Wessex to Ad 1000 (A Regional History of England) - Hardcover

Inhaltsangabe

Barry Cunliffe's splendid contribution to the Regional History of England (of which he is co-editor with David Hey) survey the archaeology and early history of the ancient counties of Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire, Hampshire and Berkshire from earliest times through to the final flowering of the Anglo-Saxon age.
To an extent that is very unusual in England, Wessex has always been a cohesive region geographically and socially. Here more than anywhere else in Britain, the evidence of man's long inhabitation of the landscape is inescapable. It was indeed the impact of the great archaeological monuments of Wessex - Stonehenge and Avebury foremost amongst them - on the imaginations of the early antiquaries of the sixteenth and seventeenth century that provided an early stimulus to development of archaeology as a science in Britain.
Modern archaeology has borne out that early interest in the region, for Wessex seems to have been at the heart of the development of much of British culture. Palaeolithic hunters roamed in number here; here the earliest farmers gained an early foothold; and here, amongst them, emerged a culture sufficiently sophisticated, confident and competent to construct the great ceremonial monuments that are amongst the most impressive survivals of European prehistory. The wealth of Bronze Age Wessex is reflected in the rich burial goods of its chieftains; and vast hillforts like Maiden Castle and Danebury attest its power and importance in the Iron Age. The coming of the Romans, and after them the Saxons, did not put an end to Wessex's greatness: indeed the early kings of the West Saxons initiated the dynasty that, through Alfred and his descendants, eventually became the royal line of England.
All this has its place in the present survey - the first general study of the region to appear for many years - which takes into account the latest findings of archaeological and scientific research. There could be no more distinguished or informative guide to Wessex than Barry Cunliffe. He does ample justice to its great monuments and famous archaeological sites, analysing and explaining them, and setting them in their full cultural context. But his chief concern is to interpret the landscape of the region, and the people who, over so many centuries, have made it what it is; and in the process he shows it to be an archaeological artefact as eloquent, and as imposing in its own way, as Avebury and Stonehenge themselves.

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