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The wetlands of medieval Britain represented a valuable regional resource, and contributed to the success of some of the wealthiest monasteries in Britain. Drainage systems and transport mechanisms created an interdependent regional economic environment that needed administrative elites to manage and maintain its resources and ensure the continued survival of urban communities. This paper will compare recent excavations at Swavesey and Burwell and demonstrate that, while the letter of Wittfogel's classification of a 'hydraulic society' is not applicable to medieval England, aspects of it can be used to understand regional communities and wetland environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many Anglo-Saxon cremations contain some animal bone from funeral offerings, but often this material is not systematically identified or studied. This means that an important bias is present in the study of grave goods from most English cremation cemeteries, and that an important data set, which could offer insights into a people's view of life and death, and their relationship to their animals, is being lost to us. After explaining some of the factors which could affect interpretation, the paper examines data from two cremation cemeteries, Spong Hill and Sancton I, where detailed and systematic work on the animal bone was carried out, and shows the sort of information which can be retrieved from this material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]