David Field and David McOmish,
with photographs by Steve Speller
Amberley Publishing, £16.99
ISBN 978-1445648415
Review David Roberts
This brisk and fluent volume provides, as promised, an up-to-date account of the prehistory of Wiltshire. It is greatly aided by its authors’ involvement in so many of the key prehistoric research projects in the region over the last few decades.
The text is particularly strong on the fundamental concerns of Wiltshire’s prehistory – monumentality, field systems and land division, and the changing social organisation of the landscape – but it also pays commendable attention to geology and early prehistory. Steve Speller’s photographs are excellent, although a few images early in the text suffer slight truncation at the edge of pages, an unfortunate feature of several recent Amberley publications.
The book’s proceeds support the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, and its purchase is not only highly recommended for charitable reasons, but also for intellectual ones. Anyone seeking a concise, current, and thoughtful account of Wiltshire’s prehistoric landscape and human occupation should start here.
This review was published in CA 331.
