. Questions skirted around would have had to be faced-- such as the subjectivity of the archaeologist, the relationship between cognition and gender, and the relationship between cultural perceptions and ideology. Ironically, it is the PPs, caricatured as being divorced from the material culture record, who would have emphasised the reflexive nature of the cultural and the material in all spheres of activity. Indeed, any self-respecting PP would have repudiated the mind/body divorce implicit in the title.

Dr Barbara Bender is Reader in Material Culture at University College, London

BUILDINGS ARCHAEOLOGY
ed Jason Wood
Oxbow, £28.00
ISBN 0-946897-75-1 hb

At last, a decent book about how and why to record buildings! That is not to say that the predecessors have been of little value, but this volume is significant in that it draws together current ideas and specific examples.

Its appearance could not have been better timed. The recording, understanding and management of the built environment is assuming greater significance, particularly since the publication last year of PPG15, the planning guidance note on listed buildings and conservation areas. Decisions affecting historic buildings cannot be made without adequate information, and the value of this book lies in the presentation and discussion of several recording strategies and methodologies.

The basic type of survey aims to characterise the resource of a particular area or building type. By definition, these surveys sacrifice depth of knowledge to achieve breadth of coverage, but it would be impossible to manage the resource effectively without the base-line information they provide. This type of survey is still quite rare, but some local authorities are beginning to build on the pioneering work of the English Royal Commission and others. Non-intensive survey, however, is not an end in itself. The records it produces should be used to highlight particular problems, and to target further survey, repair or management work.

The remaining half of the book is given over to different forms of detailed intensive survey. Although any new project will demand its own, particular proposals, the principles and advice offered by the contributors using specific case-studies is invaluable.

Ed Dennison is Technical Director, Archaeology, at Anthony Walker and Partners

IMAGES OF INDUSTRY: COAL
Robin Thornes
RCHME, £14.95
ISBN 1-873592-23-X pb

The decline in the coal industry, from being the producer of the main fuel in Britain to a mere handful of pits in the 1990s, has been dramatic and devastating. The closure of a large number of collieries, and the rapid total clearing of their sites in recent years has been more than those charged with recording and preserving Britain's industrial heritage had ever expected. In response, the English Royal Commission undertook a five-year programme of recording `the current appearance of the wide range of structures associated with the coal industry in England'. This book embodies that work, but extends much further than just the collieries. It is not a history of the industry, but an illustrated record of the buildings, institutions and communities associated with it.

The book's descriptions are succinct and informative and the photographs are excellent, some indeed of high artistic standard. More than words could ever do, they evoke a passing way of life, while looking forward to the new generation of streamlined modern pits such as Asfordby. The book also includes photographs of the communities, such as of the miners' memorial chapel at Denaby, miners' bands, welfare institutes and the NUM. Particularly striking is the range in housing from the early two-roomed single-storied cottage through to the large stock of standard houses owned throughout the coalfield by the former National Coal Board, often architect-designed, which are now being sold off as part of coal privatisation.

A poignant selection of photographs deals with the memorials to disasters-- Huskar, Hartley, the Oaks-- names known to all mining historians, which form a silent testimony to the cost paid in miners' lives in producing the fuel which once powered the nation. Once amongst the three most dangerous occupations, with modern improvements in safety standards by British Coal, mining now does not even figure in the top ten.

Dr Margaret Faull is Director of the Yorkshire Mining Museum