Professor Stephen Rippon
Professor of Landscape Archaeology
Extension: 4353
Telephone: 01392 724353
Director of Research, Archaeology
Stephen Rippon is a landscape archaeologist with interests focused on the Roman and medieval periods in Britain and mainland North West Europe. His early work focused on the history of wetland reclamation in and around the Severn Estuary in SW Britain which was published in The Gwent Levels: the evolution of a wetland landscape (1996, Council for British Archaeology), and The Severn Estuary: the evolution of a wetland landscape (1997, Leicester University Press). This was followed by a major comparative study of how coastal landscapes have been exploited, modified and transformed throughout North West Europe, The Transformation of Coastal Wetlands: Exploitation and Management of Marshland Landscapes in North West Europe during the Roman and Medieval Periods (2000, British Academy).
His current research includes the origin and development of regional variation in landscape character, using interdisciplinary analysis of archaeological, cartographic, documentary, place-name and architectural evidence, and his latest book Beyond the Medieval Village: The Diversification of Landscape Character in Southern Britain has recently been published by Oxford University Press (2008). A detailed study of of the emergence of the distinctive landscape and society in South West Britain (Making Sense of An Historic Landscape) will be published by Oxford University Press in July 2012.
Stephen is also developing a range of interdisciplinary approaches to studying the landscape, some of which are included in his recent handbook Historic Landscape Analysis (2004 [reprinted 2008], Council for British Archaeology). He also works closely with palaeoenvironmental specialists, and a major recent paper has been published in Medieval Archaeology ('Beyond villages and open fields: the origins and development of a historic landscape characterised by dispersed settlement in South West England').
Stephen is currently the Director of Research in the Department, and Dean of the University's Faculty of Graduate Research. At undergraduate level he teaches on the principles and methods of archaeology, and the landscapes of Roman and medieval Britain. Supervision areas can be found on the teaching page. He is also President of the Medieval Settlement Research Group, Treasurer of the Society for Medieval Archaeology, and a past Chairman of the Severn Estuary Levels Research Committee and the Council for British Archaeology South West Region.
