Professor Helena Hamerow

Research Profile

Research activities

My research focuses on the archaeology of early medieval northwest Europe, c 400-1000.  Recent research projects have examined the impact of lordship, monasteries and towns on rural producers and the agrarian economy.  I am also interested in what burials reveal about the position of women during the Conversion period.

I am PI of a five-year project called ‘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 innovations that enabled medieval farmers to feed a rapidly growing population: crop rotation, widespread adoption of the mouldboard plough, and low-input, extensive, cultivation. 

I am also interested in 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).

Research Awards

Fellow of the British Academy (2023)

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
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: