Annual lecture in memory of Mick Aston.
Mick Aston made many important contributions to our understanding of the early medieval landscape in South-West Britain, including the identification of a series of cemeteries dating to the post-Roman centuries, contemporary with the famous re-occupied hilltop sites such as Cadbury Congresbury, South Cadbury, and Tintagel. Mick also spent many years studying the development of landscapes characterised by villages and open fields (most notably at Shapwick in Somerset), which appears to have happened within the context of the fragmentation of large territories widely known as ‘multiple estates’.
This year’s Mick Aston lecture will be given by Prof Stephen Ripon, who will explore landscape change in this period through his recent research into early medieval landscapes in the South-West, starting with a long-term community excavation at Ipplepen, in Devon, that was supported by a generous bequest in Mick’s will. During the Roman period, Ipplepen was a substantial roadside settlement, and occupation into the early medieval period is demonstrated by the presence of a substantial 5th-8th century sub-Roman cemetery. This appears to have been replaced by an open field system associated with a nearby medieval village. The wider context of the site has been explored through reconstructing the larger territory within which its community lived their daily lives, and which extended from the coast at Torbay up onto the high uplands of Dartmoor.
Join us for our celebratory annual lecture and hear about the very latest research on the medieval landscape of southwest Britain.
Please note: this event will close to enrolments at 23:59 BST on 28 November 2023.
This lecture is in memory of Mick Aston. Mick was a tutor in local studies at the Department before moving to Bristol University. Earlier he had made a major contribution to the archaeology of Oxfordshire through his work on the Sites and Monuments Record, then based at the City and County Museum in Woodstock.