Book excerpt: UCL Institute of Archaeology PhD Series, Volume 1 The research presented in this book advances scholarship on Anglo-Saxon non-elite rural settlements through the analysis of material culture. Forty-four non-elite sites and the high-status site of Staunch Meadow, occupied throughout the Anglo-Saxon period (c. 5th-11th centuries) and geographically representative of Anglo-Saxon settlement in England, were selected for study. Comparative analyses of the material culture assemblages and settlement data from these sites were evaluated from four main research perspectives: the archaeological contexts and distributional patterns of material culture at the sites; the range and character of material culture; patterns of material culture consumption; and material culture as evidence for the economic reach of rural settlements.