The History Book Club discussion

This is a thread to discuss books regarding the Iron Age. These books can either be non fiction or historical fiction. Please be sure to let folks know if the book is historical fiction, however.

Here is a book:

P.V. Glob

Goodreads write-up:

In the last two centuries, well-preserved human bodies, some more than 2,000 years old, have been discovered in bogs throughout northern Europe. Buried with ropes tight around their necks, the corpses show signs of violent ends; yet their facial features are arranged in peaceful, even prayerful repose. In the book, P.V. Glob solves the mystery of the bog people, uncovering a link between these Iron Age corpses and a fertility goddess often portrayed with ornamental neck chains. Recounting a dark, forbidding story, the author introduces us to the Iron Age Germani, to the sacred rituals they performed in secluded woods and groves, and to the goddess Nerthus--a demanding Mother Earth who prescribed a willing human sacrifice to ensure the yearly rhythm of the crops. B&W photos.

Scholarly work on the effects of the Iron Age which culminated in the rise of the Roman Empire.

The European Iron Age

by John Collis (no photo)

Synopsis:

This ambitious study documents the underlying features which link the civilizations of the Mediterranean - Phoenician, Greek, Etruscan and Roman - and the Iron Age cultures of central Europe, traditionally associated with the Celts. It deals with the social, economic and cultural interaction in the first millennium BC which culminated in the Roman Empire.
The book has three principle themes: the spread of iron-working from its origins in Anatolia to its adoption over most of Europe; the development of a trading system throughout the Mediterrean world after the collapse of Mycenaean Greece and its spread into temperate Europe; and the rise of ever more complex societies, including states and cities, and eventually empires.
Dr Collis takes a new look at such key concepts as population movement, diffusion, trade, social structure and spatial organization, with some challenging new views on the Celts in particular.

Britain and the Celtic Iron Age

by Simon James

Synopsis:

The Celts are seen as a family of European peoples who spoke related languages and shared many things in common, from art to aspects of religion and social organization. Was the British Iron Age simply part of this supposedly uniform, Celtic world, or was it something much more distinctive, complex, strange and fascinating than we have been led to believe? New research is promoting reappraisals of Britain's prehistory, in ways which challenge many ideas, such as that of a familiar Celtic past.

This work discusses the many facets of the lives of Iron Age Britons, drawing on the wealth of material in the British Museum and other collections.

Lives in Ruins: Archaeologists and the Seductive Lure of Human Rubble

by Marilyn Johnson

Synopsis:

The author of The Dead Beat and This Book is Overdue! turns her piercing eye and charming wit to the real-life avatars of Indiana Jones—the archaeologists who sort through the muck and mire of swamps, ancient landfills, volcanic islands, and other dirty places to reclaim history for us all.

Pompeii, Machu Picchu, the Valley of the Kings, the Parthenon—the names of these legendary archaeological sites conjure up romance and mystery. The news is full of archaeology: treasures found (British king under parking lot) and treasures lost (looters, bulldozers, natural disaster, and war). Archaeological research tantalizes us with possibilities (are modern humans really part Neandertal?). Where are the archaeologists behind these stories? What kind of work do they actually do, and why does it matter?

Marilyn Johnson’s Lives in Ruins is an absorbing and entertaining look at the lives of contemporary archaeologists as they sweat under the sun for clues to the puzzle of our past. Johnson digs and drinks alongside archaeologists, chases them through the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, and even Machu Picchu, and excavates their lives. Her subjects share stories we rarely read in history books, about slaves and Ice Age hunters, ordinary soldiers of the American Revolution, children of the first century, Chinese woman warriors, sunken fleets, mummies.

What drives these archaeologists is not the money (meager) or the jobs (scarce) or the working conditions (dangerous), but their passion for the stories that would otherwise be buried and lost.

by Marilyn Johnson

Thanks Kathy and Jill for the adds.

In Pompeii a team of Italian and French archeologists have found the remains of 4 youngsters who apparently tried hiding or running from the Vesuvius ash cloud. The store where they were found had an oven which leads the archeologists to believe it might have been a bronze foundry.
Nearby the team also found a tomb from around the 4th century BC holding a grown man's skeleton and pots filled with grave goods.

Here a link to the the Italian site with photographs:
http://napoli.repubblica.it/cronaca/2...