Overview

This course will provide a foundation for the period demonstrating the main developments using examples and showing how interpretations have changed. For the Roman Period, the course will examine the conquest and military archaeology; the countryside (villas, native settlements, farming and mineral extraction); towns; craft and the economy; religion and burial; and the end of Roman Britain. For the Early Medieval Period, the course will examine the archaeology of western Britain from the fifth to seventh centuries; Anglo-Saxon settlement and pagan cemeteries; Anglo-Saxon rural settlement; the origins of Anglo-Saxon towns; the conversion and Anglo-Saxon monasteries and churches; the Picts; the Viking impact; and the archaeology of late Anglo-Saxon England. For the Later Medieval Period, the course will examine the Norman Conquest and castles; rural settlement; the countryside; urban settlement; craft and trade; and church archaeology, including that of monasteries. Wider context for understanding medieval archaeology in particular is provided by examination of industrialisation and more recent archaeological topics.