Lives in Land – Mucking Excavations: Volume 1. Prehistory, Context and Summary (CAU Landscape Archive Series: Historiography & Fieldwork 2/Mucking 6)

The excavations led by Margaret and Tom Jones on the Thames gravel terraces at Mucking, Essex, undertaken between 1965 and 1978 are legendary. The largest area excavation ever undertaken in the British Isles, involving around 5000 participants, recorded around 44,000 archaeological features dating from the Beaker to Anglo-Saxon periods and recovered something in the region of 1.7 million finds of Mesolithic to post-medieval date. While various publications have emerged over the intervening years, the death of both directors, insufficient funding, many organizational complications and the sheer volume of material evidence have severely delayed full publication of this extraordinary palimpsest landscape.
Lives in Land is the first of two major volumes which bring together all the evidence from Mucking, presenting both the detail of many important structures and assemblages and a comprehensive synthesis of landscape development through the ages: settlement histories, changing land-use, death and burial, industry and craft activities. The long time-gap since completion of the excavations has allowed the authors the unprecedented opportunity to stand back from the density of site data and place the vast sum of Mucking evidence in the wider context of the archaeology of southern England throughout the major periods of occupation and activity.
Lives in Land begins with a thorough evaluation of the methods, philosophy and archival status of the Mucking project against the organizational and funding background of its time, and discusses its fascinating and complex history through a period of fundamental change in archaeological practice, legislation, finance, research priorities and theoretical paradigms in British Archaeology. Subsequent chapters deal with the prehistoric landscape, each focusing on the major themes that emerge by major period from analysis and synthesis of the data. The authors draw on archival material including site notebooks and personal accounts from key participants to provide a detailed but lively account of this iconic landscape investigation.

Table of Contents

Chapter One: Introduction - Landscape and Archival Palimpsests
Total Archaeology
Framing Context
Notebook Archaeology
Inset: Project Framing (I) - Thinking Graphically (Mucking’s ‘Phase-wall’)
Archive as Palimpsest

Chapter Two: Scattered Usage and First Allotment - Mesolithic to Middle Bronze Age
Mucking and the Palaeogeography of the Thames Estuary, by Peter Murphy
Tracings - Mesolithic to Early Bronze Age Activity, with a contribution by Elizabeth Healey
Mesolithic/Earlier Neolithic, with contributions by Ian Kinnes and Mark Birley
Grooved Ware, with contributions by Mark Birley, Mark Knight and Elizabeth Healey
Beaker, with contributions by Alex Gibson and Elizabeth Healey
Earlier/Middle Bronze Age with a contribution by Nigel Brown
Inset: Recollections (I) - Fieldwork
Discussion

Chapter Three: The Rings - Late Bronze Age
Late Bronze Age Pottery Groups, by Matt Brudenell
The North Field Settlement
The South Rings, with John Etté
Material Culture, with contributions by Elizabeth Healey, Matt Brudenell, Ben Roberts, Margaret Jones, Hilary Howard, Paul Barford David Buckley and Hilary Major
Economic and other data, with contributions by Geraldene Done, Paul Barford and Ailsa Mainman
Inset: Appreciation: Margaret Jones - A Legacy of Formidable Field Women, by Anwen Cooper and Julia Roberts
Discussion

Chapter Four: Compounding Spaces and Connected Communities - Iron Age (I)
Early Iron Age, with a contribution by Matthew Brudenell
The Structures
Roundhouses
Rectangular Post-hole Structures
Rectangular Post-Hole Settings, by Margaret Jones, with a contribution by Paul Barford
‘Posters’ and Others
Enclosures
The ABC Enclosures
RBI and Adjacent Settlement
The North Enclosure and Northern Boundary System
The 1100 Enclosure (Prehistoric Cemetery II and other Western-margin Interments)
The Belgic Banjo Complex (and Prehistoric Cemetery III)
Inset: Recollect