The new medieval archaeology Paul Stamper

Medieval archaeology took off in the 1950s, so the transformation of our understanding of the surroundings and material culture of medieval people has come in my lifetime. So too with vernacular architecture, brought more into the mainstream by tree ring dating: dendrochronology is providing detailed local chronologies and, for many timber-built houses, actual years of construction. In parts of England, like Kent, we now see that huge numbers of homes survive from the middle ages; tight dating enables us to fit phases of house-building into the over-arching historical framework. Investigation of the wider medieval countryside began with identifying deserted villages and moats, and mapping ridge and furrow fields (many in fact very post-medieval). It has since progressed to wider programmes. Projects such as those at Whittlewood, Northamptonshire, and Shapwick, Somerset, explore what we can now see are the complex varieties of settlement types and field systems. But when and why did these different countrysides appear? I am particularly interested in the creation or emergence of the prairie-like open fields of the medieval midlands (the "three field system"), mostly surrounding large, compact villages. Was this a rapid and wholesale transformation of much of England at some time in the ninth or 10th century ordered by those who ruled, to raise productivity and tax revenues? Or was it an organic, copycat, process? This is not just a matter of academic curiosity: when people understand the history of the countryside their lives are enriched, sometimes enormously so.

Paul Stamper is senior adviser, Designation Department, English Heritage and president of the Medieval Settlement Research Group.

6 Who (or what) were the"Beaker people"?

Around 2500BC in Britain changes appear that began further east and had fundamental repercussions for people across Europe. Key to those changes was metallurgy. Our first copper and gold objects are associated with distinctive pots known as Beakers. Typically found in graves, these are often more or less complete and are like beacons in our prehistoric narrative: their association with a skeleton and other characteristic artefacts long ago encouraged the idea – reinforced by distinctively shaped skulls – of a Beaker race invading with new ways. That has been rejected, but recent research is revealing extensive individual migration around Europe at this time, within complex, potentially multicultural societies. New types of dress, cultural differentiations between men and women, new practices in archery, the first clear farmsteads and delineated fields, perhaps the first gods: the start of the bronze age lay the early foundations for our modern world. But we are far from understanding what occurred, and why.

7 What happened when Rome invaded Britain?

What did the Romans ever do for us? Apart from baths, sanitation, roads, medicine… all things to be found here, in one form or another, for thousands of years before emperor Claudius conquered Britannia in AD43. Even wine and coins (Mediterranean introductions) preceded Roman soldiers. But centuries of Roman occupation left more than square bedrooms and mass produced pots. There was native protest at the start; among other incidents, we know of Caratacus's resistance and Boudica's revolt. Roads and fields laid out in defiance of a landscape evolved over centuries, suggest land seizure and disruption. Disciplined armies and masonry defences became part of the new order, and when Rome left in AD410, Britain could never return to its iron age past. Or could it – or had it really changed that much? The impact of Rome on Britain is much discussed. But there is little agreement about what it was really like to be there, to sink into a hot bath decorated with classical gods, and tell stories to your grandchildren about warring chiefs and Druids. Rome transformed Britain. What we don't know, is exactly how – and for how long?