Susan Oosthuizen

Susan Oosthuizen 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.

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. and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS) in 2015.

Select publications

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. Oosthuizen, S. 2022. "Sutton Hoo: The wider context", Society of American Archaeology Archaeological Record 22 (1), 30-35. Oosthuizen, S. 2019. The Emergence of the English. Arc-Humanities Press, York. 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. Oosthuizen, S. 2017. The Anglo-Saxon Fenland. Oxbow, Oxford. Oosthuizen, S. 2016. "Beyond Hierarchy: Archaeology, common rights and social identity". World Archaeology 48 (3). 381–394. Oosthuizen, S. 2016. "Culture and Identity in the Early Medieval Fenland Landscape". Landscape History 37(1). 5–24. 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. Oosthuizen, S. 2013. "Beyond Hierarchy: The archaeology of collective governance". World Archaeology 45(5). 714–729.

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.