Professor Helena Hamerow

hamerow
Professor of Early Medieval Archaeology
+44 (0)1865 278245
helena.hamerow@arch.ox.ac.uk

Research Interests

The archaeology of northwest Europe from AD 400-1000; Early medieval rural settlements and economy; The archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England; Links between England and mainland Europe c 400-700.

Research Profile

Research activities

My research focuses on the archaeology of rural communities in early medieval NW Europe.  I am especially interested in the impact of lordship, monasteries and towns on rural producers and the countryside.  I am also interested in the well-furnished female burials of the seventh century in England and Frankia and what these reveal about the position of women in the Conversion period.

I am currently PI of an ERC-funded project, ‘Feeding Anglo-Saxon England. The Bioarchaeology of an Agricultural Revolution’ (‘FeedSax’; http://feedsax.arch.ox.ac.uk).  Using preserved cereal grains, faunal remains, pollen and other data, FeedSax is tracing the emergence and spread of three innovations that enabled medieval farmers dramatically to increase cereal yields and feed growing populations: systematic crop rotation, widespread adoption of the mouldboard plough, and low-input, extensive, cultivation. 

I am also interested in the earliest stages of the formation of the kingdom of Wessex, whose origins lie in the Upper Thames Valley and have been involved in a range of fieldwork in this region (www.arch.ox.ac.uk/wessex).

I am a co-Director of excavations, now completed, at the Roman small town of Dorchester-on-Thames (www.arch.ox.ac.uk/DOT1) and PI of the AHRC-funded Novum Inventorium Sepulchrale, an on-line database of Anglo-Saxon graves and grave-goods from Kent (www.arch.ox.ac.uk/NIS1).

Links

Dorchester-on-Thames

Feeding Anglo-Saxon England: The Bioarchaeology of an Agricultural Revolution

Modelling Urban Renewal and growth in Britain and Norh-West Europe, AD800-1300

Novum Inventorium Sepulchrale

The Origins of Wessex

Publications

  • An integrated bioarchaeological approach to the Medieval Agricultural Revolution. The case study of Stafford, England

    HAMEROW, H, BOGAARD, A, CHARLES, M, FORSTER, E, Holmes, M, MCKERRACHER, M, Neil, S, RAMSEY, C, STROUD, E, Thomas, R
    2020
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    Journal article
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    European Journal of Archaeology

  • An Integrated Bioarchaeological Approach to the Medieval ‘Agricultural Revolution’: A Case Study from Stafford, England, c.ad 800–1200

    Hamerow, H, Bogaard, A, Charles, M, Forster, E, Holmes, M, McKerracher, M, Neil, S, Ramsey, CB, Stroud, E, Thomas, R
    2020
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    Journal article
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    European Journal of Archaeology
    <jats:p>In much of Europe, the advent of low-input cereal farming regimes between <jats:italic>c.</jats:italic><jats:sc>ad</jats:sc> 800 and 1200 enabled landowners—lords—to amass wealth by greatly expanding the amount of land under cultivation and exploiting the labour of others. Scientific analysis of plant remains and animal bones from archaeological contexts is generating the first direct evidence for the development of such low-input regimes. This article outlines the methods used by the FeedSax project to resolve key questions regarding the ‘cerealization’ of the medieval countryside and presents preliminary results using the town of Stafford as a worked example. These indicate an increase in the scale of cultivation in the Mid-Saxon period, while the Late Saxon period saw a shift to a low-input cultivation regime and probably an expansion onto heavier soils. Crop rotation appears to have been practised from at least the mid-tenth century.</jats:p>

  • Feeding Anglo-Saxon England: The bioarchaeology of an agricultural revolution

    Hamerow, H, Bogaard, A, Charles, M, Ramsey, C, Thomas, R, Forster, E, Holmes, M, McKerracher, M, Neil, S, Stroud, E
    2019
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    Journal article
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    Antiquity
    Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2019. The early Middle Ages saw a major expansion of cereal cultivation across large parts of Europe thanks to the spread of open-field farming. A major project to trace this expansion in England by deploying a range of scientific methods is generating direct evidence for this so-called 'Medieval Agricultural Revolution'.

  • Early Medieval Places and Spaces. Breaking Down Boundaries in British Archaeology

    Hamerow, HF
    Edited by:
    Quirós Castillo, J-A
    2019
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    Chapter
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    30 años de Arqueología Medieval en España
    Early medieval Britain, landscape archaeology, assembly sites, boundaries

  • Feeding Anglo-Saxon England: The Bioarchaeology of an Agricultural Revolution ('FeedSax')

    HAMEROW, H
    2017
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    Journal article
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    Medieval Settlement Research
    • More
Teaching

Undergraduate teaching

Undergraduate course convenor for:

  • FHS option paper - Anglo Saxon Society & Economy in the Early Christian Period
  • FHS option paper - Emergence of Medieval Europe

Postgraduate teaching

Postgraduate taught course options in: