The Oss-noord Project: The Second Decade of Excavations at Oss 1986-1996

Fokkens, Harry/ Van As, Stijn/ Jansen, Richard

ISBN 10: 9088907498 / ISBN 13: 9789088907494

Published by Sidestone Pr, 2019

About this Item

01 edition. 420 pages. 10.45x8.25x0.94 inches. In Stock.

Seller Inventory # __9088907498

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Oss-noord Project: The Second Decade of Excavations at Oss 1986-1996
• Publisher: Sidestone Pr
• Publication Date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 9088907498
• ISBN 13: 9789088907494
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Brand New
• Weight: 1.34 kilograms

About this title

Synopsis

After the first decade of large scale settlement research at Oss-Ussen (1974-1984), a second and a third decade followed (1986-2008). The present book is a report on the second decade of settlement excavations, all carried out under supervision of the first author. Started with a focus on the Bronze Age, the project developed into a large scale research of Iron Age and Roman Period settlements and cemeteries over a total area of about 13 ha. The ten campaigns of fieldwork functioned also as the fieldschool of the Faculty of Archaeology of Leiden University, so many of the archaeologists in Dutch Archaeology used their shovels and trowels for the first time in Oss. Due to its narrative style the book is not only meant for professional archaeologists but for everyone interested in Metal Ages and Roman Period in general and the local history of Oss specifically. The book is divided in two parts. Part 1 describes the results of the excavations in a personal account of how research goals developed in relation to ever changing theoretical and practical circumstances. It presents a synthesis of different study areas with a focus on how the past may have influenced new phases of settlement. In this synthesis also the fieldwork of the first decade and to some extent the third decade of excavations at Oss (Horzak) are taken into account. Part 2 describes the primary data of the 1986-1995 excavations on which the analyses are based. Due to these mass of data, we have restricted ourselves to a (large) selection of features and structures that yielded information for the synthesis in part 1.

About the Author

Prof. Dr. Harry Fokkens studied Human Geography at the Free University in Amsterdam and Prehistoric Archaeology at the State University Groningen. For more than twenty years he excavated Bronze and Iron Age settlements and cemeteries around the town of Oss (Netherlands). This research formed the basis for many articles about Bronze Age cultural landscapes, including settlements and barrow cemeteries. In the last 15 years his research focus has shifted towards the Latae Neolithic and Bronze Age cultural landscapes of riverine and coastal lowlands. The Framers of the coast project (ended in 2018) studied the Bronze Age landscapes of West-Frisia. The aim of that project was to create a coherent image of the farmers and the farming practices in these coastal lowlands. The communication networks with other similar groups along the North sea cast was an important aspect of that project. Using the West-Frisian data, especially the burial data and the evidence of the well preserved Late Neolithic and Bronze Age skeletons, Fokkens is now involved in the debate about mobitily and genetic signatures of people and livestock. His aim is to understand the social processes behind mobility and exchange, the ways in which objects, livestock and livestock products acquire value. Inspiration is found in the work of Mauss, Bloch, Godelier, Weiner, Graeber and many others.

Stijn van As became involved in the Oss research projects during his early study years. He graduated in Prehistoric Archaeology at Leiden University in early 2010. He worked in commercial archaeology for several years as a field archaeologist (2010-2012) and became a member of the Faculty in late 2012 with the task of producing the catalogue of the Oss-North campaigns. In 2013 and 2014 he directed and reported two more field campaigns in Oss (Horzak-West). Van As was co-author of a synthesis of development funded archaeology in the Netherlands for the Late Neolithic and the Bronze Age (Farmers, fishers, fowlers, hunters: Nederlandse Archeologische Rapporten 53). Since August 2015, he is working for BAAC archaeology BV as a senior archaeologist in development-led archaeology. Amongst a lot of other fieldwork projects, he was closely involved in the excavations of the Early Neolithic Swifterbant sites in Nieuwegein (The Netherlands). Stijn is a field archaeologist who often conducts large scaled excavations, and who applies modern fieldwork techniques. He is mainly specialized in excavating Late Prehistoric sites.

Richard Jansen is fulltime lecturer in Applied Archaeology and European Prehistory at the Faculty of Archaeology, University of Leiden. Between 2008 and 2018 he also was the municipal-archaeologist of Oss. His (PhD-)research focuses on the long-term structuring of the (settlement) landscape from the late prehistory until the Roman Period, especially on the extensively researched sandy soils of Oss, but also within the larger MSD-region.