This volume reports on over 3000 skeletons from Winchester and its immediate neighbourhood, representing a near complete span of occupation history from c. AD 250–1540. It provides a fascinating analysis of the demographics, health and lifestyle of a local population through major social, cultural and political transitions. The sites forming the core of this report are the Romano-British cemeteries of Lankhills (1967–1972 excavations) and Victoria Road West (both forming part of the northern cemetery of Winchester), various early Anglo-Saxon sites outside the Roman city itself and the later Anglo-Saxon and medieval cemeteries at Cathedral Green, including the renowned Old and New Minster sites. This is not, therefore, a comprehensive report on all of Winchester's dead during this period, but a good attempt is made to compare the results of the analysis here with more recent investigations, including the major excavations in the Lankhills cemetery by Oxford Archaeology (2000–2005).

Included here is work by different authors, under the overall editorship of Caroline Stuckert, who was able to return to her Winchester research following her retirement in 2006. Stuckert first started her work here in 1974, when seeking osteoarchaeological material for a PhD at the University of Pennsylvania on the Roman/Anglo-Saxon transition. This research resulted in the analysis of more than 770 Romano-British and Anglo-Saxon skeletons, and is finally published as Part 3 of this volume (Stuckert having changed the direction of her PhD research part way through). She was subsequently invited to work on the Lankhills material from the 1967–1972 excavations, which was not part of her original project; her results are published here as Part 2 (Clarke's (Reference Clarke1979) original publication included age and sex data based on a quick scan of the material by Mary Harman; some of the latter's initial findings are corrected here in the osteoarchaeological catalogue of the burials). Also presented in Part 2 is a reanalysis of the decapitated burials at Lankhills by J.L. Macdonald, which argues that some of these may represent deliberate sacrifice rather than post-mortem treatment. The work of other researchers on the later Anglo-Saxon and medieval burials at Cathedral Green is now brought to completion as Part 4, by Theya Molleson, Rosemary Powers, the late John Price and Pauline Sheppard.

These contributions are framed by Martin Biddle's very useful introduction (Part 1) to the background and history of the cemetery excavations at Winchester, which highlights the general lack of professional osteoarchaeological knowledge in the 1960s, and the crucial roles played by Don Brothwell and Rosemary Power in the analysis of burials from the excavations at Cathedral Green. Stuckert provides a concluding overview in Part 5.

Within the city itself, there appear to be breaks in the known burial record from c. AD 450–670 and from c. AD 1093 with the demolition of the Old Minster until around AD 1200 with the growth of the ‘Paradise’ cemetery over the same area. Included in the main analysis therefore are: 525 later Romano-British inhumations from Lankhills 1967–1972 and Victoria Road West; 245 burials from seven Anglo-Saxon sites in the local area; and at Cathedral Green, 47 burials from the Cathedral Car Park cemetery, 989 from the Old Minster cemetery, and 1069 medieval graves, plus charnel with the crania of at least 1067 individuals.

The analysis deals with demography, physical characteristics, dentition and pathology, and enables comparisons between periods to be drawn out in the conclusions of each of the three main parts of the volume and in the final discussion. The new conclusions on the Lankhills material are particularly valuable. This work has altered some of the demographic conclusions of the original site report, as more females have now been recognised. There is a great wealth of detail for specialists to explore, but the real significance of this work is the argument about long-term trends. Stuckert convincingly demonstrates that there is a general underlying population continuity right the way through this period, although the health and lifestyles of the people seem to change in response to social and environmental factors. Both men and women are healthier in the more rural society of the early Anglo-Saxon period, as opposed to the more urbanised periods either side, and violence seems to increase markedly in the period of the seventh to eleventh centuries. There seems to be a small amount of non-local, predominantly male, input into this mainly local population, with trickles in the later Roman and earliest Anglo-Saxon periods, and a more major influx identified in the seventh century; this may relate to the particular role that Winchester played in this period.

This volume is a valuable contribution to long-term population history. The production and illustration standards are high, and Caroline Stuckert should be congratulated for finally bringing all of this important research to publication, although the price tag will make most readers blanch.