New avenues for the investigation of currently occupied medieval rural settlement: preliminary observations from the Higher Education Field Academy

WITHIN THE FIELD of medieval rural settlement studies, especially those involving excavation,currently occupied rural settlements (CORS) have to date been largely neglected in favourof the minority of rural settlements which have become deserted or substantially shrunken. Thisproject aims to help redress that balance in favour of the still-inhabited majority. Small-scale‘test pit’ excavations within thirteen CORS in eastern England were carried out in 2005and 2006 as part of an ongoing widening participation and outreach scheme — the HigherEducation Field Academy — of the Department of Archaeology of the University of Cambridge.The project combines existing methods with new approaches to reveal a considerable quantityof new evidence for the development of medieval rural settlement. Presented results from threeof the most investigated settlements identify new foci of occupation, and new ideas about theirdevelopment are proposed. They also highlight the extent to which undisturbed medieval levelscan survive within CORS.