Archaeologist and Writer
Way back in December 2020, the FeedSax project held a virtual conference, attended by hundreds from around the globe. We’re now excited to announce that the proceedings of this conference will be published later this year by Liverpool University Press. The book is called New Perspectives on the Medieval ‘Agricultural Revolution’: Crop, Stock and Furrow, … Read More “Book news: Crop, Stock and Furrow” »
Ipswich, in Suffolk in eastern England, is a town brimming with archaeology. Anglo-Saxon evidence is particularly abundant, as Ipswich’s urban origins can be traced back to the 7th/8th century AD, when it was Gipeswic, one of a small number of specialist craft and trading centres (wics or emporia) that arose in Anglo-Saxon England at this … Read More “Days of Beer and Iron” »
Cereal farming emerged around 11 or 12 thousand years ago, in the so-called Fertile Crescent of the Middle East. Over the next 5 or 6 thousands years, arable farming ploughed its way westwards and northwards across mainland Europe, over to the British Isles, up into Scotland, even unto Orkney, Shetland, and the somewhat less fertile … Read More “We’re going on a bere hunt” »
George Ewart Evans (1909-1988), British folklorist and oral history pioneer, has left a rich legacy of insight and information concerning rural life in England before the mechanisation of farming. His books and recordings are chock-full of golden nuggets, anecdotes and rustic remarks from ways of life that are increasingly beyond living memory. Most of his … Read More “An unusual use for ale” »
So there was Earth. And on Earth formed the oceans. In the oceans grew simple-celled life, and these are the prokaryotes. From the prokaryotes grew complex-celled life, and these are the eukaryotes. From the eukaryotes grew multicellular life, some of which photosynthesised, and thus came plants to grow on the land and in the waters … Read More “A brief history of my breakfast” »
I’m thrilled to say that, although I haven’t been able to write much of this blog over the past few months (or even years), I have managed to write a book which has lately been published by the excellent folk at Oxbow Books, in their Windgather Press imprint: It’s called Farming Transformed in Anglo-Saxon England: … Read More “Farming unearthed… and transformed” »
Raise the song of harvest home! The harvest festival is not, it seems, an official fixture in the Church of England calendar. It is deemed a local celebration and permissible on a Sunday only if there isn’t a more significant celebration to be had that day. Some traditions hold that the harvest festival should be … Read More “Come, ye thankful people come…” »
Of course I had consulted it. Of course I’d cited it. But it’s taken a while to sit down and read it – properly, finally – from cover to cover. And it feels like a literary pilgrimage. What am I taking about? None other than “Rackham’s Countryside”, or more formally: Rackham, O. 1986. The History … Read More “The History of the Countryside” »
My phone started ringing before I had unlocked the door. It was my dad. “Quick,” he said. “Turn on the news.” Whatever’s happened? I wondered. Has the Isle of Wight declared independence? As it happened, no, it was bigger than that: agricultural archaeology was on the evening news. You see, there’s a project underway in … Read More “What’s up on the Downs?” »
I shouldn’t have been so surprised. Way back when I started this blog, I commented on how farming seems to permeate archaeology as a discipline – from the Neolithic onwards, it’s a crucial thread in so much of human history. It’s hard to ignore. But equally, it’s often a bit of a poor relation. Farming … Read More “Get off my co-axial field system!” »