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Capability statement: Research and publication
Capability statement: Visualisation
By the end of 2004 MoLAS will have produced another ten major publications in-house, bringing the total to nearly 50 since the programme began in earnest less than ten years ago. We have continued to deliver publications to a high quality specification and at a sustained level of up to ten books per year, including both EH- and PPG16-funded work. Nearly 50 other publications are in the pipeline and will continue to appear at a rate of about ten per year for the remainder of this decade.
The MoLAS approach has included the development of separate publication series appropriate for a wide variety of projects and their academic and client needs. MoLAS books are produced in-house by an experienced professional team who oversee the design, style and format of each publication series. Principal authors and contributors are advised at each stage of the post-excavation and publication work. Everything takes place at Eagle Wharf Road except for printing, and project budgets and timetables are closely monitored throughout the entire process.
The Monograph Series deals with topics of regional and national significance, whilst the Archaeology Studies Series focuses on sites of local and regional significance. Popular and accessible books present important archaeological discoveries and themes to a wider audience in an illustration-led format. Other work has included technical manuals and collected papers on mitigation strategies and preservation of archaeological remains in situ. Smaller projects continue to form the majority of our work and most of these continue to go to local, regional and national peer-reviewed journals.
Traditional print is expected to be the mainstay of our publication work for many years, but further advances are being made in the development of arrangements for publication on the internet and via data hubs such as the London Archaeological Archive and Research Centre at the Museum of London and the Archaeology Data Service at York. Whatever the final product, publication work at MoLAS will continue to set an emphasis on giving field archaeologists and specialists the career opportunities they need to become authors.
All of our books are available directly from MoLAS through our web pages, and also from the Museum of London shop, many high street shops and through Oxbow Books.
Clients: English Heritage
Authors of this text: Dick Malt and Peter Rowsome
Principal authors: Various
The Greater London publication programme is a joint venture between English Heritage and MoLAS which aims to analyse and publish important pre-PPG16 projects identified in the London post-excavation review (Andrews, Hinton and Thomas, 1991 and 1997). More recently the programme has been augmented by an editorial programme, also funded by English Heritage, and will include some post-PPG16 projects, such as 1 Poultry and work funded by the Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund (ALSF).
The Greater London programme identified several major research themes, including the prehistoric sites of the west London gravel plateau, Roman cemeteries, the Roman and medieval archaeology of Southwark, Shakespearian playhouses, medieval religious houses and Middle Saxon occupation sites. Finds-based projects include Tudor and Stuart artefacts from Southwark, Westminster tiles, early medieval ceramics, and post-medieval industries such as delftware, glass and porcelain production.
To date MoLAS and English Heritage have published 13 monographs and studies on a broad range of topics. The most recent monograph is Excavations at the priory of the Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, Clerkenwell, London. The Order, which supported pilgrimages and ran a great hospital in Jerusalem, founded a house in Clerkenwell in 1144 which became their only priory in England and their headquarters here. Excavations have revealed how St John's evolved into a sumptuous palatial complex very different from a normal monastic institution.
The monograph Material culture in London in an age of transition: Tudor and Stuart period finds c 1450–c 1700 from excavations at riverside sites in Southwark will appear at the end of the year. Over coming years over 20 more English Heritage-funded books will appear in the Monograph and Archaeology Studies Series.
Several popular books have also been commissioned, with publication of Heart of the City, about discoveries at 1 Poultry, soon to be followed by books on Old London bridge lost and found (see below) and Medieval religion. These books draw on the analytical work already carried out but use an illustration-led format to reach a larger audience. Like the monographs and studies, they have been well reviewed both for their design and content.
Clients: Various
Author of this text: Peter Rowsome
Principal authors: Various
More than half of our Monograph Series and the majority of our Archaeology Studies Series publications are for private clients. Most of these are in the property sector although we find ourselves attracting an increasing amount of work from museums, heritage consultants and even other archaeological contractors.
Our most recent developer-funded monograph was Roman and medieval Cripplegate, City of London: excavations 1992–8. The discovery of the fort at Cripplegate after the Second World War revolutionised our understanding of Roman London, and redevelopment between 1995 and 2000 presented a unique opportunity to re-examine the sites. Archaeological contractors working within the framework of PPG16 are often criticised for creating a patchwork of stand-alone single-site reports with little synthesis or overview, and we are therefore very pleased to report that the archaeological consultant (CgMs) and six different developers at the recent Cripplegate sites were keen to work with us to create a single joint publication of far greater ‘value added’ merit than six separate reports could ever have achieved.
The Archaeology Studies Series publications are intended to provide good-quality analysis work on important sites to the wide range of readers with a particular interest in a locale's archaeological heritage. MoLAS has established a successful scheme in association with the main local archaeological societies for London — London and Middlesex Archaeological Society (LAMAS) and Surrey Archaeological Society (SyAS) — for the free distribution of copies of Archaeology Studies to any local society members who would like one. We aim to produce several Archaeology Studies per year and would like to expand the scheme beyond London when the opportunity arises.
Medieval and later urban development at High Street, Uxbridge, no. 12 in our Archaeology Studies Series, presents the results of work at the Chimes Shopping Centre and traces the growth of the medieval town, including 12th-century pottery production and later industries. Our next Archaeology Studies Series publication, Pre-Boudican and later activity on the site of the forum, will look at the recent excavations at 168 Fenchurch Street and update our knowledge of Roman London's forum and basilica, sometimes cited as the largest Roman building north of the Alps.
We welcome comments and feedback about these or any of our other publications, ideas about how future work could be designed to fit into the evolving research agenda for London archaeology, and how we can continue to improve our dissemination of archaeological results to the public.
Clients: Various
Author of this text: Peter Rowsome
Principal authors: Various
The new year got off to a flying start when London's archaeological secrets won the Longman's History Today 'New Generation Book of the Year' award on 8 January 2004. This illustration-led book, published in association with Yale University Press and chronicling the last 30 years of London archaeology's discoveries, was edited by Chris Thomas with Andy Chopping and Tracy Wellman and came out in June 2003.
Life and death in London's East End: 2000 years at Spitalfields, published in the spring of 2004, is a 100-page full-colour book chronicling the remarkable discoveries on the site of Spitalfields Market — the burial ground for wealthy Romans and location of one of the country's largest and most important medieval hospitals. Over 10,000 skeletons were found in the medieval cemetery, believed to be the single largest archaeologically recorded group in the world.
Spring also saw the launch of a very different book — Lambeth unearthed: an archaeological history of Lambeth. This popular archaeology and history of the borough was published with Southwark and Lambeth Archaeological Excavation Committee for the Lambeth Archives Department. It joins Under Hackney and we look forward to co-producing popular books for other boroughs in the future.
More recently we have published The Prittlewell prince: the discovery of a rich Anglo-Saxon burial in Essex, an abundantly illustrated colour booklet describing the excavation and preliminary interpretation of a remarkable 7th-century AD princely burial from Southend.
In November, Lambeth unearthed was runner-up in the SCOLA (Standing Conference on London Archaeology) competition for ‘best book on London archaeology in 2002 and 2003’. The winner was our own Investigating the maritime history of Rotherhithe (MoLAS Archaeolgy Studies Series 11, 2003), by Kieron Heard with Damian Goodburn.
November will also see the launch of our latest popular book, Old London bridge lost and found, which draws on the English Heritage-funded analysis for our London bridge monograph, which is now sold out. The Thames has been described as ‘liquid history’ and the archaeology and history of one of our best-known monuments surely reflects this, ranging from the establishment of the Roman bridge to the great 12th-century stone bridge lined with houses, and Rennie's 1831 bridge which was replaced in 1967 and now stands at Lake Havasu City, Arizona. The book combines the latest analysis with Gordon Home's research and Peter Jackson's fine illustrations of London's greatest bridge, the source of the ‘keep left’ rule of the road.
Clients: Various
Author of this text: Peter Rowsome
Principal authors: Various
MoLAS also publishes manuals, conference papers, handbooks and surveys, some of these for other organisations. We have just produced Mitigation of construction impact on archaeological remains for English Heritage. The book provides information and advice for archaeologists faced with choosing between preservation, protection or excavation of sites threatened by development, and includes examples of mitigation strategies and techniques.
It is complimented by Preserving archaeological remains in situ?, a collection of papers and posters from the PARIS2 conference which review recent research and attempts to preserve particular sites in situ. The 37 contributions cover many of the key issues facing researchers and historic environment managers, and are an important reference work for the protection of the historic environment.
Our Archaeological site manual continues to be a perennial bestseller and we look forward to developing new and revised manuals in a number of areas in the future.
Clients: Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund (ALSF) and English Heritage
Author of this text: Peter Rowsome
Principal authors: Various
In addition to traditional print books, MoLAS is developing ideas for web-based dissemination of archaeological work. Two recent examples of web page development come from our ALSF-funded projects.
Understanding the East London gravels is an assessment of a series of large archives from archaeological excavations on gravel extraction sites in Newham, Barking and Dagenham. The sites include important evidence for prehistoric, Late Iron Age, Roman and later occupation — right up to and including Second World War air defences in some cases. As part of the assessment, which involved contributors from the Essex County Council Field Archaeology Unit and the University of York, we have now launched a series of web pages and these will be updated and added to during future stages of the project.
Aggregates and archaeology — mapping sub-surface landscapes assesses the Lower Lea Valley, work carried out by MoLAS in collaboration with the British Geological Survey and also now summarised on our web site. The River Lea lies in an area earmarked for regeneration, including the Olympic bid, where extensive quarrying has been carried out in the past. Very little is known about the archaeology that lies within the buried deposits of the Lea Valley but ALSF funding has provided an opportunity to redress this through a mapping project designed to predict areas of archaeological potential within the buried and unknown Quaternary stratigraphy.
A geoarchaeological database of sub-surface alluvial deposits was created by assessing over 3000 boreholes and other archaeological records. A series of contour plots, vertical profiles and horizontal slices (deposit models) have been generated through the sub-surface stratigraphy of the study area using Terrastation II (TSII) and further modelled using GIS-based software. Test-bed work has shown that these deposit models can be used to reconstruct the sub-surface stratigraphy of the evolving landscape. The sub-surface mapping technology used in the Lea Valley mapping project has transformed the way we can assess archaeological potential and could be readily applied to other areas where there is a threat from aggregate extraction.
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