Landscape history and archaeology

About our courses

The historic environment – created by human occupation and activity across the millennia – is, quite simply, the man-made landscapes within which we live. It includes earthworks and archaeological monuments, houses and churches, parks and gardens, fields and pastures, managed wetlands and watercourses, and so on. They make up a wealth of evidence surviving not only on the ground but also in maps and other documentary evidence, all just waiting for someone to interpret them. They allow us to see, however opaquely, a world that has been lost and sometimes to glimpse it as it may have been seen by those who created, amended and lived in landscapes that survive in fragments today.

Our courses provide a broad overview for beginners as well as the chance to begin to specialise. Offered in short, intensive study blocks, they are available to students both nationally and internationally.

Part-time qualifications in Landscape History and Archaeology

Undergraduate Certificates

Our Certificate courses are taught part-time over one year at first-year undergraduate level, and are open to all. Each is taught over six weekends with online support from the Institute's Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). Teaching takes place over two weekends each term through a blend of informal lectures and seminars, field trips and class discussion.

Undergraduate Certificate in the Making of the English Landscape: Landscape History and Archaeology (2018/19) uses the evidence of the landscape itself together with maps, documents, archaeological and ecological evidence, to trace long-term continuities and changes in the making of the rural English landscape from prehistory into the 19th century. It aims, too, to support anyone who wishes to explore their own landscapes of interest. (This course was previously called Undergraduate Certificate in Historic Environment I.)

Undergraduate Certificate in the Study of Early Medieval England (2017/18) examines the initially sparse and later more plentiful archaeological, documentary, art and architectural evidence for the origins and development of Anglo-Saxon England between the 5th and the 11th centuries.

Undergraduate Certificate in the Study of Medieval England (2018/19) uses a range of material to address big questions about medieval England, such as: the complexity of changing power relationships between lords, gentry and peasants; the influence of dramatic climate change and deadly epidemics on social and economic structures; agricultural conservatism and innovation in attempts to meet these challenges; and the importance of changes in ideas expressed in art and religion in cultural transformation. Unit topics include political culture, landscape archaeology, and art and architecture. The course is open to all, with no previous experience required.

Dr Susan Oosthuizen FSA

Susan Oosthuizen is Reader in Medieval Archaeology and Academic Director for Landscape History and Archaeology at ICE. She teaches across the discipline, with a special focus on Anglo-Saxon and medieval landscapes and gardens. Her recent research has investigated the origins of medieval fields and commons through the history of common rights, has revealed the sophistication behind the management of the medieval fen, has used a range of evidence to reveal a medieval manor house under a supposed rectory, and reconstructed lost medieval gardens.