Susan Oosthuizen

Susan Oosthuizen
FSA
Susan Oosthuizen FSA
Academic background
Education	University of Cambridge
Thesis	The development of the rural landscape of the Bourn Valley, south Cambridgeshire, c.600-1100 AD (2003)
Academic work
Discipline	Archaeology
Sub-discipline	Medieval archaeology; Early Middle Ages; landscape archaeology;
Institutions	University of Cambridge

Susan Oosthuizen FSA is Emeritus Professor of Medieval Archaeology at the University of Cambridge. She specialises in examining the origins and development of early medieval and medieval landscapes, and in the evolution of systems of governance.

Career

Oosthuizen's undergraduate degree in Archaeology and History was undertaken at the University of Southampton. She holds an MA in Area Studies (Africa) from SOAS University of London, and a PGCE in teaching history from the University of Cambridge. Her PhD on continuity and transformation in Anglo-Saxon agricultural landscapes was undertaken in the University of Cambridge Department of Geography and Trinity Hall, Cambridge.

Elected to an Emeritus Fellowship of Wolfson College, Cambridge from January 2019, she was previously a Governing Body Fellow of the College from 2002 to 2018. Within the University of Cambridge, she was a member of the Institute of Continuing Education, the Department of Archaeology and the Faculty of History.

She holds a National Award for History Teaching in Higher Education, awarded by LTSN for History, Archaeology and Classics, The Historical Association, History at the Universities Defence Group, and The Royal Historical Society. She is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She was elected as a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London (FSA) on 7 June 2007, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS) in 2015.

Select publications

Scholia has an author profile for Susan Oosthuizen.

Oosthuizen, S. 2025. "Panarchy and commons across the longue durée". In A Place for the Heathlands? Human-Health Relations in Deep Time and Contemporary Perspective, eds. Mette Løveshal and Karen Grønneberg. Aarhus University. Jutland Archaeological Society. ISBN 978-87-93423-73-2
Oosthuizen, S. 2022. "Sutton Hoo: The wider context", Society of American Archaeology Archaeological Record 22 (1), 30-35. ISSN 1532-7299
Oosthuizen, S. 2019. The Emergence of the English. Arc-Humanities Press, York. ISBN 978-1641891271
Oosthuizen, S. 2019. "Property and governance: Making the Anglo-Saxon cultural landscape". In Power and Place in Medieval Europe, eds. A. Reynolds, B. Yorke, and J. Carroll. London, British Academy. ISBN 9780197266588
Oosthuizen, S. 2017. The Anglo-Saxon Fenland. Oxbow, Oxford. ISBN 978-1911188087
Oosthuizen, S. 2016. "Beyond Hierarchy: Archaeology, common rights and social identity". World Archaeology 48 (3). 381–394. doi:10.1080/00438243.2016.1180261
Oosthuizen, S. 2016. "Culture and Identity in the Early Medieval Fenland Landscape". Landscape History 37(1). 5–24. doi:10.1080/01433768.2016.1176433
Oosthuizen, S. 2016. "Recognizing and Moving on from a Failed Paradigm: The Case of Agricultural Landscapes in Anglo-Saxon England c. AD 400–800". Journal of Archaeological Research 24(2). 179–227. doi:10.1007/s10814-015-9088-x
Oosthuizen, S. 2013. "Beyond Hierarchy: The archaeology of collective governance". World Archaeology 45(5). 714–729. doi:10.1080/00438243.2013.847634

Critical response

In 2019, Oosthuizen published The Emergence of the English, in which she argued that, rather than being born out of conquest and settlement by Germanic-speaking tribes, the origins of England and the English people can be traced to political and demographic continuity with Roman Britain. Oosthuizen's ideas have been described as "anti-migrationist", and have received a critical response from several scholars of early Anglo-Saxon England.

References

1 2 3 "Professor Susan Oosthuizen PhD FSA FRHistS". Wolfson College, Cambridge. Retrieved 18 March 2019.
1 2 "Professor Susan Oosthuizen". University Governance. University of Cambridge. Archived from the original on 4 October 2018. Retrieved 23 February 2023.
↑ "Fellow's Directory: O". Society of Antiquaries of London. Retrieved 28 September 2018.
↑ James M. Harland, "A Habitus Barbarus in Sub-Roman Britain?" in Interrogating the Germanic (2021: De Gruyter), pp. 167-188: "The most recent example of an 'anti-migrationist' position is Susan Oosthuizen, The Emergence of the English."
↑ Caitlin Green, Britons and Anglo-Saxons: Lincolnshire AD 400-650 (second edition, 2020), p. xi: "For a contrary view, see S. Oosthuizen, The Emergence of the English, who makes the case for a significant degree of landscape and population continuity, but also – like Richard Hodges in the 1980s – suggests that archaeological and linguistic changes in ‘post-Roman’ Britain can be largely explained via cultural choices/influence and without recourse to migration, although in doing this she doesn’t really engage with the cremation cemetery evidence."
↑ Alex Woolf, "Review: The Emergence of the English", in Early Medieval Europe, Volume 28, No. 1 (February 2020), pp. 157-160: "This book contains some very good observations but it is marred by an ideological immobilism that has led the author to misrepresent some of the secondary literature. It should be handled with care."
↑ John Hines, "Review: The Emergence of the English", in The Antiquaries Journal, Volume 100 (September 2020), pp. 464-466: "This booklet trumpets forth the very opposite of the proper critical approaches responsible academics try to instil in the students they seek to educate: respect for and care with evidence and interpretative methods – ie ensuring that you know what you are talking about; reading secondary sources with care and objectivity – not seeing only what you are looking for whether it is there or not, or cherry-picking references."

[Wolfson-1] 1 2 3 "Professor Susan Oosthuizen PhD FSA FRHistS". Wolfson College, Cambridge. Retrieved 18 March 2019.

[:0-2] 1 2 "Professor Susan Oosthuizen". University Governance. University of Cambridge. Archived from the original on 4 October 2018. Retrieved 23 February 2023.

[3] "Fellow's Directory: O". Society of Antiquaries of London. Retrieved 28 September 2018.

[4] James M. Harland, "A Habitus Barbarus in Sub-Roman Britain?" in Interrogating the Germanic (2021: De Gruyter), pp. 167-188: "The most recent example of an 'anti-migrationist' position is Susan Oosthuizen, The Emergence of the English."

[5] Caitlin Green, Britons and Anglo-Saxons: Lincolnshire AD 400-650 (second edition, 2020), p. xi: "For a contrary view, see S. Oosthuizen, The Emergence of the English, who makes the case for a significant degree of landscape and population continuity, but also – like Richard Hodges in the 1980s – suggests that archaeological and linguistic changes in ‘post-Roman’ Britain can be largely explained via cultural choices/influence and without recourse to migration, although in doing this she doesn’t really engage with the cremation cemetery evidence."

[6] Alex Woolf, "Review: The Emergence of the English", in Early Medieval Europe, Volume 28, No. 1 (February 2020), pp. 157-160: "This book contains some very good observations but it is marred by an ideological immobilism that has led the author to misrepresent some of the secondary literature. It should be handled with care."

[7] John Hines, "Review: The Emergence of the English", in The Antiquaries Journal, Volume 100 (September 2020), pp. 464-466: "This booklet trumpets forth the very opposite of the proper critical approaches responsible academics try to instil in the students they seek to educate: respect for and care with evidence and interpretative methods – ie ensuring that you know what you are talking about; reading secondary sources with care and objectivity – not seeing only what you are looking for whether it is there or not, or cherry-picking references."

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People	Archaeology Data Service