Martin Carver was an army officer for 15 years, a freelance commercial archaeologist for 13 years and Professor of Archaeology at the University of York for 22 years, retiring in 2008. From 2002 until 2012 he was editor of the global archaeology journal Antiquity. He has researched post-Roman towns in Britain, France, Italy and Algeria and excavated large sites of the first millennium AD at Sutton Hoo (Suffolk) and Portmahomack (north-east Scotland). He has produced numerous articles, lectures and broadcasts on the peoples of early Britain, and his latest books are Sutton Hoo: Encounters with Early England, Portmahomack: Monastery of the Picts and Archaeological Investigation (for Routledge).

• CONTENTSList of figuresList of abbreviationsPicture creditsPrefaceChapter 1 Inheritance: landscapes and predecessorsChapter 2: Looking for personhood: physique and adornmentChapter 3: Working from home: settlement and economiesChapter 4 Addressing eternity: cemeteries as ritual placesChapter 5 Monumentality: sculpture, churches and illuminated booksChapter 6: Materiality of words: myths and recordsChapter 7 Narratives – reflections - legaciesReferences Index

"…it is a pleasure to enjoy an extended synthesis produced by a deep thinker who has done so much to frame the ways in which students (writ large) of the early medieval period think about their material." – Chris Fowler, Antiquity"The range of location and example is extraordinary, with excellent referencing and a comprehensive bibliography. As a teaching aid, it should be welcomed; as a student’s introduction to the fast-changing perceptions and understandings of this well-named ‘formative’ period in Britain’s history, it will be a valued primer…Formative Britain is a great achievement." – Brian Ayers, The Journal of the Historical Association"This is a magnificent book that truly does justice to the study of post-Roman Britain. It celebrates the enormous wealth of information at the archaeologist’s (and historian’s) disposal beyond those written texts which have long determined the narrative of this epoch…There is so much to admire in Carver’s thesis. This is a vivid narrative which has largely evaded the shadow of the canon". – Richard Hodges, Medieval Archaeology