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: 

Doctoral Supervision

I am happy to supervise on a broad range of topics related to the archaeology of early medieval Europe, including its rural economy, mortuary practices, and material culture, in particular for the period c. 400-900.

Current students

Early Anglo-Saxon barrow burials in England: spatial analysis and contextualisation of the Sixth and Seventh Century nationwide funerary landscape.
Wyatt Wilcox | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisors: John Pouncett and Helena Hamerow
Viking-Age Scandinavian settlement in northern England. A geospatial model for reconceptualizing the cultural landscape
Anthony Del Rio | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisors: Helena Hamerow and Jane Kershaw

Past students

Diet and Health in a time of transition: Pictish and Viking age Orkney
Alexandra Johnson (2021) ORA | DPhil Archaeological Science | Supervisors: Rick Schulting and Helena Hamerow
Remnants of a Roman Past: the reuse of Roman objects in early Anglo-Saxon graves, c. AD 5th-7th centuries
Jessica Dunham (2020) ORA | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisor: Helena Hamerow
Cosmology, Fashion and Good fortune: Chinese auspicious ornament in the Han dynasty (206BC - 220AD)
Shengyu Wang (2020) ORA | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisor: Helena Hamerow
Looking to the North Sea: Isotopic and osteological evidence for medieval diet, mobility, and health at Stoke Quay, Ipswich
Eleanor Farber (2019) ORA | DPhil Archaeological Science | Supervisors: Julia Lee-Thorp and Helena Hamerow
The Role of Anglo-Saxon Great Hall Complexes in Kingdom Formation, in comparison and in context, AD500-750
Adam McBride (2018) ORA | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisor: Helena Hamerow
From Individuals to Settlement Patterns. Bridging the Gap between the Living and the Dead in Early Medieval Populations by an Agent-Based Demographic Model
Andreas Duering (2017) ORA | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisor: Helena Hamerow
Transition from the Late Roman Period to the Early Anglo-Saxon Period in the Upper Thames Valley based on Stable Isotopes
Yurika Sakai (2016) ORA | DPhil Archaeological Science | Supervisors: Helena Hamerow and Julia Lee-Thorp
The Avon Valley in the fifth to mid-seventh centuries: contacts and coalescence in a frontier polity?
Abigail Tompkins (2016) ORA | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisor: Helena Hamerow
Agricultural Development in Mid Saxon England
Mark McKerracher (2013) ORA | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisors: Helena Hamerow and Amy Bogaard
Placed Deposits in Early and Middle Anglo-Saxon Rural Settlements
Clifford Sofield (2012) ORA | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisor: Helena Hamerow
Bernicia and the Sea: Coastal Communities and Landscape in North-East England and South East Scotland, C.450-850 A.D.
Christopher Ferguson (2011) | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisor: Helena Hamerow
A Re-evaluation of the Evidence of Anglian-British Interaction in the Lincoln Region
Caitlin Green (2011) | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisor: Helena Hamerow
Culture and Gender in the Danelaw: Scandinavian and Anglo-Scandinavian Brooches, 850-1050
Jane Kershaw (2010) | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisor: Helena Hamerow
North Sea and Channel Connectivity during the Late Iron Age and Roman Periods (175/150 BC-AD 409)
Francis Morris (2009) | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisors: Helena Hamerow and Andrew Wilson
Social Differentiation and Diet in Early Anglo-Saxon England: Stable Isotope Analysis of Archaeological Human and Animal Remains
Bradley Hull (2008) | DPhil Archaeological Science | Supervisors: Robert Hedges and Helena Hamerow
Late Roman to early Medieval transition in the province of Namur (Belgium)
Gesine Bruss (2005) | DPhil Archaeology | Supervisor: Helena Hamerow

Key words: trade, migration, gender and identity, archives, domestic space, excavations, farming and herding, inequality, medieval, Europe