Books
New Perspectives on the Medieval ‘Agricultural Revolution’: Crop, Stock and Furrow – edited by Mark McKerracher and Helena Hamerow (2022, Liverpool University Press)
So… where did all the food come from?
By the 13th century, the population of England (and much of medieval Europe) was higher than ever before. Farming clearly changed between the 7th and 13th centuries, to produce all that extra food – but how?
Traditional narratives about a medieval ‘agricultural revolution’ are increasingly under question. The essays in this collection reveal how new archaeological evidence, scientific methods, and theoretical perspectives are shedding fresh light on this critical episode in agricultural history.
Post-Roman and Medieval Drying Kilns: Foundations of Archaeological Research – by Robert Rickett, edited and with an introduction by Mark McKerracher (2021, Archaeopress)
The first ever book dedicated to the archaeology of drying kilns across the British Isles
At its core is Robert Rickett’s pioneering dissertation, written in 1975 and now published for the first time. I have edited the text and provided a new introduction and notes to help set this classic study in its modern context.
Available to buy in paperback, or to download for free on the Archaeopress website.
Anglo-Saxon Crops and Weeds: A Case Study in Quantitative Archaeobotany (2019, Archaeopress)
Archaeobotany: it’s a numbers game.
This specialist, data-driven companion volume to Farming Transformed exposes the quantitative methods and painstaking analyses that underpin the study of Anglo-Saxon archaeobotany.
An important technical work for students and researchers alike.
Available to buy in paperback or to download for free from the publisher’s website.
Farming Transformed in Anglo-Saxon England: Agriculture in the Long Eighth Century (2018, Windgather Press)
Anglo-Saxon farming has traditionally been seen as the wellspring of English agriculture, setting the pattern for 1000 years to come – but it was more important than that.
Between the seventh and ninth centuries, the relict rural economies of post-Roman Britain were recast in new moulds. A radical expansion of cereal farming fuelled the growth of new kingdoms, cultures, and connections.
Farming Transformed brings together a mass of archaeological evidence to shed new light on this critical chapter in the history of English farming.