The eight papers in this volume examine recent archaeological and historical research in Western and Southern Europe. Contributors include: H Hamerow (Early medival communities in Northwest Europe) ; G Halsall (The Merovingian period in northeast Gaul: Transition or change?) ; C Haselgrove & C Scull (The changing structure of rural settlement in southern Picardy during the first Millennium AD) ; C Scull (Appraoches to material culture and social dynamics of the Migration period of eastern England) ; C Loveluck (The formation of Anglo-Saxon society in the English Peak District, 400-700 AD) ; N Christie (Italy and the Roman to medieval transition) ; J Bintliff (Current research on the origins of the traditional village in central Greece) .