Product Description
St Albans (Albans Buried Towns) is the first in a series of detailed assessments of the archaeology of more than 30 English towns. Funded by English Heritage, the series is based on computerised databases linked to Geographical Information Systems. The St Albans archaeological database covers an area of twelve square kilometres comprising the sites of the prehistoric, Roman and medieval settlements, and spans the period from the end of the final Ice Age to the dissolution of St Albans Abbey in 1538. The database includes more than 1500 entries. This book represents the systematic synthesis of the material and provides an up-to-date and definitive overview of the current state of archaeology in the town, together with discussions of its value and potential. There are more than 160 plans and photographs and the appendices list all previous archaeological excavations, surveys and 'watching' briefs, all archaeological sites and monuments, and all Latin texts and translations of the major classical and medieval sources. Sections discussing the development of archaeological investigations, stretching back to monastic accounts of the discovery of Roman material in the tenth century, analyse the processes used to derive the modern understanding of the town's past. Most importantly the book provides new insights into the history of the late Iron Age, Roman and medieval towns, and questions many preconceptions. Each phase of the town's past, from prehistory to the sixteenth century, is discussed in the context of the wider history of the district, and is designed to be accessible to the non-specialist. At the same time, the book provides archaeologists and local historians with an authoritative synthesis of archaeological knowledge of the town at the start of the twenty-first century, and fulfils a primary aim of the series as a whole, which is to help local authorities to manage their archaeological heritage.
