Martin Carver
Biographic Data
| ID | 954253 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Martin Carver |
| GIVEN NAMES | Martin |
| FAMILY NAME | Carver |
| SIGNATURE | CARVER M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of York |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7981-5741 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 37 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 50 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 35 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1979 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Sequence and Date in Field Archaeology
Burial Excavation, Anglo-Saxon
Publication in Field Archaeology
Excavation Methods in Archaeology
Field Method in Archaeology
Living and Dying at Auldhame, East Lothian
Living and Dying at Auldhame, East Lothian: The Excavation of an Anglian Monastic Settlement and Medieval Parish Church, By Anne Crone and Erlend Hindmarch, with Alex Woolf." Archaeological Journal, 175(2), p. 420
Portmahomack
Publication in Field Archaeology
Commerce and Cult
The REVIVAL of European trade and towns between the Roman and medieval periods has remained an enduring topic of enquiry. Some leading scholars argue that progress came when the elite chose to reinvest in the market, while others prefer to credit the spirit of merchant enterprise. New work on congregational cult sites and their Christian equivalents (monasteries) supports the idea that religion also lent a hand in stimulating trade and reinventin…
Stable Isotope Evidence for Dietary Contrast Between Pictish and Medieval Populations at Portmahomack, Scotland
THE PICTISH AND MEDIEVAL SITE at Portmahomack contained four skeletal populations belonging respectively to the late Iron-Age/early Pictish period (6th/7th century), to a monastery of the late Pictish/early medieval period (8th century), to a Norse and Scottish trading place (9th to 11th century) and to a late medieval parish (15th century). Carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses of bone and tooth root collagen from sample individuals from each per…
Field Archaeology from Around the World
Field practice in archaeology varies greatly throughout the world, mainly because archaeological sites survive in very different ways in different counties. Many manuals see this as a problem - to be defeated by the imposition of standardised procedures. In this book we relish the variety of field practice, seeing it rather as the way the best archaeologists have responded creatively to the challenges of terrain, research objectives and the commu…
The Medieval Europe Research Committee (Merc)
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Pictish Byre-houses at Pitcarmick and their landscape
‘Pitcarmick-type’ houses were identified by the Royal Commission in north east Perthshire in 1988 and published in their survey of 1990. Long and narrow with rounded ends, they seemed to occur in a sequence between prehistoric roundhouses and medieval and post-medieval dwellings. They were therefore provisionally assigned to the later 1st millennium AD, a period associated in this region with the Picts. Excavations by John Barrett and Jane Downes…
Overview
The archaeological agenda is intended to illuminate the way that power was exercised and how it changed. Changes in the degree of investment in burial may not indicate changes in social structure so much as the need to signal it. In other words, the social structure of life may have always been hierarchical but the need to mention such ranking in death changes with ideology. Ethnicity and demographic movement were not unknown to the Anglo-Saxons …
The best we can do
This is certainly a strange business: on the one hand, the thrill of discovery, the glory of gold, the flattery of the media and the purring of officialdom; on the other, the agonised frustrations of academics whose job it is to make sense of everything brought to light on this island. An editor is supposed to remain neutral, but in this case there is no contest. Antiquity champions research - so while we are happy to welcome the arrival of a mas…
Witchcraft and Deep Time-a debate at Harvard
Archaeology, consistently warned off religion by wise old heads, here rushes deeper into the thicket to tackle the thorny topic of ancient witchcraft. The occasion was a seminar at Harvard organised by Stephen Mitchell and Neil Price to mark the twentieth anniversary of Carlo Ginzburg's influential book on the connections between witches and shamanism - and by implication the possible connections with prehistoric ritual and belief. Archaeology wa…
Early Scottish Monasteries and Prehistory
Reflecting on the diversity of monastic attributes found in the east and west of Britain, the author proposes that prehistoric ritual practice was influential on monastic form. An argument is advanced that this was not based solely on inspiration from the landscape, nor on conservative tradition, but on the intellectual reconciliation of Christian and non-Christian ideas, with disparate results that account for the differences in monumentality. A…
Portmahomack
This book relates the rediscovery of a monastery of the 8th century AD, one of the earliest so far seen in northern Europe. It lies in north-east Scotland in the land of the Picts, a largely forgotten people here shown to have been highly intellectual thinkers and consummate artists. The excavation, one of the largest to have taken place in Scotland, revealed burials in stone cists, over 200 pieces of carved stone grave markers and ornamented cro…
Ritual landscape, with portage
What we found
The story of the excavation and what it unearthed, and how. On the site of St Colman's – a sequence of nine churches from the 8th to the 20th century; in the Glebe Field, a paved road leading to a mill with workshops on either side; in the south field, a large, beautifully symmetric, bag-shaped building housing metal-workers.
Portmahomack
Archaeology journals, academics and Open Access
Martin Carver connects academic peer review with the new technologies of publishing, particularly ‘Open Access’. He recommends the development of four tiers of output: (1) the popular and commercial magazine printed in hard copy and supported by subscribers; (2) the national Open Access online journal, successor to the local journal and supported by local sponsorship; (3) the international Open Access peer-reviewed online journal, representing an…
Excavating a parchmenerie
A number of associated features and artefacts in the workshops at Portmahomack (Ross-shire) can be related to the preservation and finishing of hides, and it is argued that this included the preparation of parchment for the production of manuscripts. The archaeological correlates of making parchment and methods for distinguishing it from other types of leather-working are discussed
An Iona of the East
A NEW research programme located on the Tarbat peninsula in north-east Scotland oVers the first large-scale exposure of a monastery in the land of the Picts. A case is argued that the settlement at Portmahomack was founded in the 6th century, possibly by Columba himself, and by the 8th century had developed into an important political and industrial centre comparable with Iona. Signs of the monastery's former prominence survive in workshops produ…
In search of cult
Part 1 Prehistoric: the cult of relics in prehistoric Britain, Ann Woodward Lindow Man and other British bog bodies, Rick Turner labyrinths and mazes, Graham Webster post-erection attitudes - aftermath of a henge monument, Margaret Gray. Part 2 Age: Death and the archaeologist, S.M. Hirst an Anglo-Saxon cunning woman from Bidford-on-Avon, Tania M. Dickinson where have all the dead Saxons gone?, Catherine Hills invisible people? material culture i…
On archaeological value
The present system of English resource management relies on legal protected status given to a pre-designated group of monuments. When it is replaced by an adversarial debate between social values, hosted by the planning system, archaeology will need to arm itself with a definition of 'archaeological value'. The new management system would favour research rather than monumentality as the principal asset of the heritage
Field Archaeology from Around the World
Field practice in archaeology varies greatly throughout the world, mainly because archaeological sites survive in very different ways in different counties. Many manuals see this as a problem - to be defeated by the imposition of standardised procedures. In this book we relish the variety of field practice, seeing it rather as the way the best archaeologists have responded creatively to the challenges of terrain, research objectives and the commu…
Early Scottish Monasteries and Prehistory
Reflecting on the diversity of monastic attributes found in the east and west of Britain, the author proposes that prehistoric ritual practice was influential on monastic form. An argument is advanced that this was not based solely on inspiration from the landscape, nor on conservative tradition, but on the intellectual reconciliation of Christian and non-Christian ideas, with disparate results that account for the differences in monumentality. A…
Stable Isotope Evidence for Dietary Contrast Between Pictish and Medieval Populations at Portmahomack, Scotland
THE PICTISH AND MEDIEVAL SITE at Portmahomack contained four skeletal populations belonging respectively to the late Iron-Age/early Pictish period (6th/7th century), to a monastery of the late Pictish/early medieval period (8th century), to a Norse and Scottish trading place (9th to 11th century) and to a late medieval parish (15th century). Carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses of bone and tooth root collagen from sample individuals from each per…
Digging for ideas
An inaugural lecture is often the occasion to stand back from the specifics and the technicalities, to see the place of our subject in a larger order of things, and to look forward to its proper future. This is what Martin Carver, the second Professor of Archaeology in the University of York, looked at and saw in his inaugural last year
An Iona of the East
A NEW research programme located on the Tarbat peninsula in north-east Scotland oVers the first large-scale exposure of a monastery in the land of the Picts. A case is argued that the settlement at Portmahomack was founded in the 6th century, possibly by Columba himself, and by the 8th century had developed into an important political and industrial centre comparable with Iona. Signs of the monastery's former prominence survive in workshops produ…
Three Saxo-Norman Tenements in Durham City
A WELL-PRESERVED SEQUENCE of craftsmen's premises and their associated refuse was found in three tenements off Saddler Street in Durham City. The earliest occupation took place in the second half of the 10th century and a tenement area had been defined within a few decades. The destruction of the occupied tenement by fire took place sometime in the second half of the 11th century and was contemporary with the collapse of the local late Saxon pott…
Commerce and Cult
The REVIVAL of European trade and towns between the Roman and medieval periods has remained an enduring topic of enquiry. Some leading scholars argue that progress came when the elite chose to reinvest in the market, while others prefer to credit the spirit of merchant enterprise. New work on congregational cult sites and their Christian equivalents (monasteries) supports the idea that religion also lent a hand in stimulating trade and reinventin…
The best we can do
This is certainly a strange business: on the one hand, the thrill of discovery, the glory of gold, the flattery of the media and the purring of officialdom; on the other, the agonised frustrations of academics whose job it is to make sense of everything brought to light on this island. An editor is supposed to remain neutral, but in this case there is no contest. Antiquity champions research - so while we are happy to welcome the arrival of a mas…
Witchcraft and Deep Time-a debate at Harvard
Archaeology, consistently warned off religion by wise old heads, here rushes deeper into the thicket to tackle the thorny topic of ancient witchcraft. The occasion was a seminar at Harvard organised by Stephen Mitchell and Neil Price to mark the twentieth anniversary of Carlo Ginzburg's influential book on the connections between witches and shamanism - and by implication the possible connections with prehistoric ritual and belief. Archaeology wa…
Archaeology journals, academics and Open Access
Martin Carver connects academic peer review with the new technologies of publishing, particularly ‘Open Access’. He recommends the development of four tiers of output: (1) the popular and commercial magazine printed in hard copy and supported by subscribers; (2) the national Open Access online journal, successor to the local journal and supported by local sponsorship; (3) the international Open Access peer-reviewed online journal, representing an…
Excavating a parchmenerie
A number of associated features and artefacts in the workshops at Portmahomack (Ross-shire) can be related to the preservation and finishing of hides, and it is argued that this included the preparation of parchment for the production of manuscripts. The archaeological correlates of making parchment and methods for distinguishing it from other types of leather-working are discussed
S. Maria foris portas at Castel Seprio
The church of S. Maria foris portas at Castel Seprio was recently the subject of extensive excavations by the author and G.‐P. Brogiolo in advance of renewed attempts to conserve its world famous frescos. The church, which provided the inspiration and point of departure for Bognetti's great work on the ecclesiastical history of the Lombards, is now seen as playing an important role in the period of Frankish domination — perhaps as a seigneurial c…
Forty French Towns
A preliminary review of forty French towns suggests that the survival of archaeological evidence in urban sites is due to a combination of physical factors, many of which can be known before an excavation campaign begins. The distribution of surviving archaeological strata proves to be uneven, both in time and space; neither is it generally coincident with the riches of the written record. A new approach to national research‐policies is offered, …
Three Saxo-Norman Tenements in Durham City
A WELL-PRESERVED SEQUENCE of craftsmen's premises and their associated refuse was found in three tenements off Saddler Street in Durham City. The earliest occupation took place in the second half of the 10th century and a tenement area had been defined within a few decades. The destruction of the occupied tenement by fire took place sometime in the second half of the 11th century and was contemporary with the collapse of the local late Saxon pott…
Short Reviews
Forty French Towns
A preliminary review of forty French towns suggests that the survival of archaeological evidence in urban sites is due to a combination of physical factors, many of which can be known before an excavation campaign begins. The distribution of surviving archaeological strata proves to be uneven, both in time and space; neither is it generally coincident with the riches of the written record. A new approach to national research‐policies is offered, …
Theory and practice in urban pottery seriation
V. Contemporary Artefacts Illustrated in Late Saxon Manuscripts
How far do the pictures in early medieval manuscripts reflect contemporary life? Are the busy and attractive figures which populate many Carolingian or Late Saxon illuminations reflections of their painters and their patrons, or are they ghostly survivors of the Roman Empire, fossilized in a scribal convention? For some archaeologists, of course, the question of authenticity has never arisen, the contemporary relevance of pictures being cheerfull…
Anglo-Saxon objectives at Sutton Hoo, 1985
A modern field project in archaeology is a co-operative enterprise serving an extensive and diverse public. We can no longer afford to disturb the bones of our ancestors under the mantle of serendipity or academic intuition. The archaeologist, as the one person destined ever to see the evidence at first hand, strives for the virtue of enlightened impartiality, and sets off like an explorer, constrained by communal responsibilities and armed with …
S. Maria foris portas at Castel Seprio
The church of S. Maria foris portas at Castel Seprio was recently the subject of extensive excavations by the author and G.‐P. Brogiolo in advance of renewed attempts to conserve its world famous frescos. The church, which provided the inspiration and point of departure for Bognetti's great work on the ecclesiastical history of the Lombards, is now seen as playing an important role in the period of Frankish domination — perhaps as a seigneurial c…
Digging for ideas
An inaugural lecture is often the occasion to stand back from the specifics and the technicalities, to see the place of our subject in a larger order of things, and to look forward to its proper future. This is what Martin Carver, the second Professor of Archaeology in the University of York, looked at and saw in his inaugural last year
On archaeological value
The present system of English resource management relies on legal protected status given to a pre-designated group of monuments. When it is replaced by an adversarial debate between social values, hosted by the planning system, archaeology will need to arm itself with a definition of 'archaeological value'. The new management system would favour research rather than monumentality as the principal asset of the heritage
Shorter Notices
SHORTER NOTICES Kings, Clerics and Chronicles in Scotland, 500–1297: Essays in Honour of Marjorie Ogilvie Anderson on the Occasion of her Ninetieth Birthday, ed. Simon Taylor (Dublin: Four Courts P., 2000; pp. 208. £39.50). MARTIN CARVER MARTIN CARVER University of York Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The English Historical Review, Volume CXVI, Issue 468, September 2001, Pages 921–922, https://doi.org/10.1…
Centre, Region, Periphery. Medieval Europe Basel 2002. Volume 1
The Medieval and Later Archaeology opens up different and diverse viewpoints about the development and problems of structures, which have disappeared or survived in all the modern centres and regions of Europe. Traditional areas were characterised by cultural, economic, religious, and ethnic factors. Archaeology is able to show the growth, the change or the disappearance of special zones and centres. This main theme is presented in six sections. …
The Cross Goes North
Contains thirty-seven studies of the adoption of Christianity across northern Europe over 1000 years, and the diverse reasons that drove the process.
An Iona of the East
A NEW research programme located on the Tarbat peninsula in north-east Scotland oVers the first large-scale exposure of a monastery in the land of the Picts. A case is argued that the settlement at Portmahomack was founded in the 6th century, possibly by Columba himself, and by the 8th century had developed into an important political and industrial centre comparable with Iona. Signs of the monastery's former prominence survive in workshops produ…
Excavating a parchmenerie
A number of associated features and artefacts in the workshops at Portmahomack (Ross-shire) can be related to the preservation and finishing of hides, and it is argued that this included the preparation of parchment for the production of manuscripts. The archaeological correlates of making parchment and methods for distinguishing it from other types of leather-working are discussed
Portmahomack
Archaeology journals, academics and Open Access
Martin Carver connects academic peer review with the new technologies of publishing, particularly ‘Open Access’. He recommends the development of four tiers of output: (1) the popular and commercial magazine printed in hard copy and supported by subscribers; (2) the national Open Access online journal, successor to the local journal and supported by local sponsorship; (3) the international Open Access peer-reviewed online journal, representing an…
Portmahomack
This book relates the rediscovery of a monastery of the 8th century AD, one of the earliest so far seen in northern Europe. It lies in north-east Scotland in the land of the Picts, a largely forgotten people here shown to have been highly intellectual thinkers and consummate artists. The excavation, one of the largest to have taken place in Scotland, revealed burials in stone cists, over 200 pieces of carved stone grave markers and ornamented cro…
Ritual landscape, with portage
What we found
The story of the excavation and what it unearthed, and how. On the site of St Colman's – a sequence of nine churches from the 8th to the 20th century; in the Glebe Field, a paved road leading to a mill with workshops on either side; in the south field, a large, beautifully symmetric, bag-shaped building housing metal-workers.
Early Scottish Monasteries and Prehistory
Reflecting on the diversity of monastic attributes found in the east and west of Britain, the author proposes that prehistoric ritual practice was influential on monastic form. An argument is advanced that this was not based solely on inspiration from the landscape, nor on conservative tradition, but on the intellectual reconciliation of Christian and non-Christian ideas, with disparate results that account for the differences in monumentality. A…
Witchcraft and Deep Time-a debate at Harvard
Archaeology, consistently warned off religion by wise old heads, here rushes deeper into the thicket to tackle the thorny topic of ancient witchcraft. The occasion was a seminar at Harvard organised by Stephen Mitchell and Neil Price to mark the twentieth anniversary of Carlo Ginzburg's influential book on the connections between witches and shamanism - and by implication the possible connections with prehistoric ritual and belief. Archaeology wa…
The best we can do
This is certainly a strange business: on the one hand, the thrill of discovery, the glory of gold, the flattery of the media and the purring of officialdom; on the other, the agonised frustrations of academics whose job it is to make sense of everything brought to light on this island. An editor is supposed to remain neutral, but in this case there is no contest. Antiquity champions research - so while we are happy to welcome the arrival of a mas…
Overview
The archaeological agenda is intended to illuminate the way that power was exercised and how it changed. Changes in the degree of investment in burial may not indicate changes in social structure so much as the need to signal it. In other words, the social structure of life may have always been hierarchical but the need to mention such ranking in death changes with ideology. Ethnicity and demographic movement were not unknown to the Anglo-Saxons …
Pictish Byre-houses at Pitcarmick and their landscape
‘Pitcarmick-type’ houses were identified by the Royal Commission in north east Perthshire in 1988 and published in their survey of 1990. Long and narrow with rounded ends, they seemed to occur in a sequence between prehistoric roundhouses and medieval and post-medieval dwellings. They were therefore provisionally assigned to the later 1st millennium AD, a period associated in this region with the Picts. Excavations by John Barrett and Jane Downes…
Stable Isotope Evidence for Dietary Contrast Between Pictish and Medieval Populations at Portmahomack, Scotland
THE PICTISH AND MEDIEVAL SITE at Portmahomack contained four skeletal populations belonging respectively to the late Iron-Age/early Pictish period (6th/7th century), to a monastery of the late Pictish/early medieval period (8th century), to a Norse and Scottish trading place (9th to 11th century) and to a late medieval parish (15th century). Carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses of bone and tooth root collagen from sample individuals from each per…
History (32 works) · Archaeology (28 works) · Geography (17 works) · History (14 works) · Art (12 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (11 works) · Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies (11 works) · Political science (10 works) · Ancient history (8 works) · Law (8 works)