New Revelations about the Anglo-Saxons in Suffolk: Recent Discoveries from Fieldwork
with Jo Caruth FSA (Cotswold Archaeology Suffolk Office)
at Sutton Hoo on Saturday 14^th March 2020

Front-line archaeologist Jo Caruth will present some of the evidence from recent excavations and post-excavation researches in Suffolk and discuss how these can be used to develop our understanding of social structure, daily life, and death in early Anglo-Saxon Suffolk.

Provisional Programme

Tea & coffee on arrival.

10.30 – 11.25:       Populating the clay lands?

We will look at the location of new investigations. How does this accord with our current thinking about of population distribution in the 5th to 7th centuries? Can it inform our understanding of the migration period?

11.25 – 11.50:      Tea, coffee, & biscuits; orders for lunch.

11.50 – 12.45:      Developing ideas and new interpretations.

We will examine excavation and post-excavation evidence from selected Suffolk sites and look at how this work is contributing to the wider picture of Anglo-Saxon England.

12.45 – 14.00:      Lunchtime.

14.00 – 14.50:       The rise and fall of a fen-edge community.

The detailed analysis of the results of excavations at RAF Lakenheath will be presented as a case-study of the life of a community between the 5th and the 9th centuries.

14.50 – 15.10:      Tea, coffee, & biscuits.

15.10 – 16.00:      Recent discoveries of Late Saxon Suffolk.

Two recent community excavations have provided new evidence of south Suffolk in the 10^th-11^th centuries.

16.00:                     Thanks and Farewell

About Jo Caruth

Jo Caruth has been working as an archaeologist in Suffolk for over 30 years. She has been a Project Manager with Cotswold Archaeology since it merged with Suffolk Archaeology in 2019. Jo specialises in the archaeology at RAF Lakenheath where the discovery in 1997 of a large Anglo-Saxon cemetery and most particularly the burial of a warrior and his horse, the latter wearing a highly ornamented bridle, changed the course of her career. She regularly talks about Suffolk’s archaeology to local groups and has appeared in a number of television programmes.

Some Suggestions for Optional Background Reading

• Banham, D. and Faith, R., 2014, Anglo-Saxon Farms and Farming. Oxford University Press.
• Bates, D., and Liddiard, R., 2013. East Anglia and its North Sea World in the Middle Ages. Boydell Press.
• Blair, J. 2018. Building Anglo-Saxon Britain. Princeton University Press
• Carver, M., Sanmark, A. and Semple S., 2010 Signals of Belief in Early England: Anglo-Saxon Paganism revisted. Oxbow.
• Oosthuizen, S. 2017. The Anglo-Saxon Fenland. Windgather Press.
• Semple, S., 2013. Perceptions of the Prehistoric in Anglo-Saxon England Religion, Ritual and Rulership in the Landscape. Oxford University Press.
• Williamson, T., 2013, Environment, Society and Landscape in Early Medieval England. Boydell Press.