Promoting inclusion: facilitating access to the Silchester 'town life' project

It is becoming increasingly difficult to resource field archaeology outside the developer-funded context. Consequently it is difficult to engage the wider public in understanding the nature of archaeology and in the writing of its history from the study of material and environmental evidence. This paper describes a project funded by the UK's Heritage Lottery Fund designed to increase access by several means to a well-established and long-running archaeological excavation at the Iron Age and Roman Town at Silchester, Hampshire (UK).

Business parks and town centre workplaces in England: a comparative analysis of commuting-related energy consumption

To fully appreciate the environmental impact of a workplace the transport-related carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions resulting from its location should be considered in addition to the emissions that result from the occupation of the building itself. Since the first one was built in the early 1980s, business parks have become a significant workplace location for service-sector workers; a sector of the economy that grew rapidly at that time as the UK manufacturing output declined and the employment base shifted to retail services and de-regulated financial services. This paper examines the transport-related CO2 emissions associated with these workplace locations in comparison to town and city centre locations. Using 2001 Census Special Workplace Statistics which record people’s residence, usual workplace and mode of transport between them, distance travelled and mode of travel were calculated for a sample of city centre and out-of-town office locations. The results reveal the extent of the difference between transport-related CO2 emitted by commuters to out-of-town and city centre locations. The implications that these findings have for monitoring the environmental performance of workplaces are discussed.

Rock art and social life - Revisiting the Neolithic transition in Mediterranean Iberia

This article revisits the Neolithic transition in Mediterranean Iberia taking into account an aspect usually neglected in the archaeological discourse: the rock art styles that emerged in this context. These distinct styles have been generally attributed to different populations, according to a historicist point of view that equates stylistic variability and ethnic identity. However, the recent recognition that they were developed by the same social group requires the formulation of an alternative explanation. My proposal is based on the exploration of the social context of production and consumption of the rock art, through the analysis of the patterns of location of the sites within the landscape and the definition of their archaeological context.