Helena Hamerow

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Helena Hamerow

Born (1961-09-18) 18 September 1961 (age 62) [1]
Occupations
  • Archaeologist
  • academic
Academic background
Education University of Wisconsin–Madison
University of Oxford
Thesis The pottery and spatial development of the Anglo-Saxon settlement at Mucking, Essex (1988)
Notable worksThe Oxford Handbook of Anglo-Saxon Archaeology (2011)

Helena Francisca Hamerow, FSA , FBA (born 18 September 1961) is an American archaeologist, best known for her work on the archeology of early medieval communities in Northwestern Europe. She is Professor of Early Medieval archaeology and former Head of the School of Archaeology, University of Oxford.

Contents

Early life and education

The daughter of Theodore S. Hamerow, Hamerow attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison from 1979 to 1983, where she earned a BA in Anthropology. She continued her education at the University of Oxford, where she completed her Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) in 1988. [2] [3] Her doctoral thesis was titled "The pottery and spatial development of the Anglo-Saxon settlement at Mucking, Essex". [4]

Academic career

She was a Mary Somerville research fellow at Somerville College until 1990. In 1991, she was appointed as a lecturer in Early medieval archaeology at Durham University. In 1996, Hamerow returned to Oxford as Professor of Early Medieval Archaeology, where she continues today. She is also a Fellow of St Cross College, where she was Vice-Master from 2005 to 2008. She was Head of the School of Archaeology from 2010 to 2013. [2]

Hamerow is an elected member of the Council of the University of Oxford. [5]

Research

Hamerow's research centres on the archaeology of rural communities during the Anglo-Saxon era, specifically the impact on farmers and the early medieval settlements by the founding of monasteries, kingdoms and towns. [6] She has researched and written on the settlement archaeology of the North Sea regions from the period 400—900 AD. She has participated in several projects on the Upper Thames Valley during the Anglo-Saxon period, notably at Sutton Courtenay and Dorchester-on-Thames. [7] Hamerow is currently leading a four year project funded by the European Research Council (ERC): Feeding Anglo-Saxon England: The Bioarchaeology of an Agricultural Revolution. The project's aim is to investigate the "agricultural revolution" that occurred in Europe between 800 and 1200 AD, as a result of the expansion of cereal farming. [8]

The University of Oxford holds an archive of unpublished material from excavations by Sonia Chadwick Hawkes. Hamerow, who was a student of Hawkes, led a project to digitise the archive. It concluded in 2007 and was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Römisch-Germanische Kommission. [9] [10]

Hamerow is co-Director of the ongoing excavation at Dorchester-on-Thames, the Discovering Dorchester research project. She was instrumental in the project's design in 2007 and has continued to co-lead the project since the beginning. The project is sponsored by three co-partners: Oxford's School of Archeology, Oxford Archaeology, and the Dorchester Museum. The site is notable for the large quantity of important archeological remains dating from the prehistoric period to the medieval era. [11]

Hamerow is Principal Investigator (PI) of the multi-disciplinary project, Origins of Wessex, which has been investigating the development of the kingdom of Wessex in the Upper Thames Valley. The area is renowned for its heavy concentrations of Anglo-Saxon archaeology. The project team is currently excavating a large Anglo-Saxon settlement at Long Wittenham in Oxfordshire. The site is well known for having an exceptionally furnished Anglo-Saxon cemetery and many large Anglo-Saxon buildings. [12]

Media

British television

Hamerow has appeared on BBC Four's Digging for Britain in 2010 and King Alfred and the Anglo Saxons in 2013. [6] From 2008 to 2010, she appeared on two episodes of the long-running archaeology TV series, Time Team . [13]

Open letter to the Guardian

In 2008, the British government announced that all human remains uncovered during archaeological excavations in England and Wales were to be reburied within two years. [14] In 2011, Hamerow was one of forty leading archaeologists who published an open letter to the Justice Secretary, Kenneth Clarke in the Guardian, asking for more time to study ancient human remains found in archaeological excavations. Later that year, in response to the letter, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) began issuing licences to museums, allowing them to keep human remains for analysis. They also renewed negotiations with representatives of English Heritage and the Institute for Archaeologists to develop a new policy for the retention and burial of human remains. [14]

Awards and honours

Hamerow was elected as a Fellow to the Society of Antiquaries of London in May, 1996. [15] In 2023, she was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and social sciences. [16]

She is a Commissioner of Historic England, a former President of the Society for Medieval Archaeology and Vice-President of the Royal Archaeological Institute. [3]

Selected publications

Books

Journals

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anglo-Saxon architecture</span> Period of architecture in England from the mid-5th century until 1066

Anglo-Saxon architecture was a period in the history of architecture in England from the mid-5th century until the Norman Conquest of 1066. Anglo-Saxon secular buildings in Britain were generally simple, constructed mainly using timber with thatch for roofing. No universally accepted example survives above ground. Generally preferring not to settle within the old Roman cities, the Anglo-Saxons built small towns near their centres of agriculture, at fords in rivers or sited to serve as ports. In each town, a main hall was in the centre, provided with a central hearth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dorchester on Thames</span> Village in Oxfordshire, England

Dorchester on Thames is a village and civil parish in Oxfordshire, about 3 miles (5 km) northwest of Wallingford and 8 miles (13 km) southeast of Oxford. The town is a few hundred yards from the confluence of the River Thames and River Thame. A common practice of the scholars at Oxford was to refer to the river Thames by two separate names, with Dorchester on Thames the point of change. Downstream of the village, the river continued to be named The Thames, while upstream it was named The Isis. Ordnance Survey maps continued the practice by labelling the river as "River Thames or Isis" above Dorchester, however, this distinction is rarely made outside the city of Oxford.

The Gewisse were a tribe or clan of Anglo-Saxon England, historically assumed to have been based in the upper Thames region around Dorchester on Thames. The Gewisse are one of the direct precursors of modern-day England, being the origin of its predecessor states according to Saxon legend.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christopher Hawkes</span>

Charles Francis Christopher Hawkes, FBA, FSA was an English archaeologist specialising in European prehistory. He was Professor of European Archaeology at the University of Oxford from 1946 to 1972.

The year 1989 in archaeology involved some significant events.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mucking (archaeological site)</span> Archaeological site in Essex, England

Mucking is an archaeological site near the village of Mucking in southern Essex. The site contains remains dating from the Neolithic to the Middle Ages—a period of some 3,000 years—and the Bronze Age and Anglo-Saxon features are particularly notable.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain</span> Cultural and population changes in England c. 450 to 630 AD

The settlement of Great Britain by diverse Germanic peoples, who eventually developed a common cultural identity as Anglo-Saxons, changed the language and culture of most of what became England from Romano-British to Germanic. This process principally occurred from the mid-fifth to early seventh centuries, following the end of Roman rule in Britain around the year 410. The settlement was followed by the establishment of the Heptarchy, Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the south and east of Britain, later followed by the rest of modern England, and the south-east of modern Scotland. The exact nature of this change is a topic of on-going research. Questions remain about the scale, timing and nature of the settlements, and also about what happened to the previous residents of what is now England.

The archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England is the study of the archaeology of England from the 5th century AD to the 11th century, when it was ruled by Germanic tribes known collectively as the Anglo-Saxons.

Finglesham Anglo-Saxon cemetery is a place of burial that was used from the sixth to the eighth centuries CE. It is located adjacent to the village of Finglesham, near Sandwich in Kent, South East England. Belonging to the Anglo-Saxon period, it was part of the much wider tradition of burial in Early Anglo-Saxon England.

Dame Rosemary Jean Cramp, was a British archaeologist and academic specialising in the Anglo-Saxons. She was the first female professor appointed at Durham University and was Professor of Archaeology from 1971 to 1990. She served as president of the Society of Antiquaries of London from 2001 to 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Blair (historian)</span> British historian, archaeologist, and academic

William John Blair, is an English historian, archaeologist, and academic, who specialises in Anglo-Saxon England. He is Emeritus Professor of Medieval History and Archaeology at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of The Queen's College, Oxford. He gave the 2013 Ford Lectures at the University of Oxford.

James Campbell, was a British historian, specialising in the medieval period and the Anglo-Saxons. He was a Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford, from 1957 until his retirement in 2002, and Professor of Medieval History at the University of Oxford from 1996 to 2002.

Cecily Margaret Guido,, also known as Peggy Piggott, was an English archaeologist, prehistorian, and finds specialist. Her career in British archaeology spanned sixty years, and she is recognised for her field methods, her field-leading research into prehistoric settlements, burial traditions, and artefact studies, as well as her high-quality and rapid publication, contributing more than 50 articles and books to her field between the 1930s and 1990s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shelly ware</span>

Shelly ware, is a type of pottery found in Great Britain from the seventh through the twelfth centuries. Shelly ware includes Late Saxon Shelly ware, Early Medieval Shelly Ware, and Lincolnshire Shelly Wares. The pottery fabric is tempered with shell powder or reduced shell. Shelly ware was typically handmade until the tenth century, when potters transitioned to wheel-thrown pottery. Shelly wares were manufactured and distributed in the Upper Thames Valley, southeastern coastal areas of Britain and the East Midlands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sonia Chadwick Hawkes</span> English archaeologist

Sonia Chadwick Hawkes, was a leading specialist in early Anglo-Saxon archaeology, described by fellow medieval archaeologist Paul Ashbee as a "discerning systematiser of the great array of Anglo-Saxon grave furnishings". She led major excavations on Anglo-Saxon cemeteries at Finglesham in Kent and Worthy Park in Hampshire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Asthall barrow</span>

Tania Marguerite Dickinson is a British archaeologist specialising in early-medieval Britain. Dickinson undertook undergraduate study at St. Anne's College, Oxford and postgraduate study at the Institute of Archaeology (Oxford). Her doctoral thesis, titled The Anglo-Saxon burial sites of the upper Thames region, and their bearing on the history of Wessex, circa AD 400-700, was supervised by Sonia Chadwick Hawkes and Christopher Hawkes.

Dawn Marie Hadley is a British historian and archaeologist, who is best known for her research on the Anglo-Saxon and Viking-Age periods, the study of childhood, and gender in medieval England. She is a member of the Centre for Medieval Studies and the department of archaeology at the University of York.

A 7th-century cemetery was discovered in Updown, Kent, United Kingdom, in the 1970s. It was excavated by Sonia Chadwick Hawkes and Brian Philp in advance of development. Part of the cemetery is protected as a scheduled monument, and its full extent may encompass around 300 graves.

References

  1. "Birthdays". The Guardian . Guardian News & Media. 18 September 2014. p. 39.
  2. 1 2 Hamerow, Helena (2014). About the Author. Oxford University Press. ISBN   978-0198723127.
  3. 1 2 "Professor Helena Hamerow". Historic England. Retrieved 22 May 2020.
  4. Hamerow, Helena F. (1987). The pottery and spatial development of the Anglo-Saxon settlement at Mucking, Essex (DPhil thesis). University of Oxford. Retrieved 8 September 2023.
  5. "Members of Council". Univ. of Oxford Governance and Planning. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
  6. 1 2 "Professor Helena Hamerow". Univ of Oxford News and Events. Retrieved 22 May 2020.
  7. "Helena Hamerow". Oxford Archaeology. Retrieved 22 May 2020.
  8. "Feeding Anglo-Saxon England (FeedSax): The Bioarchaeology of an Agricultural Revolution". University of Leicester. Retrieved 22 May 2020.
  9. "Novum Inventorium Sepulchrale - Kentish Anglo-Saxon graves and grave-goods in the Sonia Hawkes archive". digital.humanities.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 22 February 2023.
  10. "Novum Inventorium Sepulchrale". inventorium.arch.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 22 February 2023.
  11. "Discovering Dorchester-on-Thames". Oxford Archaeology. Retrieved 22 May 2020.
  12. "The Origins of Wessex". University of Oxford School of Archaeology. Retrieved 22 May 2020.
  13. "Helena Hamerow". IMDB. Retrieved 22 May 2020.
  14. 1 2 Pearson, Mike; Schadla-Hall, Tim; Moshenka, Gabe (2011). "Resolving the Human Remains Crisis in British Archaeology". Papers from the Institute of Archaeology. 21: 5. doi: 10.5334/pia.369 .
  15. "Helena Francisca Hamerow". Society of Antiquaries London. Retrieved 22 May 2020.
  16. "Professor Helena Hamerow FBA". The British Academy. Retrieved 8 September 2023.