As an Archivist by profession Mary Aris has been involved in Archives, Welsh History and Local History for the whole of her career.

She has worked in various roles for archives and museum services in north Wales. Through her work she has acquired an extenive and detailed knowledge of a broad range of historical sources for many different periods. Few other people can be better qualified to tackle the daunting task of compiling a history of Aberffraw for the obscure period between AD 378 and 1282 when the kingdom was ruled by its own independent Kings and Princes. She has been a resident of Anglesey since 1976 and has explored and researched the island’s history and its historic landscapes.

Her leisure time interests included Aerial Archaeology, a pursuit which engendered a lifelong interest in landscape history. Between 1981 and 2002 she undertook pioneering work surveying and recording historic landscapes and historic places in north Wales from the air. She also carried out similar aerial reconnaisance in many other areas both within the British Isles and abroad. She has served on the Council for British Archaeology’s Aerial Archaeology Committee and was a long-standing member of the Aerial Archaeology Research Group. She has undertaken aerial archaeology in places as far apart as Ireland, the Scottish islands, the Baltic, Scandinavia and Iceland. She has travelled extensively all over Europe (including Scandinavia and eastern Europe) and has visited a wide range of archaeological sites, historic landscapes, museums, galleries, heritage sites and historic buildings, developing a broad perspective, an understanding of broader contexts and a familiarity with many periods of archaeology and history. The Thesis for her Master’s Degree was on Icelandic history and Heritage. Since this book deals with a period that saw the movement of large numbers of people from these same northern areas which had lain outside of the frontiers of the Roman Empire, her understanding of these wider regions has proved exceptionally useful in dealing with recurring attempts at invasion and settlement, and other issues, which had a major impact on Aberffraw, Anglesey and its rulers. Her book is the first comprehensive history of the Aberffraw area and its rulers.