Jennifer Foster is an English scholar of

prehistoric Prehistory, also called pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the first known use of stone tools by hominins million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use o ...

and

medieval archaeology ''Medieval Archaeology'' is a biannual peer-reviewed academic journal covering the archaeology of the medieval period, especially in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It was established in 1957 by the Society for Medieval Archaeology and is publish ...

, who specializes in the study of artifacts, particularly metalwork.

Career

Foster is a scholar of

and

, who specializes in the study of artifacts. She formerly worked at the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

, and at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

Ashmolean Museum The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology () on Beaumont Street in Oxford, England, is Britain's first public museum. Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University ...

. She teaches at the

University of Reading The University of Reading is a public research university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as the University Extension College, Reading, an extension college of Christchurch College, Oxford, and became University College, ...

. For the last 30 years she has taught archaeology to continuing education students at the university, with classes such as "The Ethics of Archaeology" and "The Legend and Archaeology of King Arthur." She has given talks on subjects such as experimental archaeology, and

Sutton Hoo Sutton Hoo is the site of two Anglo-Saxon cemeteries dating from the 6th to 7th centuries near Woodbridge, Suffolk, England. Archaeology, Archaeologists have been excavating the area since 1938, when an undisturbed ship burial containing a wea ...

Personal life

Foster is married to

Martin Bell Martin Bell, (born 31 August 1938) is a British UNICEF (UNICEF UK) Ambassador, a former broadcast war Journalist, reporter and former independent politician who became the Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) for Ta ...

, a professor of archaeological science at the University of Reading.

Publications

In addition to a number of articles and chapters, Foster has written four monographs, including one on

Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

and Roman boar figurines, one on the Lexden tumulus, and one an introduction to European archaeology before the Roman conquest, based on the collection in the British

. Foster's first book, ''Bronze Boar Figurines in Iron Age and Roman Britain'', described and illustrated 22 examples of bronze

boars The wild boar (''Sus scrofa''), also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a Suidae, suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania. The speci ...

from the

and

Roman Britain Roman Britain was the territory that became the Roman province of ''Britannia'' after the Roman conquest of Britain, consisting of a large part of the island of Great Britain. The occupation lasted from AD 43 to AD 410. Julius Caes ...

, and described the animal's millennia-long role in European cultures; a related article that came out the same year, "A Boar Figurine from Guilden Morden, Cambs.", detailed the

Guilden Morden boar The Guilden Morden boar is a sixth- or seventh-century Anglo-Saxon copper alloy figure of a boar that may have once served as the crest of a helmet. It was found around 1864 or 1865 in a grave in Guilden Morden, a village in the eastern Engl ...

, a sixth- or seventh-century Anglo-Saxon copper alloy figure of a boar that may have once served as the crest of a helmet. In a 1995 article she argued that Iron Age smiths creating high quality metalwork in Britain might have travelled around stopping at different sites, rather than having a fixed abode, and would produce multiple pieces at each site, as at

Gussage All Saints Gussage All Saints is a village and parish in the county of Dorset in southern England. It nestles within the Dorset unitary authority area of the county, about 8 miles north-east of the town of Blandford Forum. It is sited by the side of a smal ...

, Dorset.

Books

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Chapters

Articles

* ** Images o
plate XIV
* * * * * :* Includes "Copper alloy objects (excluding brooches)" (pp. 143–147), "Iron and copper alloy needles" (p. 186), "Copper alloy bracelets" (p. 192), "Copper alloy pins" (pp. 192–194), "Copper alloy rings" (p. 194), "Composite rings" (pp. 194–196), "Copper alloy buttons and dress fasteners" (p. 196), "Copper alloy sheet" (pp. 196–197), "Possible mirror" (p. 197), "Metal containers and container fittings: copper alloy" (pp. 227–228), "Harness equipment" (pp. 233–235), "Violence" (pp. 235–242), "Stone, clay, and copper alloy weighing equipment" (pp. 247–248), "Coral" (p. 262) * * * * * * * *

Reviews

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References

Bibliography

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External links

Foster's bibliography
at

Archaeology Data Service The Archaeology Data Service (ADS) is an open access digital archive for archaeological research outputs. It is located in The King's Manor, at the University of York. Originally intended to curate digital outputs from archaeological researche ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Foster, Jennifer Living people Academics of the University of Reading English archaeologists English women archaeologists British archaeologists Year of birth missing (living people)