Archaeology at Michigan

Research Interests

Topical/Theoretical

• The archaeology of the Greek world during the first millennium BCE, and to a lesser extent the Roman world ca, 1st century BCE to 4th century CE
• Material culture as a source for social history
• Household archaeology
• The built environment
• Gender archaeology
• Theory in Classical Archaeology
• Archaeology and text

Geographical

• Greece
• Italy

Research Projects

• Olynthos: project website

My research looks at the Greek and Roman worlds, using the material record as a source for understanding social issues. This work has focused on domestic space, challenging traditional (text-based) ideas about relationships within households, particularly between men and women. At the same time I have used the organisation of the house as a barometer through which to explore wider problems such as the origins of the Greek drinking party (the symposium); the formation of the citizen state in Greece during the earlier first millennium, and the nature of the interactions between Greeks and Italians as the Roman world expanded eastwards towards the end of the first millennium BCE. My current research follows two strands: first, I am co-directing a new field project at Olynthos, in Greece, in order to grapple with the methodological problems involved in trying to obtain a clearer and more detailed picture of domestic activities based on the archaeological record (particularly from finds) - a goal which demands new field techniques, conceptual models and analytical strategies from those currently used in Classical Archaeology. The outcome will be a new, uniquely detailed, picture of domestic activity in the Classical Greek world. Second, I am expanding my use of the built environment beyond domestic space to the civic and religious areas of Greek cities, in order to explore the roles played by 'muted groups' (women and individuals of low social status) in those settings.