Carenza Lewis

Carenza Lewis FSA FHEA FRSA
Lewis in 2005
Born	(1963-11-30) 30 November 1963 (age 61)
Known for	Member of Time Team
Academic background
Alma mater	Girton College, Cambridge
Academic work
Discipline	Archaeology
Sub-discipline	Medieval archaeology landscape archaeology community archaeology
Institutions	Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England University of Birmingham Corpus Christi College, Cambridge Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge University of Lincoln

Carenza Rachel Lewis (born 30 November 1963)[1] is a British academic archaeologist and television presenter.

Early life

Lewis received her formal education at the private All Hallows Convent School in Norfolk.[2] She studied archaeology and anthropology at Girton College, Cambridge.[3]

Field and academic career

In 1985, she joined the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England as a field archaeologist for the Wessex area. During part of her time with the Commission she was seconded to the History Department of the University of Birmingham to research the relationship between settlement and landscape in the East Midlands. She followed this with a similar project in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.

Lewis was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1998.[4] In 1999, she was elected a visiting fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where she was a Senior Research Associate and Affiliated Lecturer.[5] In 2004, she took on a new post at Cambridge to promote undergraduate archaeology, and created Access Cambridge Archaeology.[6] In 2015, Lewis was appointed to the Professorial Chair of 'Public Understanding of Research' at the University of Lincoln.

Television career

In the early 1990s she joined the team presenting the Time Team series, a new television programme designed to make archaeology accessible for the general public, which was first broadcast on Channel 4 Television in 1994. She appeared on the show from 1993 to 2005, appearing in each of the first twelve seasons. The ratings success of the sseries led to further television presenting commissions for Lewis, including the series House Detectives (1997–2002).[7]

In 2000, Lewis presented an episode of the BBC's theoretical history programme entitled What If, in which she examined the failed revolt of Queen Boudicca and the Iceni against the Roman Empire in AD 60. She also devised and presented a series called Sacred Sites for HTV.

In 2010, she appeared in the television series Michael Wood's Story of England.[8]

In 2022, she rejoined the Time Team crew for its YouTube revival.

Personal life

Lewis has three children.[9] In 2000, she appeared in national print media detailing her experiences as one of a number of victims of medical misdiagnosis at the hands of Dr James Elwood in the late 1990s.[10][11]

Publications

• Aston, Mick and Lewis, Carenza (eds.) (1994) The Medieval Landscape of Wessex Oxford: Oxbow
• Lewis, Carenza, Mitchell-Fox, Patrick and Dyer, Christopher (1997) Village, Hamlet and Field: Changing Medieval Settlements in Central England Manchester University Press
• Lewis, Carenza, Harding, Phil and Aston, Mick (2000) Time Team's Timechester: a companion to archaeology; ed. Tim Taylor London: Macmillan
• Lewis, Carenza, Scott, Anna, Cruse, Anna, Nicholson, Raf, & Symonds, Dominic (2019) ‘Our Lincolnshire’: exploring public engagement with heritage Summertown, Oxford: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd.
• Aberg, Alan and Lewis, Carenza (eds.) (2000) The Rising Tide: Archaeology and Coastal Landscapes Oxford: Oxbow

References

1. General Register Office for England and Wales Births Q2 1963
2. Lewis, Carenza (16 March 1999), "My inspiration", The guardian, retrieved 19 November 2024
3. "Inside the Mind of… Carenza Lewis". The Heritage Journal. 13 March 2012.
4. "Prof Carenza Lewis". Society of Antiquaries of London. Retrieved 20 July 2020.
5. "People – Carenza Rachel Lewis MA, ScD, FSA". University of Cambridge. Division of Archaeology. Archived from the original on 21 November 2013. Retrieved 4 February 2013.
6. Access Cambridge Archaeology Retrieved 2014-02-18.
7. Presenter credits for 'House Detectives' on IMDb database.
8. Michael Wood's Story of England, PBS TV. Accessed 6 August 2014.
9. "Dr Carenza Lewis". University of Cambridge. September 2007. Retrieved 7 February 2021.
10. "My nightmare all a 'mistake'". Irish Independent. 18 June 2000. Retrieved 4 February 2013.
11. "TV woman's mastectomy nightmare". The Daily Telegraph. London. 4 May 2001. Retrieved 4 February 2013.

External links

• Access Cambridge Archaeology
• My inspiration: Carenza Lewis talks to the Guardian
• Carenza Lewis's Home Page at the University of Lincoln