Steven P Ashby
Biographic Data
| ID | 297464 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Steven P Ashby |
| GIVEN NAMES | Steven P |
| FAMILY NAME | Ashby |
| SIGNATURE | ASHBY S P |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of York |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1420-2108 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 89 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Cuisine and culture-contact
Diet and material culture are interlinked, and examination of organic residues in ceramic vessels permits the simultaneous study of both; exemplified here in the analysis of early-medieval pottery from England and Denmark for biomarkers indicative of fish processing, a possible dietary indicator of Scandinavian migration during the Viking Age ( c . AD 793–1066). While almost a quarter of sampled Danish pots were used to cook fish, diagnostic aqua…
The Portable Antiquities Scheme and the potential of non-metallic finds
This article presents a case study in maximising the potential of publicly collected archaeological finds, through collaboration between finder, recorder, curating institution and the research community. It focuses on an object reported to the Portable Antiquities Scheme, of a type not usually well represented among metal-detected finds: an early-medieval antler hair comb. Typological and biomolecular analysis of the comb - found on the shores of…
In the footsteps of Ohthere
Hedeby was the largest town in the Viking North. Investigations have identified imports at the site from central and northern Scandinavia revealing long-distance connections. The chronology of this trade, however, is unclear. Here, the authors use a typological-biomolecular approach to examine connections during the early Viking Age. The application of ZooMS to an assemblage of antler combs, stylistically dated to the ninth century AD, reveals ne…
Late Iron Age Whaling in Scandinavia
The use of marine mammal bone as a raw material in the manufacturing of gaming pieces in the Scandinavian late Iron Age has been observed and discussed in recent years. New empirical studies have created a chronology as well as a typology showing how the design of the gaming pieces is tightly connected to different choices of raw material; from antler in the Roman and Migration periods, to whale bone in the sixth century, and walrus in the tenth …
Of Pots and Porridge
This article explores the ways in which medieval Icelanders imagined the food and culinary practices of their Viking-Age ancestors. Through a critical synthesis of vocabulary and narrative in sagas, poetry, and law texts, it becomes possible to move beyond isolated references to food and culinary practice, and to begin to consider attitudes to particular foods and technologies. The survey identifies some apparent constants in culinary memory - bo…
Antler Combs From the Salme Ship Burials
In 2008 and 2010, two partly destroyed ship burials were discovered near Salme on the island of Saaremaa. During the archaeological excavations, at least 41 wholly or partially preserved skeletons were discovered, and a large number of artefacts were found, including a dozen single-sided antler combs. On the basis of the finds, as well as radiocarbon dating, the ship burials were dated to the Pre-Viking Period, while both the isotopic and archaeo…
Archaeologies of Hair
This collection of short articles represents an original attempt to bring together scholarship that is usually divided along lines of specialism in time, place, method, or discipline. The shared focus of its contributions is on hair: more than an infrequently preserved element of human remains, but a widespread (and arguably cross-cultural) symbol of power, of fertility, of identity and the self. Moreover, its care and treatment using various for…
Grooming the Face in the Early Middle Ages
This report is a joint collaboration with the authors, Mr Imran Awan and Dr Irene Zempi, and Tell MAMA. The overall aim of this report is to examine the impacts of online and offline anti-Muslim hate crime. In doing so, the authors conducted 20 indepth interviews with Muslim men and women who have been victims of both online and offline anti-Muslim hate. Since Tell MAMA's inception in 2012, it has found a high proportion of online and offline inc…
Archaeologies of Hair
This collection of short articles represents an original attempt to bring together scholarship that is usually divided along lines of specialism in time, place, method, or discipline. The shared focus of its contributions is on hair: more than an infrequently preserved element of human remains, but a widespread (and arguably cross-cultural) symbol of power, of fertility, of identity and the self. Moreover, its care and treatment using various for…
The Chiming of Crack’d Bells
The Chiming of Crack’d Bells: Recent Approaches to the Study of Artefacts in Archaeology." Medieval Archaeology, 60(1), pp. 198–199
Peer Comment
Urban Networks and Arctic Outlands
This paper presents the results of the use of a minimally destructive biomolecular technique to explore the resource networks behind one of the first specialized urban crafts in early mediaeval northern Europe: the manufacture of composite combs of deer antler. The research incorporates the largest application of species identification by peptide mass fingerprinting (ZooMS) to a mediaeval artefact assemblage: specifically to collections of antler…
Hold the Heathen Hammer High
Viking Metal, Pagan Metal and their relatives represent subgenres of Black and Folk Metal characterised by their historical and mythological references, their incorporation of folk melodies alongside traditional music and instruments, and the use of contemporary material culture and dress. Like earlier folk-rock traditions, these subgenres have often steered an interesting course between the hedonistic tendencies which can accompany rock music (t…
What really caused the Viking Age? The social content of raiding and exploration
The cause of the Viking Age is one of our longest-lived debates. A combination of push and pull factors and a catalysing environment instigated the late 8th-century escalation in maritime activity that ultimately led to social, political and religious transformation. Recent discussions have focused on the macro level, with little consideration of the individual gains to be made by raiding. This paper argues that rewards consisted in more than por…
Technologies of Appearance
Personal appearance in general—and the grooming of hair in particular—has long held a position of interest in historical, art-historical, and literary scholarship. The same cannot be said of archaeology, and the material aspects of personal grooming in the construction and communication of identity have not been fully synthesized. As a result, little attempt has been made to understand the social role of hair in less well documented societies, su…
Searching for Scandinavians in pre-Viking Scotland
Cottam, Cowlam and Environs
From 1993–95 investigation of a so-called ‘productive site’ known as Cottam B revealed an Anglo-Saxon settlement occupied during the eighth to ninth centuries AD, succeeded in the late ninth to early tenth century by an Anglo-Scandinavian farmstead. The final report (Richards 1999a) concluded that the Anglo-Saxon settlement may have been an outlying farming and hunting dependency set within a royal estate centred upon Driffield, but that followin…
An Atlas of Medieval Combs from Northern Europe
As an aid to understanding chronology, economics, identity and culture contact, the early medieval bone/antler hair-comb is an under-exploited resource, despite the existence of an extensive literature borne out of a long-standing tradition of empirical research. Such research has been undertaken according to diverse traditions, is scattered amongst site reports and grey literature, regional, national, and international journals, and is published…
Combs, Contact and Chronology
Analysis of an important collection of bone/antler hair combs from Atlantic Scotland has illuminated the chronology of early-medieval Scandinavian settlement in the region. Application of a new typology, identification of variations in manufacturing practice and analysis of spatial patterning throw light on the development of combs traditionally seen as characteristic of early-historic Atlantic Scotland. The application of new techniques of raw m…
Interpreting the Plant and Animal Remains from Viking-age Kaupang
Philaenus spumarius (Linnaeus) Cicadellidae sp.?Euconomelus lepidus (Boheman)
Everyday Products in the Middle Ages
List of contributors Preface Chapter 1: Everyday products in the Middle Ages: Crafts, Consumption and the Individual in Northern Europe c. AD 800-1600: An Introduction Steven P. Ashby, Gitte Hansen, and Irene Baug Chapter 2:`With staff in hand, and dog at heel'? What did it mean to be an `Itinerant' artisan? Steven P. Ashby Chapter 3: Itinerant Craftspeople in 12th Century Bergen, Norway - Aspects of Their Social Identities Gitte Hansen Chapter 4…
Urban Networks and Arctic Outlands
This paper presents the results of the use of a minimally destructive biomolecular technique to explore the resource networks behind one of the first specialized urban crafts in early mediaeval northern Europe: the manufacture of composite combs of deer antler. The research incorporates the largest application of species identification by peptide mass fingerprinting (ZooMS) to a mediaeval artefact assemblage: specifically to collections of antler…
Searching for Scandinavians in pre-Viking Scotland
What really caused the Viking Age? The social content of raiding and exploration
The cause of the Viking Age is one of our longest-lived debates. A combination of push and pull factors and a catalysing environment instigated the late 8th-century escalation in maritime activity that ultimately led to social, political and religious transformation. Recent discussions have focused on the macro level, with little consideration of the individual gains to be made by raiding. This paper argues that rewards consisted in more than por…
Technologies of Appearance
Personal appearance in general—and the grooming of hair in particular—has long held a position of interest in historical, art-historical, and literary scholarship. The same cannot be said of archaeology, and the material aspects of personal grooming in the construction and communication of identity have not been fully synthesized. As a result, little attempt has been made to understand the social role of hair in less well documented societies, su…
Hold the Heathen Hammer High
Viking Metal, Pagan Metal and their relatives represent subgenres of Black and Folk Metal characterised by their historical and mythological references, their incorporation of folk melodies alongside traditional music and instruments, and the use of contemporary material culture and dress. Like earlier folk-rock traditions, these subgenres have often steered an interesting course between the hedonistic tendencies which can accompany rock music (t…
An Atlas of Medieval Combs from Northern Europe
As an aid to understanding chronology, economics, identity and culture contact, the early medieval bone/antler hair-comb is an under-exploited resource, despite the existence of an extensive literature borne out of a long-standing tradition of empirical research. Such research has been undertaken according to diverse traditions, is scattered amongst site reports and grey literature, regional, national, and international journals, and is published…
Cottam, Cowlam and Environs
From 1993–95 investigation of a so-called ‘productive site’ known as Cottam B revealed an Anglo-Saxon settlement occupied during the eighth to ninth centuries AD, succeeded in the late ninth to early tenth century by an Anglo-Scandinavian farmstead. The final report (Richards 1999a) concluded that the Anglo-Saxon settlement may have been an outlying farming and hunting dependency set within a royal estate centred upon Driffield, but that followin…
Combs, Contact and Chronology
Analysis of an important collection of bone/antler hair combs from Atlantic Scotland has illuminated the chronology of early-medieval Scandinavian settlement in the region. Application of a new typology, identification of variations in manufacturing practice and analysis of spatial patterning throw light on the development of combs traditionally seen as characteristic of early-historic Atlantic Scotland. The application of new techniques of raw m…
Late Iron Age Whaling in Scandinavia
The use of marine mammal bone as a raw material in the manufacturing of gaming pieces in the Scandinavian late Iron Age has been observed and discussed in recent years. New empirical studies have created a chronology as well as a typology showing how the design of the gaming pieces is tightly connected to different choices of raw material; from antler in the Roman and Migration periods, to whale bone in the sixth century, and walrus in the tenth …
Antler Combs From the Salme Ship Burials
In 2008 and 2010, two partly destroyed ship burials were discovered near Salme on the island of Saaremaa. During the archaeological excavations, at least 41 wholly or partially preserved skeletons were discovered, and a large number of artefacts were found, including a dozen single-sided antler combs. On the basis of the finds, as well as radiocarbon dating, the ship burials were dated to the Pre-Viking Period, while both the isotopic and archaeo…
Interpreting the Plant and Animal Remains from Viking-age Kaupang
Philaenus spumarius (Linnaeus) Cicadellidae sp.?Euconomelus lepidus (Boheman)
Combs, Contact and Chronology
Analysis of an important collection of bone/antler hair combs from Atlantic Scotland has illuminated the chronology of early-medieval Scandinavian settlement in the region. Application of a new typology, identification of variations in manufacturing practice and analysis of spatial patterning throw light on the development of combs traditionally seen as characteristic of early-historic Atlantic Scotland. The application of new techniques of raw m…
An Atlas of Medieval Combs from Northern Europe
As an aid to understanding chronology, economics, identity and culture contact, the early medieval bone/antler hair-comb is an under-exploited resource, despite the existence of an extensive literature borne out of a long-standing tradition of empirical research. Such research has been undertaken according to diverse traditions, is scattered amongst site reports and grey literature, regional, national, and international journals, and is published…
Searching for Scandinavians in pre-Viking Scotland
Cottam, Cowlam and Environs
From 1993–95 investigation of a so-called ‘productive site’ known as Cottam B revealed an Anglo-Saxon settlement occupied during the eighth to ninth centuries AD, succeeded in the late ninth to early tenth century by an Anglo-Scandinavian farmstead. The final report (Richards 1999a) concluded that the Anglo-Saxon settlement may have been an outlying farming and hunting dependency set within a royal estate centred upon Driffield, but that followin…
Technologies of Appearance
Personal appearance in general—and the grooming of hair in particular—has long held a position of interest in historical, art-historical, and literary scholarship. The same cannot be said of archaeology, and the material aspects of personal grooming in the construction and communication of identity have not been fully synthesized. As a result, little attempt has been made to understand the social role of hair in less well documented societies, su…
Peer Comment
Urban Networks and Arctic Outlands
This paper presents the results of the use of a minimally destructive biomolecular technique to explore the resource networks behind one of the first specialized urban crafts in early mediaeval northern Europe: the manufacture of composite combs of deer antler. The research incorporates the largest application of species identification by peptide mass fingerprinting (ZooMS) to a mediaeval artefact assemblage: specifically to collections of antler…
Hold the Heathen Hammer High
Viking Metal, Pagan Metal and their relatives represent subgenres of Black and Folk Metal characterised by their historical and mythological references, their incorporation of folk melodies alongside traditional music and instruments, and the use of contemporary material culture and dress. Like earlier folk-rock traditions, these subgenres have often steered an interesting course between the hedonistic tendencies which can accompany rock music (t…
What really caused the Viking Age? The social content of raiding and exploration
The cause of the Viking Age is one of our longest-lived debates. A combination of push and pull factors and a catalysing environment instigated the late 8th-century escalation in maritime activity that ultimately led to social, political and religious transformation. Recent discussions have focused on the macro level, with little consideration of the individual gains to be made by raiding. This paper argues that rewards consisted in more than por…
Archaeologies of Hair
This collection of short articles represents an original attempt to bring together scholarship that is usually divided along lines of specialism in time, place, method, or discipline. The shared focus of its contributions is on hair: more than an infrequently preserved element of human remains, but a widespread (and arguably cross-cultural) symbol of power, of fertility, of identity and the self. Moreover, its care and treatment using various for…
Grooming the Face in the Early Middle Ages
This report is a joint collaboration with the authors, Mr Imran Awan and Dr Irene Zempi, and Tell MAMA. The overall aim of this report is to examine the impacts of online and offline anti-Muslim hate crime. In doing so, the authors conducted 20 indepth interviews with Muslim men and women who have been victims of both online and offline anti-Muslim hate. Since Tell MAMA's inception in 2012, it has found a high proportion of online and offline inc…
Archaeologies of Hair
This collection of short articles represents an original attempt to bring together scholarship that is usually divided along lines of specialism in time, place, method, or discipline. The shared focus of its contributions is on hair: more than an infrequently preserved element of human remains, but a widespread (and arguably cross-cultural) symbol of power, of fertility, of identity and the self. Moreover, its care and treatment using various for…
The Chiming of Crack’d Bells
The Chiming of Crack’d Bells: Recent Approaches to the Study of Artefacts in Archaeology." Medieval Archaeology, 60(1), pp. 198–199
Antler Combs From the Salme Ship Burials
In 2008 and 2010, two partly destroyed ship burials were discovered near Salme on the island of Saaremaa. During the archaeological excavations, at least 41 wholly or partially preserved skeletons were discovered, and a large number of artefacts were found, including a dozen single-sided antler combs. On the basis of the finds, as well as radiocarbon dating, the ship burials were dated to the Pre-Viking Period, while both the isotopic and archaeo…
Of Pots and Porridge
This article explores the ways in which medieval Icelanders imagined the food and culinary practices of their Viking-Age ancestors. Through a critical synthesis of vocabulary and narrative in sagas, poetry, and law texts, it becomes possible to move beyond isolated references to food and culinary practice, and to begin to consider attitudes to particular foods and technologies. The survey identifies some apparent constants in culinary memory - bo…
Late Iron Age Whaling in Scandinavia
The use of marine mammal bone as a raw material in the manufacturing of gaming pieces in the Scandinavian late Iron Age has been observed and discussed in recent years. New empirical studies have created a chronology as well as a typology showing how the design of the gaming pieces is tightly connected to different choices of raw material; from antler in the Roman and Migration periods, to whale bone in the sixth century, and walrus in the tenth …
The Portable Antiquities Scheme and the potential of non-metallic finds
This article presents a case study in maximising the potential of publicly collected archaeological finds, through collaboration between finder, recorder, curating institution and the research community. It focuses on an object reported to the Portable Antiquities Scheme, of a type not usually well represented among metal-detected finds: an early-medieval antler hair comb. Typological and biomolecular analysis of the comb - found on the shores of…
In the footsteps of Ohthere
Hedeby was the largest town in the Viking North. Investigations have identified imports at the site from central and northern Scandinavia revealing long-distance connections. The chronology of this trade, however, is unclear. Here, the authors use a typological-biomolecular approach to examine connections during the early Viking Age. The application of ZooMS to an assemblage of antler combs, stylistically dated to the ninth century AD, reveals ne…
Everyday Products in the Middle Ages
List of contributors Preface Chapter 1: Everyday products in the Middle Ages: Crafts, Consumption and the Individual in Northern Europe c. AD 800-1600: An Introduction Steven P. Ashby, Gitte Hansen, and Irene Baug Chapter 2:`With staff in hand, and dog at heel'? What did it mean to be an `Itinerant' artisan? Steven P. Ashby Chapter 3: Itinerant Craftspeople in 12th Century Bergen, Norway - Aspects of Their Social Identities Gitte Hansen Chapter 4…
Cuisine and culture-contact
Diet and material culture are interlinked, and examination of organic residues in ceramic vessels permits the simultaneous study of both; exemplified here in the analysis of early-medieval pottery from England and Denmark for biomarkers indicative of fish processing, a possible dietary indicator of Scandinavian migration during the Viking Age ( c . AD 793–1066). While almost a quarter of sampled Danish pots were used to cook fish, diagnostic aqua…
History (16 works) · Archaeology (15 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (11 works) · History (11 works) · Geography (10 works) · Art (7 works) · Historical and Archaeological Studies (7 works) · Ancient history (6 works) · Viking Age (6 works) · Antler (5 works)