Carenza Lewis | University of Lincoln (original) (raw)

Papers by Carenza Lewis

Society for Historical Archaeology, 2018

Windgather Press eBooks, Dec 3, 2011

Archaeopress eBooks, 2019

A review of the context and value of a new approach - archaeological test pit excavation within i... more A review of the context and value of a new approach - archaeological test pit excavation within inhabited rural settlements of likely medieval date - to advancing knowledge and understanding of the long-term development of historical rural settlements where other techniques cannot be used due to their built-up nature. Includes discussion of previous research, details of methodology used and a series of analysed case studies from the author's work in eastern England

Sidestone Press eBooks, Sep 1, 2019

This paper reviews the difficulties of reconstructing the development of rural settlement in plac... more This paper reviews the difficulties of reconstructing the development of rural settlement in places where more recent habitation has overlaid suspected medieval settlements, and presents the outcomes of a new approach that is producing promising data from currently occupied rural settlements in the UK. This involves the siting of numerous 1 m square ‘test pit’ excavations within currently occupied rural settlements (CORS) wherever space allows, and then mapping the distribution of pottery of different dates. The resulting data are showing which parts of settlements were inhabited at different dates, settlement by settlement, at a range of scales from individual plot to regional pays and, when aggregated, enable the impact of phenomena such as the Black Death to be reconstructed. More widely, the data show many contemporary settlement plans to be relatively recent and in particular highlight the dynamic volatility of many rural settlements in the medieval period, in which transformation is revealed as a near-universal experience. The paper concludes by noting that this technique could easily be used effectively elsewhere in Europe.

The parish of Shillington today includes the formerly separate parish of Higham Gobion and the vi... more The parish of Shillington today includes the formerly separate parish of Higham Gobion and the village of Pegsdon. The present village of Shillington is a large attenuated settlement extending over more than 2km along a succession of streets and lanes which brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk

Teaching history, Jun 30, 2020

In March 2020, when Covid-19’s lockdown restrictions saw schools closed to the majority of childr... more In March 2020, when Covid-19’s lockdown restrictions saw schools closed to the majority of children, Carenza Lewis quickly began thinking of ways to help both teachers and parents. Drawing on extensive experience of enabling children and young people to learn from practical engagement in archaeology, she came up with a plan. Almost overnight, Dig School was born. Within a fortnight, 47,000 learners in 26 countries were engaged. In this article, Lewis charts the origins, purposes and achievements of Dig School so far.

The new annual award in memory of John Hurst The Medieval Settlement Research Group is dedicated ... more The new annual award in memory of John Hurst The Medieval Settlement Research Group is dedicated to enhancing our understanding of the rural landscape and its settlement in the period c. AD 400-1600. The laIc John Hurs! was a major figure in the development of the Group and in his honour, and to encourage new and young scholars, an alUlUal prize of £200 is offered for the best Masters dissertation on any theme in the field of medieval settlement and landscape exploitation in Britain and Ireland. MA directors in Archaeology, Engl ish Local History, Landscape Studies or relatcd fields are encouraged to submit high quality eomplcte dissertations by students in the academic year 2005-6 to the Secretary of the MSRG by 31 st December 2006. A panel will judge the entries and an award made at the end of March 2007. A summary of the winning entry may also be published in the Group's Annual Repon. CONFERENCES The MSRG Spr ing 2007 Confe rence The MSRG Spring Weekend Conference 2007 will take place in Manchester over 2 days. A flier with furthe r dctai ls and an application fonn is included with this repon. RESEARCH GRANTS The group can make grants up to a maximum of £500 annually for the support of research by members of the Group within its field of interest. Preference will nonnal!y be given to field survey, documentary research and preparation of graphics rather than to excavation and the preparation of reports for publication. A summary report of the work will be required within a year and, subject to editorial consideration, may be published in the Annual Report. Applicants should reply by letter (4 copies) summarising the proposed research and the costs involved. Mention should be made of other applications for funding. The names of two referees should be included. Letters should be addressed to the Treasurer (Dr. R. E. Glasscock, St John's College, Cambridge. CB2 ITP). To be received by I st December in the year preceding that in which work will be carried out. Applicants will nonnally be notified of the outcome in the following March. Recent research grants have been awarded to: Or Helen Hamerow-£500 towards dmwing work on materials from the Saxon cemetery at Wallingford, Oxfordshire. Or Howard Williams-£494 towards survey work at the shrunken medieval village site at Stokenham, Devon.

Royal Academy of Arts eBooks, Sep 17, 2007

The Encyclopedia of Archaeological Sciences

This paper introduces a new project which is focussing on the archaeological investigation of med... more This paper introduces a new project which is focussing on the archaeological investigation of medieval rural settlements which arc still inhabited, and summarises the results of work of four sites in the first year of the project

Society for Historical Archaeology, 2018

This report presents the results of a programme of archaeological excavation of 30 1m2 ‘test pits... more This report presents the results of a programme of archaeological excavation of 30 1m2 ‘test pits’ in the Leicestershire village of Great Bowden carried out in summer 2013 and 2014. The programme was funded by the Heritage Lottery with the aim of engaging the local community in their heritage. Scores of people from the local area took part in the excavations which provided new evidence for the development of the area now occupied by the village from the prehistoric period onwards. This appears to have lightly used by humans in the prehistoric period, but in the Roman period two sites, one (near the later church) considerably larger than the other, were present underneath the present village footprint. No evidence was found for activity in the 5th –9th centuries AD, but finds of late Anglo-Saxon pottery, especially Stamford Ware, indicate a thriving settlement newly founded between the mid 9 th - mid 11th centuries. The test pit data clearly show the settlement to have grown rapidly ...

Aston and Lewis (eds), 1994

The Archaeology of Medieval Villages Currently Inhabited in Europe

A review of the context and value of a new approach - archaeological test pit excavation within i... more A review of the context and value of a new approach - archaeological test pit excavation within inhabited rural settlements of likely medieval date - to advancing knowledge and understanding of the long-term development of historical rural settlements where other techniques cannot be used due to their built-up nature. Includes discussion of previous research, details of methodology used and a series of analysed case studies from the author's work in eastern England

Between 2005 and 2018, a programme of test pit excavation has focussed on excavating and analysin... more Between 2005 and 2018, a programme of test pit excavation has focussed on excavating and analysing new archaeological data in order to reconstruct the development of currently occupied rural settlements (CORS). The outcomes from each parish were reviewed briefly year-by-year in interim reports in MSR, and this paper presents an overview of all the results.�

Recent work in Hampshire by RCHME arose out of work carried out by Birmingham University in the E... more Recent work in Hampshire by RCHME arose out of work carried out by Birmingham University in the East Midlands. This has been reported in this journal (Lewis & Mitchell Fox 1992, 1993) and is now approaching final publication by Manchester University Press (Lewis, Mitchell Fox & Dyer forthcoming). The East Midlands project highlighted the incomplete nature and variable quality of the existing state of knowledge of medieval settlement. Many known settlements, In particular nonshrunken and dispersed types, are excluded from present archaeological recording systems, and much of the information about known settlements is still scattered through different sources, and often dispersed in different places in the same source. As a result, it is very difficult and time-consuming even to quantify, let alone assess, the evidence for medieval settlement in any particular place.

Journal of Community Archaeology & Heritage

In July 2013, two archaeological trenches were excavated on Saffron Walden Common by 30 local six... more In July 2013, two archaeological trenches were excavated on Saffron Walden Common by 30 local sixth-form students in a programme of excavations funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund ‘All Our Stories’ scheme and supported by the AHRC Connected Communities theme under its Cambridge Community Heritage project. The excavations were planned and supervised by Access Cambridge Archaeology in collaboration with Saffron Walden Museum. The trenches were sited over a feature identified during geophysical survey by Tim Dennis of the University of Essex, which crossed The Common on the approximate line of the outer castle bailey ditch proposed by Steven Bassett in 1982, but not previously proven. Over a period of 5 days, the excavations exposed two parts of a cut feature which proved to be a ditch with 12th century pottery in the base. The excavations thus provided firm evidence, for the first time, for the position and line of the outer castle bailey in this area.

Society for Historical Archaeology, 2018

Windgather Press eBooks, Dec 3, 2011

Archaeopress eBooks, 2019

A review of the context and value of a new approach - archaeological test pit excavation within i... more A review of the context and value of a new approach - archaeological test pit excavation within inhabited rural settlements of likely medieval date - to advancing knowledge and understanding of the long-term development of historical rural settlements where other techniques cannot be used due to their built-up nature. Includes discussion of previous research, details of methodology used and a series of analysed case studies from the author's work in eastern England

Sidestone Press eBooks, Sep 1, 2019

This paper reviews the difficulties of reconstructing the development of rural settlement in plac... more This paper reviews the difficulties of reconstructing the development of rural settlement in places where more recent habitation has overlaid suspected medieval settlements, and presents the outcomes of a new approach that is producing promising data from currently occupied rural settlements in the UK. This involves the siting of numerous 1 m square ‘test pit’ excavations within currently occupied rural settlements (CORS) wherever space allows, and then mapping the distribution of pottery of different dates. The resulting data are showing which parts of settlements were inhabited at different dates, settlement by settlement, at a range of scales from individual plot to regional pays and, when aggregated, enable the impact of phenomena such as the Black Death to be reconstructed. More widely, the data show many contemporary settlement plans to be relatively recent and in particular highlight the dynamic volatility of many rural settlements in the medieval period, in which transformation is revealed as a near-universal experience. The paper concludes by noting that this technique could easily be used effectively elsewhere in Europe.

The parish of Shillington today includes the formerly separate parish of Higham Gobion and the vi... more The parish of Shillington today includes the formerly separate parish of Higham Gobion and the village of Pegsdon. The present village of Shillington is a large attenuated settlement extending over more than 2km along a succession of streets and lanes which brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk

Teaching history, Jun 30, 2020

In March 2020, when Covid-19’s lockdown restrictions saw schools closed to the majority of childr... more In March 2020, when Covid-19’s lockdown restrictions saw schools closed to the majority of children, Carenza Lewis quickly began thinking of ways to help both teachers and parents. Drawing on extensive experience of enabling children and young people to learn from practical engagement in archaeology, she came up with a plan. Almost overnight, Dig School was born. Within a fortnight, 47,000 learners in 26 countries were engaged. In this article, Lewis charts the origins, purposes and achievements of Dig School so far.

The new annual award in memory of John Hurst The Medieval Settlement Research Group is dedicated ... more The new annual award in memory of John Hurst The Medieval Settlement Research Group is dedicated to enhancing our understanding of the rural landscape and its settlement in the period c. AD 400-1600. The laIc John Hurs! was a major figure in the development of the Group and in his honour, and to encourage new and young scholars, an alUlUal prize of £200 is offered for the best Masters dissertation on any theme in the field of medieval settlement and landscape exploitation in Britain and Ireland. MA directors in Archaeology, Engl ish Local History, Landscape Studies or relatcd fields are encouraged to submit high quality eomplcte dissertations by students in the academic year 2005-6 to the Secretary of the MSRG by 31 st December 2006. A panel will judge the entries and an award made at the end of March 2007. A summary of the winning entry may also be published in the Group's Annual Repon. CONFERENCES The MSRG Spr ing 2007 Confe rence The MSRG Spring Weekend Conference 2007 will take place in Manchester over 2 days. A flier with furthe r dctai ls and an application fonn is included with this repon. RESEARCH GRANTS The group can make grants up to a maximum of £500 annually for the support of research by members of the Group within its field of interest. Preference will nonnal!y be given to field survey, documentary research and preparation of graphics rather than to excavation and the preparation of reports for publication. A summary report of the work will be required within a year and, subject to editorial consideration, may be published in the Annual Report. Applicants should reply by letter (4 copies) summarising the proposed research and the costs involved. Mention should be made of other applications for funding. The names of two referees should be included. Letters should be addressed to the Treasurer (Dr. R. E. Glasscock, St John's College, Cambridge. CB2 ITP). To be received by I st December in the year preceding that in which work will be carried out. Applicants will nonnally be notified of the outcome in the following March. Recent research grants have been awarded to: Or Helen Hamerow-£500 towards dmwing work on materials from the Saxon cemetery at Wallingford, Oxfordshire. Or Howard Williams-£494 towards survey work at the shrunken medieval village site at Stokenham, Devon.

Royal Academy of Arts eBooks, Sep 17, 2007

The Encyclopedia of Archaeological Sciences

This paper introduces a new project which is focussing on the archaeological investigation of med... more This paper introduces a new project which is focussing on the archaeological investigation of medieval rural settlements which arc still inhabited, and summarises the results of work of four sites in the first year of the project

Society for Historical Archaeology, 2018

This report presents the results of a programme of archaeological excavation of 30 1m2 ‘test pits... more This report presents the results of a programme of archaeological excavation of 30 1m2 ‘test pits’ in the Leicestershire village of Great Bowden carried out in summer 2013 and 2014. The programme was funded by the Heritage Lottery with the aim of engaging the local community in their heritage. Scores of people from the local area took part in the excavations which provided new evidence for the development of the area now occupied by the village from the prehistoric period onwards. This appears to have lightly used by humans in the prehistoric period, but in the Roman period two sites, one (near the later church) considerably larger than the other, were present underneath the present village footprint. No evidence was found for activity in the 5th –9th centuries AD, but finds of late Anglo-Saxon pottery, especially Stamford Ware, indicate a thriving settlement newly founded between the mid 9 th - mid 11th centuries. The test pit data clearly show the settlement to have grown rapidly ...

Aston and Lewis (eds), 1994

The Archaeology of Medieval Villages Currently Inhabited in Europe

A review of the context and value of a new approach - archaeological test pit excavation within i... more A review of the context and value of a new approach - archaeological test pit excavation within inhabited rural settlements of likely medieval date - to advancing knowledge and understanding of the long-term development of historical rural settlements where other techniques cannot be used due to their built-up nature. Includes discussion of previous research, details of methodology used and a series of analysed case studies from the author's work in eastern England

Between 2005 and 2018, a programme of test pit excavation has focussed on excavating and analysin... more Between 2005 and 2018, a programme of test pit excavation has focussed on excavating and analysing new archaeological data in order to reconstruct the development of currently occupied rural settlements (CORS). The outcomes from each parish were reviewed briefly year-by-year in interim reports in MSR, and this paper presents an overview of all the results.�

Recent work in Hampshire by RCHME arose out of work carried out by Birmingham University in the E... more Recent work in Hampshire by RCHME arose out of work carried out by Birmingham University in the East Midlands. This has been reported in this journal (Lewis & Mitchell Fox 1992, 1993) and is now approaching final publication by Manchester University Press (Lewis, Mitchell Fox & Dyer forthcoming). The East Midlands project highlighted the incomplete nature and variable quality of the existing state of knowledge of medieval settlement. Many known settlements, In particular nonshrunken and dispersed types, are excluded from present archaeological recording systems, and much of the information about known settlements is still scattered through different sources, and often dispersed in different places in the same source. As a result, it is very difficult and time-consuming even to quantify, let alone assess, the evidence for medieval settlement in any particular place.

Journal of Community Archaeology & Heritage

In July 2013, two archaeological trenches were excavated on Saffron Walden Common by 30 local six... more In July 2013, two archaeological trenches were excavated on Saffron Walden Common by 30 local sixth-form students in a programme of excavations funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund ‘All Our Stories’ scheme and supported by the AHRC Connected Communities theme under its Cambridge Community Heritage project. The excavations were planned and supervised by Access Cambridge Archaeology in collaboration with Saffron Walden Museum. The trenches were sited over a feature identified during geophysical survey by Tim Dennis of the University of Essex, which crossed The Common on the approximate line of the outer castle bailey ditch proposed by Steven Bassett in 1982, but not previously proven. Over a period of 5 days, the excavations exposed two parts of a cut feature which proved to be a ditch with 12th century pottery in the base. The excavations thus provided firm evidence, for the first time, for the position and line of the outer castle bailey in this area.