Book launches and reviews

The Archaeology of the East Midlands: An Archaeological Resource Assessment and Research Agenda (ed) Nicholas J Cooper (Leicester Archaeology Monograph, 13) Leicester, 2006; £19.95 (paperback)

This well produced volume reports on the work of the first two stages of the East Midlands Archaeological Research Framework, which is sponsored jointly by English Heritage and the local authorities of the region. Its objective is to provide an effective decision-making structure for future archaeological research, and it is part of a wider English Heritage remit to develop a network of regional research frameworks across the country. Nine chapters assess the present state of research from the Palaeolithic up to the present time, each contributed by an expert in the field. Each chapter includes a discussion of particular problems and an assessment of the archaeological resources available to resolve them, and concludes with a research agenda, which in the case of Steven Willis's chapter on the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age amounts to nine full pages. The opening chapter by the editor and Patrick Clay deals with the 'National and Regional Context of the Regional Framework', and the final two chapters with environmental archaeology, and another by the editor on 'Cross-Period Research and the Foundation of a Research Strategy'. There is an extensive bibliography and a useful index. One reason given for this very creditable work is the need to re-establish links between all the various groups involved in archaeology, which became increasingly fragmented in the 1980s and 1990s. It aims to direct their interests towards the most promising and productive research agendas. So it needs to be widely read, and it deserves to be.

Gavin Simpson