Abstract

This talk will weave together two intellectual threads. The first is the long-term history of the ‘English’ landscape, a story traditionally told in terms of stable and local identities, enduring structures, and the very long term. The second is the developing understanding of the ‘Atlantic world’ in terms of movement, hybridity, and cultural exchange, and a view of identity as fluid, shifting and unstable. How could or should these two apparently very different ways of thinking come together when they have a common object of study – a sundial on a parish church, a restored castle, a vernacular farmstead? I do not pretend to have a full response to this question, but a partial answer may be found to be hiding in plain sight: in the basic methods of archaeological enquiry, for example stratigraphy, and the basic patterns revealed through such enquiry, for example the distribution map.

This presentation will be online via Zoom. Please register at: https://cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcqd-2rpzouGNc8V3FIzORQ0DHJbE5BN6MT