UCL Institute of Archaeology
ARCLC 2022
The Prehistoric Mediterranean
2012-2013
Year 2-3 option, 0.5 unit
Professor Cyprian Broodbank
c.broodbank@ucl.ac.uk
Room 204b; tel 7679 (2)7523
Lecture time: Mondays 2-4 pm, Room 612
Aims
The Mediterranean combines the world’s largest inland sea, a rare type of semi-arid
environment, and proximity to the world’s earliest nuclei of complex urban societies,
a unique constellation of circumstances that goes far towards explaining its central
importance in human history. This course provides an holistic interpretative survey of
Mediterranean societies from the Palaeolithic until the Iron Age, exploring early
settlement of the basin, the expansion of the Neolithic, the emergence of hierarchical,
metal-using communities, the rise of states and growth of inter-regional trade in the
Bronze Age, and the impact of empires, ‘colonisation’ and indigenous urbanisation in
the Iron Age. It takes the Mediterranean’s unique combination of attributes as a
framework that structures the opportunities and challenges within which inhabitants
operated. It encourages comparative analysis of Mediterranean societies in terms of
their traits, interactions and trajectories, as opposed to traditional divisions between
Europe, Asia and Africa. Diverse scales of activity and of explanation are addressed,
in order to evaluate the primacy of local or world-systemic processes in specific
contexts and periods. This course complements the survey courses concentrating on
adjacent areas, and also serves as a foundation for more specialised regional options.
Objectives
On successful completion of this course, a student should:
• Have an overview of the regions, phases and issues within Mediterranean prehistory.
• Understand the main underlying factors that shaped early Mediterranean societies.
• Recognise a range of the cultural manifestations of early Mediterranean societies,
such as major settlement forms, anthropogenic landscapes, material culture,
monuments and seafaring technology.
• Be able to relate early Mediterranean societies to those in surrounding areas, and in
particular those of specific interest to the student, whether in Europe, western
Asia or Africa.
• Be prepared for more detailed exploration of specific areas or time-spans within the
early Mediterranean or adjacent areas.
Learning outcomes
On successful completion of the course students should be able to demonstrate an
enhanced ability to:
• Read critically and assess differing viewpoints and interpretative paradigms.
• Relate ideas and theories to the material remains of the past.
• Debate core issues among peers.
Course information
This handbook contains the basic information about the content and administration
of the course.. If students have queries about the objectives, structure, content,
assessment or organisation of the course, they should consult either the Course Coordinator (Cyprian Broodbank)
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Teaching methods
This course comprises 18 1-hour lectures and 2 1-hour discussion seminars in which
the ideas discussed in the lectures can be debated. There will be one voluntary visit to
the British Museum, the date and time of which will be arranged early in the course,
in order to increase students’ familiarity with the Mediterranean’s material culture.
Prerequisites
This course has no prerequisites, and no knowledge of foreign languages is required.
Attendance
A register is taken at each teaching session. If you are unable to attend a session,
please notify the lecturer by email. Departments are required to report each student’s
attendance to UCL Registry at frequent intervals throughout each term, and
insufficient overall attendance means that a course cannot be completed.
Workload
There will be 18 hours of lectures and 2 hours of discussion seminars for this course.
In additions, students will be expected to undertake around 100 hours of reading for
the course, plus 30 hours preparing for and producing the assessed work. This adds
up to a total workload of some 150 hours for the course.
Methods of assessment
This course is assessed by two essays, each of 2375-2625 words, and each of which
contributes 50% to the final mark for the course. If students are unclear about the
nature of an assignment, they should discuss this with the Course Co-ordinator. The
Course Co-ordinator is willing to discuss an outline of the student's approach to the
assignment, provided that this is planned suitably in advance of the submission date.
Essay questions are listed at the end of this handbook.
Word-length
Strict new regulations with regard to word-length have been introduced UCL-wide. If
your work is found to be between 10% and 20% longer than the official upper limit
you mark will be reduced by 10%, subject to a minimum mark of a minimum pass,
assuming that the quality of the work merited a pass. If your work is more than 20%
over-length, a mark of zero will be recorded. The following should not be included in
the word-count: bibliography, appendices, tables, graphs and illustrations, and their
captions.
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Citing of sources
Coursework should be expressed in a student’s own words, giving the exact source of
any ideas, information, diagrams etc. taken from the work of others. Any direct
quotations from the work of others must be indicated as such by being placed
between inverted commas. Plagiarism is regarded as a very serious irregularity
which can carry very heavy penalties. It is your responsibility to read and abide by
the requirements for presentation, referencing and avoidance of plagiarism to be
found in the IoA ‘Coursework Guidelines’ at
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/handbook/common/
Submission of coursework
Coursework must be stapled to a completed green coversheet (available from outside
Room 411A) and submitted to Judy Medrington (Rm 411a) by the deadline set for
the essay. Please note that students are required to give word counts on coursework
coversheets. Late submission will be penalized unless permission has been granted
and an Extension Request Form (ERF) completed. Please see the IoA ‘Coursework
Guidelines’ for full details http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/handbook/common/
Please note that stringent penalties for late submission have been introduced UCLwide (see below). Late submission will be penalized in accordance with these
regulations unless permission has been granted and an Extension Request Form
(ERF) completed. Date-stamping will be via ‘Turnitin’ (see below), so in addition to
submitting hard copy, students must submit their work to Turnitin by the midnight on
the day of the deadline. Students who encounter technical problems submitting their
work to Turnitin should email the nature of the problem to ioa-turnitin@ucl.ac.uk in
advance of the deadline in order that the Turnitin Advisers can notify the Course Coordinator that it may be appropriate to waive the late submission penalty. If there is
any other unexpected crisis on the submission day, students should telephone or
(preferably) e-mail the Co-ordinator and follow this up with a completed ERF.
Submission of coursework to Turnitin
In addition to submitting coursework as described above, it is a requirement that you
submit it electronically to the Turnitin system. The code for submitting your work for
this course is: 434733 and the password is IoA1213 (note that the password is capital
letter I, lower case letter o, upper case A, followed by numerals). Further information
is on the IoA website at:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/administration/students/handbook/turnitin.
Turnitin advisers will be available to help you via email: ioa-turnitin@ucl.ac.uk if
needed, and should reply within 24 hours Monday to Friday in term.
Further Turnitin advice is available at:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/handbook/common/cfp.htm#turn
If you have queries about Turnitin which are not answered by this website, please
email: ioa-turnitin@ucl.ac.uk
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In advance of submitting your coursework for marking you may, if you wish, run
your work through the system to obtain a report on the originality of the wording and
then make any necessary adjustments prior to final submission.
Finally, it is important to recognise that the final decision about whether work
contains plagiarism rests with academic staff. Consequently, the presence or absence
of matches in a Turnitin report does not, by itself, provide a guarantee that the work
in question either contains or is free from plagiarism.
Detailed instructions on use of the system are in the First Year Handbook.
UCL-wide penalties for late submission of coursework
· The full allocated mark should be reduced by 5 percentage points for the first
working day after the deadline for the submission of the coursework or dissertation.
· The mark will be reduced by a further 10 percentage points if the coursework or
dissertation is submitted during the following six calendar days.
· Providing the coursework is submitted before the end of the first week of term 3 for
undergraduate courses or by a date during term 3 defined in advance by the relevant
Master’s Board of Examiners for postgraduate taught programmes, but had not been
submitted within seven days of the deadline for the submission of the coursework, it
will be recorded as zero but the assessment would be considered complete.
· Where there are extenuating circumstances that have been recognised by the Board
of Examiners or its representative, these penalties will not apply until the agreed
extension period has been exceeded.
Timescale for return of marked coursework to students
You can expect to receive your marked work within four calendar weeks of the
official submission deadline. If you do not receive your work within this period, or a
written explanation from the marker, you should notify the IoA’s Academic
Administrator, Judy Medrington.
Keeping copies and return of marked coursework
Please note that it is an Institute requirement that you retain a copy (it can be
electronic) of all coursework submitted. When your marked essay is returned to you,
you should return it to the marker within two weeks.
Communication
If any changes need to be made to the course arrangements, these will normally be
communicated by email. It is essential that you consult your UCL e-mail regularly.
Dyslexia and other disabilities
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If you have dyslexia or any other disability, please make your lecturers aware and
discuss whether there is any way in which they can help you. Students with dyslexia
should indicate this on each piece of coursework.
Further guidance
Full coursework guidelines, including advice on referencing, marking schemes,
criteria for marking, Turnitin, etc, are given here:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/handbook/common/index.htm
Information for intercollegiate and interdepartmental students
Students enrolled in Departments outside the Institute should collect hard copy of the
Institute’s coursework guidelines from Judy Medrington’s office (411A).
Feedback
In the attempt to make this course as successful as possible, we welcome feedback
from students over the course of the year. All students are asked to give their views
on the course in an anonymous questionnaire that will be circulated at one of the last
sessions of the course. These questionnaires are taken seriously and help the Coordinator to develop the course. The summarised responses are considered by the
Institute's Staff-Student Consultative Committee, Teaching Committee, and Faculty
Teaching Committee. If students are concerned about any aspect of this course we
hope they will feel able to talk to the Co-ordinator, but if they feel this is not
appropriate, they should consult their Personal Tutor, the Academic Administrator
(Judy Medrington), or the Chair of Teaching Committee (Dr. Karen Wright).
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Course syllabus
Lectures and seminars are held at 2-4 pm on Mondays in Term 2, in Room 612.
14th January
1. Introduction: why the Mediterranean?
2. The Mediterranean mosaic: landscapes, environments and ecologies
21st January
3. An archaeology of the sea: the Mediterranean as maritime and insular space
4. Investigative strategies: excavation, survey, science, text, image and ethnography
28th January
5. The threatened present: tourism, development, war and looting
6. A long cold spell: hunter-gatherers around the sea (2 million - 9600 BC)
4th February
7. Double revolution: the expansions of farming and seafaring (9600 - 5500 BC)
8. Divergent paths: Farmers, pastoralists and metalworkers (5500 - 3500 BC)
11th February (NB this is in Reading Week)
9. The great transition: the emergence of the later Mediterranean (3500 - 2000 BC)
10. Discussion seminar: Structuring themes in Mediterranean prehistory
18th February
11. Emergent complexity: the Levant, Aegean and Iberia compared (3500 - 2000 BC)
12. The rise of voyaging: maritime travel, trade and technology (3500 - 2000 BC)
25th February
13. Palaces in the east: Egypt, the Levant, Aegean and Cyprus (2000 - 1200 BC)
14. Western approaches: Iberia, the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic (2000 - 1200 BC)
4th March
15. Expanding connections: ‘international’ and cross-cultural trade (2000 - 1200 BC)
16. Collapse and transformation: the Bronze to Iron Age transition (1200 - 1000 BC)
11th March
17. Pan-Mediterranean networks: Assyria, Phoenicia and the west (1000 - 600 BC)
18. City-states around the sea: towns, ‘colonies’ and local people (700 - 500 BC)
18th March
19. Mare nostrum: the imperial Mediterranean and beyond (500 BC - AD 2000)
20. The comparative dynamics of Mediterranean prehistory
In addition a 2-hour visit to highlights of the Mediterranean collections in the British
Museum will be arranged within Term 1 at a time of mutual convenience.
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Reading
The following pages list introductory and regionally-oriented reading for the course,
followed by the essential and recommended readings for each lecture. The readings
listed as ‘essential’ are considered vital if you are to engage and keep up with topics
covered, and are in the Teaching Collection in the Institute Library (where permitted
by copyright), in books at issue desk, or in non-loanable or electronically available
periodicals. The reading for this course is largely contained in the Institute’s own
library. For wider reading, works not held in the Institute’s library are available in the
Main Library (e.g. Ancient History) and DMS Watson Science Library.
Introductory
Abulafia, D. (ed.), 2003. The Mediterranean in History. Prehistoric sections poor but
a colourful illustrated summary of the overall history of the Mediterranean.
Alcock, S.E. and Cherry, J.F. 2005. ‘The Mediterranean world’, in C. Scarre (ed.),
The Human Past: World Prehistory and the Development of Human Societies,
472-517.
Blake, E. and Knapp, A.B. (eds.) 2005. The Archaeology of Mediterranean Prehistory
(read the introduction; most of the best papers are listed under lecture topics).
Broodbank, C. 2009. ‘The Mediterranean and its hinterland’, in B. Cunliffe, C. Gosden
and R. Joyce (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Archaeology, 677-722.
For basic spatial orientation consult: Past Worlds: The Times Atlas of Archaeology.
No single book yet provides an up-to-date interpretative synthesis of the archaeology
of the early Mediterranean (my own effort comes out in the autumn of 2103). D.H.
Trump’s The Prehistory of the Mediterranean (1980) is out-of-date in terms of data
and approaches; J. Guilaine’s La Mer Partagée: La Méditerranée avant l’Écriture,
7000–2000 avant Jésus-Christ (1994) is much better but only available in French.
Much more exciting as a read, but similarly factually outdated, is F. Braudel’s The
Mediterranean in the Ancient World (2001; a translation of the 1998 publication in
French of a lost manuscript by the doyen of Mediterranean history, itself written in
1968). The absence of an holistic study of the early Mediterranean is the more keenly
felt because later Mediterranean history has produced two superb studies of long-term
dynamics, both dense, lengthy yet immensely rich works, into which you should dip
for comparative illumination of the earlier past, inspiration and pleasure:
Braudel, F. 1972. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of
Philip II (translation of 2nd revised edition [1966] of French original). The
classic grand analysis of the Mediterranean’s environments, people and history,
nominally set in the 16th century AD, by a leader of the famous ‘annales’ school
and without doubt one of the greatest works of 20th century history. Read as
much of Part I as you have the desire to.
Horden, P. and N. Purcell 2000. The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean
History. This new masterpiece moves beyond Braudel to develop an alternative
‘microcosmic’, ecological and interaction-based model of Mediterranean social
and economic life; its time-span is also earlier, embracing both the 1st millennia
BC and AD, with forays further forward and backward.
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Regional overviews
These overall summaries should make it easier to trace developments within a given
area over time, and thereby complement this course’s wider comparative perspective.
A still variably useful, if aging, set of short regional summaries for the Bronze Age
(only, and omitting Egypt, north Africa, the northern Levant, Anatolia, Dalmatia and
several major western Mediterranean islands) is to be found in:
Mathers, C. and S. Stoddart (eds.) 1994. Development and Decline in the Mediterranean
Bronze Age (Sheffield Archaeological Monographs 8).
Fuller, fairly up-to-date and accessible are the following:
Egypt
Kemp, B. 2006 (2nd edn.). Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization.
Trigger, B.G., B.J. Kemp, D. O’Connor and A.B. Lloyd 1983. Ancient Egypt: A
Social History.
North Africa
Mitchell, P. 2005. African Connections: An Archaeological Perspective on Africa
and the Wider World, read selectively for north African perspectives.
Phillipson, D.W. 1993 (2nd edn.). African Archaeology, 90-95, 142-3, 158-64.
Levant
Ben-Tor, A. (ed.) 1992. The Archaeology of Israel.
Levy, T. (ed.) 1995. The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land.
Schwartz, M. and P. Akkermans 2003. The Archaeology of Syria: From Complex
Hunter-gatherers to Early Urban Societies (c. 16,000-300 BC).
Anatolia
Sagona, A. and P. Zimansky 2009. Ancient Turkey.
Cyprus
Knapp, A.B. 2008. Prehistoric and Protohistoric Cyprus: Identity, Insularity, and
Connectivity.
Steel, L. 2004. Cyprus Before History: From the Earliest Settlers to the End of the
Bronze Age.
Aegean
Osborne, R. 1996 (or 2009 2nd edition). Greece in the Making: 1200-479.
Shelmerdine, C. (ed.) 2008. The Cambridge Companion to the Aegean Bronze Age.
Dalmatia
Wilkes, J.J. 1992. The Illyrians (largely for later periods; no earlier overview exists).
Italy and Sicily
No overview for peninsula Italy exists; see papers in Mathers and Stoddart (above).
Leighton, R. 1999. Sicily Before History: An Archaeological Survey from the
Palaeolithic to the Iron Age.
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Sardinia
Webster, G.S. 1996. A Prehistory of Sardinia, 2500-500 BC.
Corsica
Costa, L. J. 2004. Corse préhistorique: Peuplement d’une île et modes de vie des
sociétés insulaires (IXe – IIe millénaires av. J.-C.) (in French).
Balearics
No up-to-date overview exists.
Malta
Cilia, D. (ed.) 2004. Malta Before History: The World’s Oldest Free-Standing Stone
Architecture.
Southern France
No overview for southern France exists; see paper in Mathers and Stoddart (above).
Iberia
Both somewhat dated, and see more up-to-date papers in individual lecture listing:
Chapman, R. 1990. Emerging Complexity: The Later Prehistory of South-east Spain,
Iberia and the west Mediterranean.
Harrison, R.J. 1988. Spain at the Dawn of History: Iberians, Phoenicians and Greeks.
The practice and politics of Mediterranean archaeology
Kohl, P.L. and C. Fawcett (eds.) 1995. Nationalism, Politics and the Practice of
Archaeology.
Meskell, L. (ed.) 1998. Archaeology Under Fire: Nationalism, Politics and Heritage
in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East.
Morris, I. 2000. Archaeology as Cultural History, Chapter 2.
Papadopoulos, J. K. and R. M. Leventhal (eds.) 2003. Theory and Practice in
Mediterranean Archaeology: Old World and New World Perspectives (Cotsen
Advanced Seminars 1).
Trigger, B.G. 1984. ‘Alternative archaeologies: nationalist, colonialist, imperialist’,
Man 19: 355-70. TC 908.
Journals and museums
Articles on Mediterranean topics appear in a range of journals and other volumes,
references to which are given in the relevant lecture’s reading lists. Since 1988 the
Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology has been a major venue for publishing ideasdriven research on Mediterranean topics. To get a flavour of the range of issues that
are currently being debated in the field, you might take a look at the last few issues.
A wide range of material culture from the Mediterranean, with a strong bias towards
the eastern half of the basin and later periods (e.g. Dynastic Egypt and Classical
Greece), is displayed at the British Museum and at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
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Lecture 1. Introduction:
Why the Mediterranean?
What is the Mediterranean, and what does it mean to different people today? In what
range of ways can we define and characterise it as a physical and cultural space? Why
is it a compelling alternative archaeological and historical framework to the more
familiar ones of Europe, western Asia and Africa, all of whose shores surround it?
What has been the Mediterranean’s role in world history?
Essential
Blondel, J. and J. Aronson 1999. Biology and Wildlife of the Mediterranean Region,
Chapter 1. DAG 4.5 BLO; Biology B7 BLO; Geography LX 30 BLO.
Horden, P. and N. Purcell 2000. The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean
History, 7-49. Issue desk HOR 6; DAG 200 HOR; several other copies UCL.
Sherratt, A. G. 1995. ‘Reviving the grand narrative: archaeology and long-term
change’, Journal of European Archaeology 3: 1-32. Electronic resource.
Recommended
Defining the Mediterranean
Attenborough, D. 1987. The First Eden: The Mediterranean World and Man (a little
simplistic but useful as an absolute introduction).
Braudel, F. 1972. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of
Philip II, Volume I, Part III.
Jirat-Wasiutynski, Vojtěch, 2007. Modern Art and the Idea of the Mediterranean.
Knapp, A.B. and E. Blake (eds.) 2005. ‘Prehistory in the Mediterranean: the
connecting and corrupting sea’, in E. Blake and A.B Knapp. (eds.) The
Archaeology of Mediterranean Prehistory, 1-23.
King, R., L. Proudfoot and B. Smith (eds.) 1997. The Mediterranean: Environment
and Society, Chapter 1.
Matvejevic, P. 1999. Mediterranean: A Cultural Landscape (highly idiosyncratic and
poetic but an intriguing read full of pithy aphorisms).
Purcell, N. 2003. ‘The boundless sea of unlikeness? On defining the Mediterranean’, in
Mediterranean Historical Review 18, 9-29.
Theroux, P. 1995. The Pillars of Hercules: A Grand Tour of the Mediterranean
(sharply observed if dyspeptic modern journey around the basin).
Woodward, J. C. (ed.) 2009. The Physical Geography of the Mediterranean.
Historiography of the Mediterranean.
Horden, P. 2005. ‘Mediterranean excuses: historical writing on the Mediterranean
since Braudel’, History and Anthropology 16: 25-30.
Shaw, B.D. 2001. ‘Challenging Braudel: a new vision of the Mediterranean’, Journal
of Roman Archaeology 14: 419-53 (in-depth review of The Corrupting Sea).
Harris, W.V. (ed.) 2004. Rethinking the Mediterranean, especially papers by Harris,
Herzfeld, Alcock and response by Horden and Purcell.
Mediterranean Historical Review 18 (2003) has one issue dedicated to thius subject.
Contrastive marine neighbours and further comparisons
Ascherson, N. 1995. Black Sea.
Cunliffe, B. 2001. Facing the Ocean: The Atlantic and its Peoples 8000 BC – 1500 AD.
Abulafia, D. 2005. ‘Mediterraneans’, in W.V. Harris (ed.) Rethinking the
Mediterranean, 64-93.
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Lecture 2. The Mediterranean mosaic:
Landscapes, environments and ecologies
The Mediterranean basin consists of about 2.5 million sq. km of tectonically active,
fragmented and often mountainous land, plus a similar extent of sea, all subject to an
unusual semi-arid, highly unpredictable climate regime. This creates mosaic-like
landscapes and ecologies, and encourages specific responses to risk and opportunity.
Essential
Blondel, J. 2006. ‘The “design” of Mediterranean landscapes: a millennial story of
humans and ecological systems during the historic period’, Human Ecology 34:
713-29. Electronic resource.
Horden, P. and N. Purcell 2000. The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean
History, 53-88 (microecologies), 175-86 (risk and opportunity), and 343-400
(mobility). Further sections also useful if time allows during the course include
197-224 (farming and animals), 231-97 (technology and innovation), and 29841 (catastrophes). Issue desk HOR 6; DAG 200 HOR.
Grove, A.T. and O. Rackham 2001. The Nature of Mediterranean Europe: An
Ecological History, browse through Chapters 1-6, 9-11. Issue desk GRO.
Recommended
Landscapes and ecologies
Blondel, J. and Aronson, J. 1999. Biology and Wildlife of the Mediterranean Region,
especially Chapters 1-5, 8 and 10 (see also 2nd edition as Blondel et al. 2010
The Mediterranean Region: Biological Diversity Through Time and Space.
Braudel, F. 1972. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of
Philip II, Volume I, Parts I, IV and, if interested, V.
Gilman, A. and J.B. Thornes 1985. Land Use and Prehistory in South-east Spain.
Halstead, P. and C. Frederick 2000. Landscape and Land Use in Postglacial Greece.
Jalut, G., J. Dedoubat, M. Fontugne and T. Otto, 2009. ‘Holocene circumMediterranean vegetation changes: climate forcing and human impact’,
Quaternary International 200 (1–2): 4–18.
King, R., L. Proudfoot, and B. Smith (eds.) 1997. The Mediterranean: Environment
and Society, browse Chapters 2-4.
McNeill, J.R. 1992. The Mountains of the Mediterranean World: An Environmental
History.
Rackham, O. 1990. ‘Ancient landscapes’, in O. Murray and S. Price (eds.) The Greek
City from Homer to Alexander, 85-111.
Rackham, O. and J. Moody 1996. The Making of the Cretan Landscape.
Rosen, A. M., 2007. Civilizing Climate: Social Responses to Climate Change in the
Ancient Near East.
Vita-Finzi, C. 1969. The Mediterranean Valleys: Geological Changes in Recent Times
(dated but a classic in its day).
Risk, survival and surplus
Gallant, T.W. 1991. Risk and Survival in Ancient Greece, Chapter 1.
Halstead, P. and O’Shea, J. (eds.) 1989. Bad Year Economics: Cultural Responses to
Risk and Uncertainty.
Osborne, R.G. 1987. Classical Landscape with Figures: The Ancient Greek City and
its Countryside, Chapters 2-4.
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Lecture 3. An archaeology of the sea:
The Mediterranean as maritime and insular space
At the centre of the basin lies the world’s largest inland sea, potentially a highway of
communication and just as diverse as the land in terms of conditions and resources.
This sea is studded with numerous islands, both stepping-stones and isolates, which
have contributed some of the Mediterranean’s most remarkable societies.
Essential
Braudel, F. 1972. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of
Philip II, Volume 1, Parts II and V, 1-2. DAG 100 BRA; Issue desk BRA 9;
Main Library Hist 41 h BRA 90 (and issue desk); further in Science Library.
Broodbank, C. 2000. An Island Archaeology of the Early Cyclades, Chapters 1 and 3.
Issue desk BRO 9; DAG 10 BRO.
Farr, H. 2006. ‘Seafaring as social action’, Journal of Maritime Archaeology 1: 8599.Electronic resource.
Recommended
Broad scope
Blondel, J. and Aronson, J. 1999 Biology and Wildlife of the Mediterranean Region,
or 2010 revised edition (see Lecture 2); browse for marine information.
Homer, The Odyssey (numerous translations).
Horden, P. and N. Purcell 2000. The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean
History, 123-43 (connections and routes), 186-97 (wetlands and fish), 224-30
(islands), and 438-45 (maritime cults).
Horden, P. and N. Purcell 2006. ‘The Mediterranean and the “new thalassology”’,
American Historical Review 111: 722-40.
Navigation
Agouridis, C. 1997. ‘Sea routes and navigation in the third millennium Aegean’,
Oxford Journal of Archaeology 16: 1-24. Good on navigation conditions.
Casson, L. 1971. Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World, 270-99 on sailing.
Pryor, J.H. 1988. Geography, Technology and War: Studies in the Maritime History
of the Mediterranean 649-1571, Chapter 1 ‘The sea’ and more as time allows.
Snodgrass, A.M. 2000. ‘Prehistoric Italy: a view from the sea’, in D. Ridgway et al.
(eds), Ancient Italy in its Mediterranean Setting, 171-77.
Harbours and shores
Blue, L. 1997. ‘Cyprus and Cilicia: typology and palaeogeography of second millennium
harbours’, in S. Swiny, R. Hohlfelder and H. W. Swiny (eds.) Res maritimae:
Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterranean from Prehistory to Late Antiquity, 31-43.
Malamat, A. 1998. ‘The sacred sea’ in B.Z. Kedar and R.J.Z. Werblowsky (eds.),
Sacred Space: Shrine, City, Land.
Marriner, Nick, 2009. Geoarchaeology of Lebanon’s Ancient Harbours. BAR 1953.
Westerdahl, C. 1992. ‘The maritime cultural landscape’, International Journal of
Nautical Archaeology 21: 5-14.
Islands (see further under specific Lecture readings)
Evans, J.D. 1973. ‘Islands as laboratories for the study of culture process’, in C. Renfrew
(ed.) The Explanation of Culture Change: Models in Prehistory, 517-20.
Whittaker, R.J. 1998. Island Biogeography: Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation.
Vogiatzakis, I.N., G. Pungetti and A.M. Mannion (eds) Mediterranean Island
Landscapes. Natural and Cultural Approaches.
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Lecture 4. Investigative strategies:
Excavation, survey, science, text, image and ethnography
The Mediterranean is one of the most intensively investigated places in the world,
and a vast range of information can be brought to bear in its past, from excavation
above ground and underwater, landscape surveys, scientific dating, provenance and
contents analysis, and ethnographic analogy, as well as textual and pictorial data.
Essential
Bass, G. F. 1991. ‘Evidence of trade from Bronze Age shipwrecks’, in N. H. Gale (ed.),
Bronze Age Trade in the Mediterranean, 69-82. TC 508; Issue desk GAL 3.
Papadopoulos, J.K. and R.M. Leventhal (eds.) 2003. Theory and Practice in
Mediterranean Archaeology: Old World and New World Perspectives Chapters
6 (excavation) and 9 (survey), plus 3 if time. Issue desk PAP; DAG 100 PAP.
Serpico, M. and R. White 2000. ‘The botanical identity and transport of incense
during the Egyptian New Kingdom’, Antiquity 74: 884-97. Electronic resource.
Explore two UCL websites: Kythera http://www.ucl.ac.uk/kip/), and Antikythera
(http://www.ucl.ac.uk/archaeology/project/antikythera/index.htm).
Recommended
Overall
Trigger, B.G. 1984. ‘Alternative archaeologies: nationalist, colonialist, imperialist’,
Man 19: 355-70. TC 2866; Inst Arch Pers.
Underwater archaeology
Ballard, R. D. (ed.), 2008. Archaeological Oceanography.
Haldane, C. 1993. ‘Direct evidence for organic cargoes in the Late Bronze Age’,
World Archaeology 24: 348-60.
Parker, A.J. 1992. ‘Cargoes, containers and storage: the ancient Mediterranean’,
International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 21: 89-100. Inst Arch Pers.
Raban, A. 1985. Harbour Archaeology (British Archaeological Reports 257).
Survey, interdisciplinary regional studies and GIS
Alcock, S.E. and J.F. Cherry (eds.) 2004. Side-by-Side Survey: Comparative
Regional Studies in the Mediterranean World.
Barker, G. 1995. A Mediterranean Valley: Landscape Archaeology and Annales
History in the Biferno Valley.
Bevan, A. 2002. ‘The rural landscape of Neopalatial Kythera: A GIS perspective’,
Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 15: 217-256.
Schwartz, G.M and S.E. Falconer (eds). 1994. Archaeological Views from the
Countryside: Village Communities in Early Complex Societies.
Mithen, Steven, and Emily Black (eds), 2011. Water, Life and Civilisation: Climate,
Environment and Society in the Jordan Valley.
Science
Knapp, A.B. and J.F. Cherry 1994. Provenience Studies and Bronze Age Cyprus.
Kuniholm, P.I. 1995. ‘The prehistoric Aegean: dendrochronological progress as of
1995’, in Randsborg, K. (ed.) Absolute Chronology: Archaeological Europe
500-500 BC (Acta Archaeologica 67), 291-8. TC 2162.
Ethnography
Forbes, H. 2007. Meaning and Identity in a Greek Landscape: An Archaeological
Ethnography.
Horden, P. and N. Purcell 2000. The Corrupting Sea, 463-84.
14
Lecture 5. The threatened present:
Tourism, development, war and looting
Huge challenges confront the preservation of Mediterranean sites and landscapes in
the present, with chronic threats from mass tourism, development and mechanised
agriculture (all central to the basin’s economies); war, and the antiquities looting that
follows from esteem for ancient Mediterranean culture, constitute additional dangers.
Essential
Gill, D. and C. Chippindale 1993. ‘Material and intellectual consequences of esteem for
Cycladic figures’, American Journal of Archaeology 97: 601-659. Electronic
resource.
Naccache, A. 1998. ‘Beirut’s memorycide’, in L. Meskell (ed.) Archaeology Under
Fire: Nationalism, Politics and Heritage in the Eastern Mediterranean and
Middle East, 140-158. Issue desk MES; AG MES.
Skeates, R. 2005. ‘Museum archaeology and the Mediterranean cultural heritage’, in E.
Blake and A.B. Knapp (eds.) The Archaeology of Mediterranean Prehistory, 303-20.
Issue desk BLA 9; DAG 100 BLA.
Recommended
General
de la Torre, M. (ed.) 1997. The Conservation of Archaeological Sites in the
Mediterranean Region.
Grenon, M. and M. Batisse (eds), 1989. Futures for the Mediterranean Basin: the
Blue Plan.
Hamilakis, Y. and E. Yalouri 1996. ‘Antiquities as symbolic capital in modern Greek
society’, Antiquity 70: 117-29.
Hodder, I. and L. Doughty (eds.) 2007. Mediterranean Prehistoric Heritage:
Training, Education and Management.
King, R., L. Proudfoot, and B. Smith (eds.) 1997. The Mediterranean: Environment
and Society, browse Chapters 9, 11-18.
Lowenthal, David, 2007. ‘Mediterranean between history and heritage’ in S.
Antoniadou and A. Pace (eds.) Mediterranean Crossroads, 661–90.
Meskell, L. (ed.) 1998. Archaeology Under Fire: Nationalism, Politics and Heritage
in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East.
Papadopoulos, J.K. and R.M. Leventhal (eds.) 2003. Theory and Practice in
Mediterranean Archaeology: Old World and New World Perspectives (Cotsen
Advanced Seminars 1), Chapters 18 and 19.
Looting and its consequences
Brodie, N., J. Doole and P. Watson 2000. Stealing History: the Illicit Trade in
Cultural Material.
Elia, R. 2001. ‘Analysis of the looting, selling, and collecting of Apulian red-figure
vases: a quantitative approach, in N.J. Brodie, J. Doole and C. Renfrew (eds.)
Trade in Illicit Antiquities, 145-53.
Elsner, J. and R. Cardinal (eds.) 1993. The Cultures of Collecting.
Tubb, K.W. (ed.) 1995. Antiquities: Trade or Betrayed: Legal, Ethical and
Conservation Issues (especially paper by Palmer).
Watson, P. and C. Todeschini 2006. The Medici Conspiracy: The Illicit Journey of
Looted Antiquities from Italy’s Tomb Raiders to the World’s Greatest
Museums.
15
Lecture 6. A long cold spell:
Hunter-gatherers around the sea (2 million - 9600 BC)
Bordering Africa and its Levantine exit-point, the Mediterranean is implicated in the
expansion of hominins and humans throughout the cycles of Pleistocene glaciations
and sealevel changes. Equally, however, the sea proved a barrier until relatively late.
We explore Ice Age Mediterranean hunter-gatherers and the origins of seafaring.
Essential
Bar-Yosef, O. 1998. ‘The Natufian culture in the Levant, threshold to the origins of
agriculture’, Evolutionary Anthropology 6: 159-77. Electronic resource.
Broodbank, C. 2006. ‘The origins and early development of Mediterranean maritime
activity’, Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 19: 199-230. Electronic resource.
Stiner, M.C. and S.L. Kuhn 2006. ‘Changes in the “connectedness” and resilience of
Paleolithic societies in Mediterranean ecosystems’, Human Ecology 34: 693712. Electronic resource.
Recommended
General
Bar-Yosef, O. and D.R. Pilbeam (eds.) 2000. The Geography of Neandertals and
Modern Humans in Europe and the Greater Mediterranean, especially Hublin.
Camps, M. and C. Szmidt (eds.) 2009. The Mediterranean from 50,000 to 25,000
BP: Turning Points and New Directions.
Dennell, R. 2003. ‘Dispersal and colonisation, long and short chronologies: how
continuous is the Early Pleistocene record for hominids outside east Africa?’
Journal of Human Evolution 45: 421-40.
Gamble, C. 1999. The Palaeolithic Societies of Europe, Chapters 4-7.
Garcea, E. (ed.) 2010. South-eastern Mediterranean Peoples Between 130,000 and
10,000 Years Ago.
Mussi, M. 2001. Earliest Italy: An Overview of the Italian Paleolithic and Mesolithic.
Runnels, C. 1995. ‘Review of Aegean prehistory IV: the stone age of Greece from the
Palaeolithic to the advent of the Neolithic’, American Journal of Archaeology
99: 699-728.
Schüle, W. 1993. ‘Mammals, vegetation and the initial human settlement of the
Mediterranean islands: a palaeoecological approach’, Journal of Biogeography
20: 399-411.
Straus, L. G. 2001. ‘Africa and Iberia in the Pleistocene’. Quaternary International
25: 91-102.
van Andel T.H. and P.C. Tzedakis 1996. ‘Palaeolithic landscapes of Europe and
environs, 150,000-25,000 years ago: an overview’, Quaternary Science
Reviews 15: 481-500.
Sea-level change
Clottes, J. and J. Courtin 1996. The Cave Beneath the Sea: Paleolithic Images at Cosquer.
Lambeck, K. 1996. ‘Sea-level change and shore-line evolution in Aegean Greece
since Upper Palaeolithic time’, Antiquity 70: 588-611.
van Andel, T.H. 1989. ‘Late quaternary sea-level change and archaeology’, Antiquity
63: 733-45 (plus addendum in Antiquity 64: 151-2).
Terminal Pleistocene developments
Simmons, A.H. and associates 1999. Faunal Extinction in an Island Society: Pigmy
Hippopotamus Hunters of Cyprus.
16
Lecture 7. Double revolution:
The expansions of farming and seafaring (9600 - 5500 BC)
The Holocene ushered in warmer climates, rising seas and accompanying revolutions
on land and water. Once again the Levant acted as a critical region; Neolithic farming
ways of life spread (by debated means) from there to Gibraltar over four millennia,
and adept seafaring is attested in particular by growing numbers of people on islands.
Essential
Mithen, S. 2003. After the Ice: A Global Human History 20,000-5000 BC, browse
Chapters 3-10, 16-18 and 21 for great vignettes. Issue desk; BC 100 MIT.
Sherratt, A.G. 2007. ‘Diverse origins: regional contributions to the genesis of
farming’, in S. Colledge and J. Conolly (eds.), The Origins and Spread of
Domestic Plants in Southwest Asia and Europe, 1-20. HA COL.
Zeder, M., 2008. ‘Domestication and Early Agriculture in the Mediterranean Basin:
Origins, Diffusion, and Impact’, Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences 105 (3): 11597-604. Electronic resource.
Recommended
Neolithic expansion
Halstead, P. 1996. ‘The development of agriculture and pastoralism in Greece: when,
how, who and what’, in D. Harris (ed.) The Origins and Spread of Agriculture
and Pastoralism in Eurasia, 296-309.
Kuijt, Ian, and A. N. Goring-Morris, 2002. ‘Foraging, farming and social complexity
in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of the south-central Levant: a review and
synthesis’, Journal of World Prehistory 16 (4), 361–440.
Rowley-Conwy, P., 2011. ‘Westward Ho! The Spread of Agriculture from Central
Europe to the Atlantic’, Current Anthropology 52 (Supplement 4): S431–S451.
Tagliacozzo, A. 1994. ‘Economic changes between the Mesolithic and the Neolithic in
the Grotta dell’Uzzo (Sicily, Italy)’,Accordia Research Papers, 5: 7-71.
Zilhão, J. 2003. ‘The Neolithic transition in Portugal and the role of demic diffusion in
the spread of agriculture across west Mediterranean Europe’, in A. J. Ammerman
and P. Biagi (eds.), The Widening Harvest, 207-23. Issue desk AMM 2.
Island colonization
Broodbank, C. and T.F. Strasser 1991. ‘Migrant farmers and the Neolithic
colonization of Crete’, Antiquity 65: 233-245.
Cherry, J.F. 1981. ‘Pattern and process in the earliest colonization of the Mediterranean
islands’, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 47: 41-68 (dated but still classic).
Knapp, A. B., 2010. ‘Cyprus’s Earliest Prehistory: Seafarers, Foragers and Settlers’,
Journal of World Prehistory 23 (2): 79–120.
Vigne, J.-D., 1999. ‘The Large “True” Mediterranean Islands as a Model for the
Holocene Human Impact on the European Vertebrate Fauna? Recent Data and New
Reflections’ in N. Benecke (ed.), The Holocene History of the European Vertebrate
Faunas: Modern Aspects of Research.
An African contrast
Barker, G. 2006. The Agricultural Revolution in Prehistory, 273-304.
Linstädter, J., 2008. ‘The Epipalaeolithic–Neolithic transition in the Mediterranean
region of northwest Africa.’ Quartär 55: 33–54.
Wengrow, D. 2006. The Archaeology of Early Egypt: Social Transformations in
North-East Africa, 10,000 to 2650 BC, Chapter 1.
17
Lecture 8. Divergent paths:
Farmers, cattle pastoralists and metalworkers (5500 - 3500 BC)
Ways of life north (plus east) and south of the central sea continued to diverge. In the
former, villages of farmers inhabited dense, ritualised worlds connected by maritime
networks; in the latter, rainfall enabled cattle-pastoralists to spread over much of the
Sahara. Metal-working also spread, with foci in the Anatolia, the Balkans and Iberia.
Essential
Robb, J. E. and Farr, R. H. 2005. ‘Substances in motion: Neolithic Mediterranean
“trade”’, in Blake and Knapp (eds.), The Archaeology of Mediterranean
Prehistory, 24-45. Issue desk BLA 9; DAG 100 BLA.
Marshall, F. and Hildebrand, E. 2002. ‘Cattle before crops: the beginnings of food
production in Africa’, Journal of World Prehistory 16, 93-143. Electronic resource.
Kassianidou, V. and A. B. Knapp 2005. ‘Archaeometallurgy in the Mediterranean:
the social context of mining, technology, and trade’, in Blake and Knapp (eds.)
The Archaeology of Mediterranean Prehistory, 215-51. As above.
Recommended
Levant
Kuijt, I. 2000. Life in Neolithic Farming Villages. Social Organisation, Identity and
Differentiation, especially Chapters 4-6.
Levy, T.E. 1995. ‘Cult, metallurgy and rank societies - Chalcolithic period (ca. 45003500 BCE’, in T.E. Levy (ed.), The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land,
226-44.
Rowan, Y. and J. Golden, 2009. ‘The Chalcolithic period of the Southern Levant: a
synthetic review’, Journal of World Prehistory 22 (1), 1–92.
European Mediterranean
Bass, B. 1998. ‘Early Neolithic offshore accounts: remote islands, maritime
exploitations, and the trans-Adriatic cultural network’, Journal of
Mediterranean Archaeology 11, 165-190.
Halstead. P. (ed.) 1999. Neolithic Society in Greece.
Robb, J.E. 2007. The Early Mediterranean Village: Agency, Material Culture, and
Social Change in Neolithic Italy.
Robb, J. E. and van Hove, D. 2003. ‘Gardening, foraging and herding: Neolithic land
use and social territories in southern Italy’. Antiquity 77, 241-54.
Sahlins, M. 1972. Stone Age Economics.
Tykot, R. 1996. ‘Obsidian procurement and distribution in the central and western
Mediterranean’, Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 9, 39-82.
Tykot, R., J. Morter and J.E. Robb (eds.) 1997. Social Dynamics of the Prehistoric
Central Mediterranean (especially papers by Tykot and Robb).
Whitehouse, R. 1992. Underground Religion: Cult and Culture in Prehistoric Italy.
Africa
Camps, G. 1974. Les Civilisations préhistorique de l’Afrique du Nord et du Sahara
(dated and in French, but browse for the illustrations).
Hassan, F.A. 2000. ‘Climate and cattle in north Africa: a first approximation’, in R.M.
Blench and K.C. MacDonald (eds.), The Origins and Development of African
Livestock: Archaeology, Genetics, Linguistics and Ethnography, 61-86.
Wengrow, D. 2006. The Archaeology of Early Egypt: Social Transformations in
North-East Africa, 10,000 to 2650 BC, Chapter 2.
18
Lecture 9. The great transition:
The emergence of the later Mediterranean (3500 - 2000 BC)
The ‘long’ 3rd millennium BC was the formative age for the Mediterranean. A drying
climate created semi-arid, risky environments like those of today, while the world’s
first urban states arose on its fringes, in Egypt and Mesopotamia. Between these, old
ways of life transformed, and new, long-lasting logics began to emerge and expand.
Essential
Broodbank, C. 2011. ‘The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean world in the age of
Andrew Sherratt’ in T. Wilkinson et al. (eds.) Interweaving Worlds: Systematic
Interactions in Eurasia, 7th to the 1st Millennia BC, 27–36. KJ WIL; to issue desk.
Robb, J.E. 1999. ‘Great persons and big men in the Italian Neolithic’, in R.H. Tykot,
J. Morter and J.E. Robb (eds.), Social Dynamics of the Prehistoric Central
Mediterranean. 111-21. TC 3597.
Sherratt, A.G. 1993. ‘What would a Bronze-Age world system look like? Relations
between temperate Europe and the Mediterranean in later prehistory’, Journal
of European Archaeology 1: 1-57. Electronic resource.
Recommended
The emergence of urban, state-level societies and world-systems
Hassan, Fekri A., 1997. ‘The dynamics of a riverine civilization: a geoarchaeological
perspective on the Nile Valley, Egypt’, World Archaeology 29 (1): 51–74.
Marfoe, L. 1985. ‘Cedar forest to silver mountain: social change and the development of
long-distance trade in early Near Eastern societies’, in M. Rowlands, M. Larsen
and K. Kristiansen (eds.) Centre and Periphery in the Ancient World, 25-35.
Rothman, M. S. (ed.) 2001. Uruk Mesopotamia and Its Neighbors. Cross-cultural
Interactions in the Era of State Formation.
Sherratt, A. G. 1999. ‘Cash-crops before cash: organic consumables and trade’ in C.
Gosden and J. Hather (eds), The Prehistory of Food: Appetites for Change, 13–34.
Wengrow, D. 2006. The Archaeology of Early Egypt: Social Transformations in
North-East Africa, 10,000 to 2650 BC, Chapter 7.
European perspectives
Nakou, G. 1995. ‘The cutting edge: a new look at early Aegean metallurgy’, Journal
of Mediterranean Archaeology 8.
Economies and beyond
Halstead, P. 1988. ‘On redistribution and the origin of Minoan-Mycenaean palatial
economies’, in E.B. French & K.A. Wardle (eds.) Problems in Greek
Prehistory, 519-28.
Halstead, P. and V. Isaakidou, 2011. ‘Revolutionary secondary products: the
development and significance of milking, animal-traction and wool-gathering
in later prehistoric Europe and the Near East’ in Wilkinson et al. (eds.)
Interweaving Worlds, 61–76.
McGovern, P. E. 2003. Ancient Wine: The Search for the Origins of Viniculture.
Roberts, B. W. 2008. ‘Creating Traditions and Shaping Technologies: Understanding
the Emergence of Metallurgy in Western Europe c. 3500–2000 BC.’ WA 40 (3):
354–72.
PLEASE NOTE THAT SESSION 10 IS A DISCUSSION SEMINAR
19
Lecture 11. Emergent complexity:
The Levant, Aegean and Iberia compared (3500 - 2000 BC)
Following from the exploration of large-scale changes, we now look more closely at
the emergence of new forms of social structure and hierarchies, concentrating on the
three regions, one (the Levant) between the core regions of Egypt and Mesopotamia,
another (the Aegean) on their margin, and the last (Iberia) completely separated.
Essential
Akkermans, P. and Schwartz, G. 2003. The Archaeology of Syria: From Complex
Hunter-Gatherers to Early Urban Societies (ca. 16,000 – 300 BC), Chapters 6-8.
Issue desk AKK; DBD 100 AKK.
Chapman, R. 2005. ‘Changing social relations in the Mediterranean Copper and
Bronze Ages’, in Blake and Knapp (eds.), The Archaeology of Mediterranean
Prehistory, 77-101. Issue desk BLA 9; DAG 100 BLA.
Rahmstorf, L. 2011. ‘Re-integrating ‘diffusion’: the spread of innovations among the
Neolithic and Bronze Age societies of Europe and the Near East,’ in T.
Wilkinson et al. (eds.) Interweaving Worlds: Systemic Interactions in Eurasia,
7th to the 1st Millennia BC, 100-119. KJ WIL; going to issue desk.
Whitelaw, T.M. 2004. ‘Alternative pathways to complexity in the southern Aegean’,
in J.C. Barrett and P. Halstead (eds.) The Emergence of Civilisation Revisited
(Sheffield Studies in Aegean Archaeology 6), 232-56. TC 2974.
Recommended
Levant
Ben-Tor, A. (ed.) 1992. The Archaeology of Israel, Chapter 4.
Chesson, M. S. and G. Philip (eds.) 2003. ‘“Urbanism” in the Early Bronze Age
Levant’, Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 16(1).
Milano, L. 1995. ‘Ebla: a third millennium city-state in Ancient Syria’, in J.M.
Sasson (ed.) Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, Vol. II, 1219-1230.
Aegean
Broodbank, C. 2000. An Island Archaeology of the Early Cyclades.
Cherry, J.F. 1984. ‘The emergence of the state in the prehistoric Aegean’,
Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 30, 18-48.
Renfrew, A.C. 1972.The Emergence of Civilisation.
Schoep, I. et al. (eds.) 2012. Back to the Beginning: Reassessing Social and Political
Complexity on Crete during the Early and Middle Bronze Age.
Shelmerdine, C. (ed.) 2008. The Cambridge Companion to the Aegean Bronze Age,
Chapters 2-3 by Broodbank and Pullen.
Iberia
Chapman, R. 2003. Archaeologies of Complexity.
Chapman, R., 2008. ‘Producing Inequalities: regional sequences in later prehistoric
southern Spain’, Journal of World Prehistory 21, 195–260.
Gilman, A. 1981. ‘The development of social stratification in Bronze Age Europe’,
Current Anthropology 22: 1-24.
The 2200 ‘event’
Dalfes, H.N., G. Kukla and H. Weiss (eds). 1997. Third Millennium Climate Change
and Old World Collapse (papers by Hassan, Butzer and Weiss).
Rosen, A. M. 2007. Civilizing Climate: Social Responses to Climate Change in the
Ancient Near East, Chapters 1, 2 and 7.
20
Lecture 12. The rise of voyaging:
Maritime travel, trade and technology (3500 - 2000 BC)
The ‘long’ 3rd millennium also saw dramatic developments in maritime culture, with
the invention of sailing ships in the east and the inception of long-range voyaging;
specialised, often insular maritime trading centres emerged at the heart of seaborne
networks; conversely, a few islands turned their back on this, most famously Malta.
Essential
Broodbank, C. 2010. ‘“Ships a-sail from over the rim of the sea”: voyaging, sailing,
and the making of Mediterranean societies c. 3500-500 BC’, in A. Anderson et
al. (eds.) Global Origins and Development of Seafaring, 249-64. HG AND;
going to issue desk.
Robb, J.E. 2001. ‘Island identities: ritual, travel and the creation of difference in Neolithic
Malta’, European Journal of Archaeology 4: 175-201. Electronic resource.
Maran J. 2007. ‘Seaborne contacts between the Aegean, the Balkans and the Central
Mediterranean in the 3rd millennium BC: The unfolding of the Mediterranean
world’, in I. Galanaki et al. (eds.), Between the Aegean and the Baltic Seas:
Prehistory Without Borders (Aegaeum 27), 3-21. Issue desk GAL 2.
Recommended
Trade networks and shipping
Brodie, N. 2008. ‘The donkey: an appropriate technology for Early Bronze Age land
transport and traction’, in N. Brodie et al. (eds.), Horizon. A colloquium on The
Prehistory of the Cyclades.
Broodbank, C. 2000. An Island Archaeology of the Early Cyclades, Chapters 6-10.
Forenbaher, S (2008) ‘Archaeological record of the Adriatic offshore islands as an
indicator of long-distance interaction in prehistory’, European Journal of
Archaeology 11: 223-244.
Harrison, R. J. and A. Gilman 1979. ‘Trade in the second and third millennia BC
between the Maghreb and Iberia’, in V. Markotic (ed.), Ancient Europe and the
Mediterranean, 89-104.
Rahmstorf, L. 2008. ‘The Bell Beaker phenomenon and the interaction spheres of the
EBA East Mediterranean: similarities and differences’, in A. Lehoërff (ed.)
Construire le temps. Histoire et méthods des chronologies et calendriers des
derniers millénaires avant notre ère en Europe occidentale, 149-170.
Van den Brink, E. and Levy, T.E. (eds.) 2002. Egypt and the Levant: Interrelations
from the Fourth Through the Third Millennia BCE, especially papers by Levy
and van den Brink, and Marcus.
Vander Linden M. 2006. ‘For whom the bell tolls: Social hierarchy vs social
integration in the Bell Beaker culture of southern France’, Cambridge
Archaeological Journal 16: 317–32.
Island developments
Branigan, K. 1991. ‘Mochlos” and early Aegean ‘gateway community’?’, in R. Laffineur
and L. Basch (eds.) Thalassa: L’Egée préhistorique et al mer (Aegaeum 7), 97-105.
Cilia, D. (ed.) 2004. Malta Before History.
Frankel, D. 2000. ‘Migration and ethnicity in prehistoric Cyprus: technology as
habitus’, European Journal of Archaeology 3: 167-87.
Ramis, D et al. 2002. ‘The chronology of the first settlement of the Balearic islands’.
Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 15: 3-24.
21
Lecture 13. Palaces in the east:
Egypt, the Levant, Aegean and Cyprus (2000 - 1200 BC)
After a late 3rd millennium climate-induced collapse cycle, urban societies centred on
monumental palaces rapidly reformed and expanded around the Mediterranean, with
initial concentrations in the Nile Delta, Levant, Anatolia and Crete, and subsequently
also on the Greek mainland, and possibly in non-palatial form on copper-rich Cyprus.
Essential
Halstead, P. 1992. ‘The Mycenaean palatial economy: making the most of the gaps in
the evidence’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 38: 57-86. TC
1004.
Marcus, E. 2006. ‘Venice on the Nile? On the maritime character of Tell Dab’a/
Avaris’, in E. Czerny, I. Hein, H. Hunger, D. Melman and A. Schwab (eds.),
Timelines: Studies in Honour of Manfred Bietak, Vol. 2, 185-8. TC 3599.
Yon, M. 2006. The City of Ugarit at Tell Ras Shamra. DBD 10 YON.
Recommended
Egypt
Bietak, M. 1996. Avaris: The Capital of the Hyksos: Recent Excavations at Tell ed Dab’a.
Kemp, B.J. 2006 (2nd edn). Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization, Chapters 4-8.
Levant
Akkermans, P. and Schwartz, G. 2003. The Archaeology of Syria: From Complex
Hunter-Gatherers to Early Urban Societies (ca. 16,000 – 300 BC), Chapter 9-10.
Levi, T. (ed.) 1995. The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land, Chapters 18 (Ilan)
and 19 (Bunimovitz).
Tubb, J. 1998. Canaanites.
Cyprus
Keswani, P. 1996. ‘Hierarchies, heterarchies and urbanization processes: the view
from Bronze Age Cyprus’, Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 9: 211-50.
Knapp, A.B. 2008. Prehistoric and Protohistoric Cyprus: Identity, Insularity, and
Connectivity.
Steel, L. 2004. Cyprus Before History: From the Earliest Settlers to the End of the
Bronze Age, Chapters 5-6.
Aegean
Bennet, J. 2007. ‘The Aegean Bronze Age’, in W. Scheidel, I. Morris and R. Saller
(eds.) The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World, 175-210.
Broodbank, C. 2004. ‘Minoanisation’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological
Society 50: 46-91.
Shelmerdine, C. (ed.) 2008. The Cambridge Companion to the Aegean Bronze Age,
Chapters 5-13.
Whitelaw, T.W. 2001. ‘From sites to communities: defining the human dimensions of
Minoan urbanism’, in K. Branigan (ed.) Urbanism in the Aegean Bronze Age,
15-37.
Anatolia
Glatz, C. 2009. ‘Empire as network: spheres of material interaction in Late Bronze
Age Anatolia’, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 28, 127-41.
Sagona, A. and P. Zimansky 2009. Ancient Turkey.
22
Lecture 14. Western approaches:
Iberia, the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic (2000 - 1200 BC)
The 2nd millennium BC in the central and western Mediterranean differs from that in
the east, manifesting nothing like the latter’s urban scale, though a remarkably varied
range of societies and networks emerged, including the Argaric communities of
Iberia, Sardinian nuraghi, and large communities both in northern and southern Italy.
Essential
Blake, E. 2001. ‘Constructing a Nuragic locale: the spatial relationship between
tombs and towers in Bronze Age Sardinia’, American Journal of Archaeology
105: 145-61. Electronic resource.
Chapman, R. 2005. ‘Changing Social Relations in the Mediterranean Copper and
Bronze Ages’, in Blake and Knapp (eds.) The Archaeology of Mediterranean
Prehistory, 77-101. Issue desk BLA 9; DAG 100 BLA.
Leighton, R. 1999. Sicily before History. An Archaeological Survey from the
Palaeolithic to the Iron Age, Chapter 4, and 3 if time. Issue desk; DAG 19 LEI.
Recommended
General
Harding, A. F. 2000. European Societies in the Bronze Age (browse for relevance).
Treherne, P. 1995. ‘The warrior’s beauty: the masculine body and self-identity in
Bronze-Age Europe’, Journal of European Archaeology 3: 105-44. TC 3231.
Shennan, S.J. 1999. ‘Cost, benefit and value in the organization of early European
copper production’, Antiquity 73: 352-63 (excellent, though northern focus).
Central Mediterranean
Cazzella, A. & M. Moscoloni 1998. ‘The walled Bronze Age settlement of Coppa
Nevigata, Manfredonia and the development of craft specialisation in southeastern Italy’, in R.H. Tykot, J. Morter and J.E. Robb (eds), Social Dynamics of
the Prehistoric Central Mediterranean: 205-16.
Chapman, J. C., Shiel, R, and Batovic, S. 1996. The Changing Face of Dalmatia.
Mathers, C. and S. Stoddart (eds.) 1994. Development and Decline in the Mediterranean
Bronze Age (Sheffield Archaeological Monographs 8), Chapters 4-6 for Italy.
Pearce, M. 1999. ‘New research on the terramare of northern Italy’, Antiquity 72: 743–6.
Tykot, R.H. and T.K. Andrews (ed.) 1992. Sardinia in the Mediterranean.
Webster, G. S. 1996. A Prehistory of Sardinia, 2300-500 BC (Monographs in
Mediterranean Archaeology 5).
Western Mediterranean
Balmuth, M., A. Gilman and L. Prados-Torreira (eds.) 1997. Encounters and Transformations: The Archaeology of Iberia in Transition (papers by FernándezMiranda, and Chapman and Grant).
Buikstra, J. et al. 1995. ‘Approaches to class inequalities in the later prehistory of
south-east Iberia: the Gatas project’, in K. T. Lillios (ed.), The Origins of
Complex Societies in Late Prehistoric Iberia, 153-68.
Chapman, R. 1995. ‘Urbanism in Copper and Bronze Age Iberia?’, in B. Cunliffe and S.
Keay (eds.) Social Complexity and the Development of Towns in Iberia: 47–65.
Chapman, R. 2003. Archaeologies of Complexity.
Lull, V. 2000. ‘Argaric society: death at home’, Antiquity 74: 581-590.
Lull, V., R. Micó, C. Rihuete Herrada and R. Risch 1999. La Cova des Càrritx y la
Cova des Mussol (for pictures; not in library but can be borrowed from me).
23
Lecture 15. Expanding connections:
International and cross-cultural trade (2000 - 1200 BC)
Over the 2nd millennium the scale, range and nature of interaction between regions
of the Mediterranean expanded dramatically, with rich information from archaeology
(both terrestrial and shipwreck), texts and images. How did inter-regional economies
develop, who did the moving, and was such ‘trade’ entrepreneurial, palatial or both?
Essential
Bevan, A. 2010. ‘Making and marking relationships: Bronze Age brandings and
Mediterranean commodities’, in A. Bevan and D. Wengrow (eds.) Cultures of
Commodity Branding, 35-85. AH BEV.
Pulak, C. 1998. ‘The Uluburun shipwreck; an overview’, International Journal of Nautical
Archaeology and Underwater Excavation 27: 188-224, Electronic resource (for
images Yalçin et al. (eds.) 2005 Das Schiff von Uluburun at Issue desk).
Sherratt, A.G. and E.S. Sherratt 1991. ‘From luxuries to commodities: the nature of
Mediterranean Bronze Age trading systems’, in N.H. Gale (ed.) Bronze Age
Trade in the Mediterranean 351-86. TC 507; Issue desk GAL 3.
Vagnetti, L. 1999. ‘Mycenaean pottery in the central Mediterranean; imports and
local production in their context’, in J. P. Crielaard, V. Stissi, and G. J. van
Wijngaarden (eds.), The Complex Past of Pottery, 137-61. TC 3601.
Recommended
Collections of papers
Cline, E.H. and D. Harris-Cline (eds.) 1998. The Aegean and the Orient in the Second
Millennium (Aegaeum 18), especially papers by Knapp, Morris, and the Sherratts.
Gale, N. (ed.) 1991. Bronze Age Trade in the Mediterranean, especially papers by Bass,
Gale, Jones and Vagnetti, Knapp, and the Sherratts (as above).
Shortland, A. (ed.) 2001. The Social Context of Technological Change in Egypt and the
Near East, 1650-1550 BC (papers by Bourriau et al, the Sherratts and Shortland).
Themes in the east
Bevan, A.H. 2007. Stone Logics: Vessels and Values in the Bronze Age East Mediterranean.
Feldman, M. 2006. Diplomacy by Design: Luxury Arts and an ‘International Style’ in
the Ancient Near East, 1400-1200 BCE.
Liverani, M. 2001. International Relations in the Ancient Near East, 1600-1100 BC.
Monroe, C. M. 2009. Scales of Fate: Trade, Tradition, and Transformation in the
Eastern Mediterranean, ca. 1350-1175 BCE.
Sherratt, S. 1999. ‘E pur si muove: Pots, markets and values in the second millennium
Mediterranean’, in J. Crielaard et al. (eds.), The Complex Past of Pottery:
Production, Circulation and Consumption of Mycenaean and Greek Pottery
(sixteenth to early fifth centuries BC), 163-211.
Van de Mieroop, M. 2007. The Eastern Mediterranean in the Age of Ramesses II.
Wachsmann, S. 1998. Seagoing Ships and Seamanship in the Bronze Age Levant.
Contacts with the centre and west
Harding, A.F. 1984. The Mycenaeans and Europe (especially Chapters 9, 10).
Pare, C. 2000. ‘Bronze and the Bronze Age’, in C. Pare (ed.) Metals Make the World
Go Round: The Supply and Circulation of Metals in Bronze Age Europe, 1-38.
Harding, A. F. 2007. ‘Interconnections between the Aegean and continental Europe
in the Bronze and Early Iron Ages: Moving beyond skepticism, in I. Galanaki et
al. (eds.). 2007. Between the Aegean and Baltic Seas, 47-56.
24
Lecture 16. Collapse and transformation:
The Bronze to Iron Age transition (1200 - 1000 BC)
The last centuries of the 2nd millennium saw a widespread transformation, commonly
interpreted as political collapse, in the east. This marks the transition from the Bronze
to Iron Ages, and the end of the palace-states, though in the west no hiatus is visible.
Can this rupture be understood as a structural economic shift in trading mechanisms?
Essential
Liverani, M. 1987. ‘The collapse of the Near Eastern regional system at the end of the
Bronze Age: the case of Syria’, in M. Rowlands, M. Larsen and K. Kristiansen
(eds.) Centre and Periphery in the Ancient World, 66-73.; Issue Desk ROW 3;
AH ROW.
Sherratt, S. 2003. ‘The Mediterranean economy: ‘Globalization’ at the end of the second
millennium BCE’, in W.G. Dever and S. Gitin (eds.) Symbiosis, Symbolism, and the
Power of the Past: Canaan, Ancient Israel, and their Neighbors from the Late
Bronze Age Through Roman Palaestina, 37-62. DBA 100 DEV.
Sherratt, E.S. 2000. ‘Circulation of metals and the end of the Bronze Age in the
eastern Mediterranean’, in C. Pare (ed.) Metals Make the World Go Round: The
Supply and Circulation of Metals in Bronze Age Europe, 82-98. Issue desk
PAR 3: DAQto PAR.
Recommended
The eastern Mediterranean
Artzy, M. 1997. ‘Nomads of the sea’, in S. Swiny et al (eds.), Res Maritimae: Cyprus
and the Eastern Mediterranean from Prehistory to Late Antiquity, 1-16.
Bauer, A. 1998. ‘Cities of the sea: Maritime trade and the origin of Philistine
settlement in the Early Iron Age southern Levant’, Oxford Journal of
Archaeology 17(2): 149-68.
Morris, I. 2006. ‘The collapse and regeneration of complex society in Greece 1500500 BC’, in G. Schwartz and J. Nichols (eds.) After Collapse: The
Regeneration of Complex Societies, 72-84.
O’Connor, D. 1990. ‘The nature of Tjemhu (Libyan) society in the later New
Kingdom’, in A. Leahy (ed.), Libya and Egypt: ca 1300-750 BC, 29-113.
Sherratt, E.S. 1994. ‘Commerce, iron and ideology: metallurgical innovation in 12th11th century Cyprus’, in V. Karageorghis (ed.) Proceedings of the International
Symposium: Cyprus in the 11th Century BC, 59-106.
Yasur-Landau, A. 2010. The Philistines and Aegean Migration at the End of the Late
Bronze Age (read with an independent mind).
A comparison with the centre and west
Giardino, C. 1995. The West Mediterranean between the 14th and 8th Centuries B.C.:
Mining and Metallurgy Spheres. BAR International Series 612.
Leighton, R. 1999. Sicily Before History, Chapters 5 and 6.
Lo Schiavo, F. 2012. ‘Cyprus and Sardinia, beyond the oxhide ingots’, in V.
Kassianidou and G. Pappasavvas (eds.) Eastern Mediterranean Metallurgy and
Metalwork in the Second Millennium BC, 142-50.
Pearce, M. 2000. ‘Metals make the world go round: The copper supply for Frattesina’,
in C. Pare (ed.) Metals Make the World Go Round: The Supply and Circulation
of Metals in Bronze Age Europe, 108-15.
Webster, G.S. 1996. A Prehistory of Sardinia, 2500-500 BC, Chapters 6-7.
25
Lecture 17. Pan-Mediterranean networks:
Assyria, Phoenicia and the west (1000 - 600 BC)
Early in the Iron Age Phoenician cities created the first pan-Mediterranean trading
network, heavily engaged in extracting metals from Iberia. A new, predatory form of
empire expanded from Assyria and early Etruscan centres began to form. Gradually,
the entire Mediterranean began to resemble a melting pot of people and connections.
Essential
Bietti Sestieri, A.M. 1997. ‘Italy in Europe in the Early Iron Age’, Proceedings of the
Prehistoric Society, 63: 371–402. TC 3596. Elctronic resource.
Morris, I. 2003. ‘Mediterraneanization’, Mediterranean Historical Review 18: 30-55.
Electronic resource.
Purcell, N. 1990. ‘Mobility and the polis’, in O. Murray and S. Price (eds.), The
Greek City: From Homer to Alexander, 29-58. TC 570.
Sherratt, E.S. and A.G. Sherratt 1993. ‘The growth of the Mediterranean economy in the
early first millennium BC’, World Archaeology 24: 361-78. Electronic resource.
Recommended
Aubet, M.E. 2001. The Phoenicians and the West: Politics, Colonies and Trade (2nd edn).
Bedford 2009, P. ‘The Neo-Assyrian empire’ in I. Morris and W. Schiedel (eds.) The
Dynamics of Ancient Empires, 30-66.
Cucchi, T., J-D. Vigne and J.-C. Auffray 2005. ‘First occurrence of the house mouse (Mus
musculus domesticus Schwarz & Schwarz 1943) in the western Mediterranean: a
zooarchaeological revision of subfossil occurrences’, in J. Britton-Davidian and J.B.
Searle (eds.) The Genus Mus as a Model for Evolutionary Studies (Biological Journal
of the Linnean Society 84), 429-445.
Faust, A. and E. Weiss. 2011. ‘Between Assyria and the Mediterranean world: the prosperity
of Judah and Philistia in the seventh century BCE in context’, in T. Wilkinson et al.
(eds.) Interweaving Worlds: Systemic Interactions in Eurasia, 7th to the 1st Millennia
BC, 189-204.
Frankenstein, S. 1979. ‘The Phoenicians in the far west: a function of neo-Assyrian
imperialism’, in M.G. Larsen (ed.) Power and Propaganda, 263-294.
Gonzalez de Canales Cerisola, F. et al. 2006. ‘The pre-colonial Phoenician emporium
of Huelva ca. 900-770 BC’, Bulletin Antieke Beschaving 81: 13-29.
Malkin, I. 2003. ‘Networks and the emergence of Greek identity’, Mediterranean
Historical Review 18: 56-74.
Markoe, G.E. 2000. The Phoenicians.
Morris, I. 2000. Archaeology as Cultural History: Words and Things in Iron Age Greece.
Ridgway, D. 2000. ‘The first western Greeks revisited’, in D. Ridgway et al. (eds.),
Ancient Italy in its Mediterranean Setting, 179-91.
Riva, C. and Vella, N. (eds.) 2006. Debating Orientalization: Multidisciplinary
Approaches to Processes of Change in the Ancient Mediterranean.
Schneider, J. 2011. ‘Anticipating the Silk Road: Some thoughts on the wool-murex
connection in Tyre’, in T. Wilkinson et al. (eds.) Interweaving Worlds:
Systemic Interactions in Eurasia, 7th to the 1st Millennia BC, 295-302.
Sherratt, S. 2005. ‘Ethnicities, ethnonyms and archaeological labels. Whose ideologies
and whose identities?’, in J. Clarke (ed.) Archaeological Perspectives on the
Transmission and Transformation of Culture in the Eastern Mediterranean, 25-38.
26
Lecture 18. City-states around the sea:
Towns, ‘colonies’, and local people (700 - 500 BC)
From 700-500 BC urban communities, many of them coastal, became established
throughout the Mediterranean basin. In the east urbanism was already ancient, though
new forms emerged, notably the Greek polis, while in the centre and west new towns
arose through an interplay between overseas residence and indigenous developments.
Essential
Dietler, M. 2007. ‘The Iron Age in the western Mediterranean’, in W. Scheidel, I.
Morris and R. Saller (eds.) The Cambridge Economic History of the GrecoRoman World, 242-276. TC 3634; ANC HIST M64 SCH/
Osborne, R. 1996. ‘Pots, trade and the archaic Greek economy’, Antiquity 70: 31-44.
Electronic resource.
Snodgrass, A.M. 1986. ‘Interaction by design: the Greek city state’, in A.C. Renfrew
and J.F. Cherry (eds.) Peer Polity Interaction and Socio-political Change, 47-58.
Issue desk REN 10; AH REN.
van Dommelen, P. 1997. ‘Colonial constructs: colonialism and archaeology in the
Mediterranean’, World Archaeology, 28: 305-23. Electronic resource.
Recommended
Regional overviews
Barker, G and Rasmussen, T. 1998. The Etruscans.
Diaz-Andreu, M. and S. Keay (eds.) 1997. The Archaeology of Iberia.
Dietler, M. 2010. Archaeologies of Colonialism: Consumption, Entanglement and
Violence in Ancient Mediterranean France.
Docter, R. et al. 2007. ‘Punic Carthage: Two decades of archaeological investigations’, in J.
López Castro (ed.) La ciudades fenicio-púnicas en el Mediterráneo Occidental, 85-104.
Osborne, R. 1996 (or revised 2010). Greece in the Making: 1200-479, Chapters 6-9.
Riva, C. 2010. The Urbanisation of Etruria: Funerary Practices and Social Change, 700-600 BC.
Schmidt, B.B. (ed.) 2007. The Quest for the Historical Israel.
Trigger, B.G. et al. 1983. Ancient Egypt: A Social History, Chapter 4.
On towns
Cunliffe, B. and S. Keay (eds.) 1995. Social Complexity and the Development of
Towns in Iberia (many relevant chapters, see especially Aubet and Niemeyer).
Horden, P. and N. Purcell 2000. The Corrupting Sea, 89-122.
Osborne, R. 1987. Classical Landscape with Figures: The Ancient Greek City and its Countryside.
Osborne, R. and Cunliffe, B. (eds.) 2005. Mediterranean Urbanization 800-600 B.C.
Runciman, W.G. 1990. ‘Doomed to extinction: the polis as an evolutionary dead-end’, in
O. Murray and S. Price (eds.) The Greek City From Homer to Alexander, 347-67.
Interaction between ‘colonies’ and indigenous groups
Hodos, T. 2006. Local Responses to Colonization in the Iron Age Mediterranean.
Malkin, I. 2011. A Small Greek World: Networks in the Ancient Mediterranean.
Purcell, N. 2005. ‘Colonization and Mediterranean history’, in H. Hurst and S. Owen
(eds.) Ancient Colonizations: Analogy, Similarity and Difference, 122-30.
van Dommelen, P. 1998. On Colonial Grounds: A Comparative Study of Colonisation.
and Rural Settlement in First Millennium BC West Central Sardinia.
Vives-Ferrándiz, J. 2008. ‘Negotiating colonial encounters: hybrid practices and
consumption in Eastern Iberia (8th–6th centuries BC). Journal of Mediterranean
Archaeology 21(2): 241-72.
27
Lecture 19. Mare nostrum:
The imperial Mediterranean and beyond (500 BC - AD 2000)
Imperial expansion accelerated in the later 1st millennium BC, culminating in Rome’s
conquests, which brought Mediterranean societies under single rule for the first, and
last, time. What impact did this have, and how did Mediterranean life mesh with the
demands of empire? Finally, what of the subsequent history of the Middle Sea?
Essential
Abulafia, D. (ed.) 2003. The Mediterranean in History (browse chapters 5-9). DAG
2000 Qto ABU; History Qtos 40 j ABU.
Alcock, S.E. and Cherry, J.F. 2005. ‘The Mediterranean world’, in C. Scarre (ed.),
The Human Past: World Prehistory and the Development of Human Societies,
472-517 (latter sections on Hellenistic and Roman). Issue desk SCA 4.
Fulford, M. 1987. ‘Economic interdependence among urban communities in the
Roman Mediterranean’, World Archaeology 19: 58-75. Electronic resource.
Woolf, G. 1990. ‘World-systems analysis and the Roman empire’, Journal of Roman
Archaeology 3: 44-58. Electronic resource.
Recommended
Constantakopoulou, C. 2007. The Dance of the Islands: Insularity, Networks, the
Athenian Empire and the Aegean World.
Studies in the Roman economy and imperial incorporation
Alcock, S.E. 1993. Graecia Capta: The Landscapes of Roman Greece.
Bowman, A.K. 1986. Egypt After the Pharaohs: 332 BC - AD 642.
Cornell, T. and K. Lomas (eds.) 1995. Urban Society in Roman Italy.
Duncan-Jones, R. 1990. Structure and Scale in the Roman Economy.
Greene, K. 1986. The Archaeology of the Roman Economy.
Mattingly, D.J. 1995. Tripolitania.
Parkins, H.M. (ed.) 1997. Roman Urbanism: Beyond the Consumer City.
Scheidel, W. 2007. ‘Demography’ in Scheidel et al. (eds.) The Cambridge Economic
History of the Greco-Roman World, 38–86.
Shaw, B.D. 2006. At the Edge of the Corrupting Sea.
Woolf, G. 1998. Becoming Roman: The Origins of Provincial Civilization in Gaul.
After Rome
Abulafia, D. 2011. The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean, later chapters.
Brown, P. 1971. The World of Late Antiquity: from Marcus Aurelius to Muhammed.
Braudel, F. 1972. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II.
Cameron, A. 1993. The Mediterranean World in Late Antiquity, AD 395-600.
Hodges, R. and D. Whitehouse 1983. Mohammed, Charlemagne and the Origins of
Europe: Archaeology and the Pirenne Thesis.
Horden, P. and N. Purcell 2000. The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean
History (dip in for post-Roman insights).
McCormick, M. 2001. Origins of the European Economy: Communications and
Commerce A.D. 300-900.
Pirenne, H. 1992 (English translation). Mohammed and Charlemagne.
Pryor, J.H. 1988. Geography, Technology and War: Studies in the Maritime History
of the Mediterranean 649-1571.
PLEASE NOTE THAT SESSION 20 IS A DISCUSSION SEMINAR
28
Assessments
The assessed coursework consists of two essays, each of 2375-2625 words. Choose
one title from each of the groups listed below. Readings should be drawn primarily
from the relevant parts of the lecture bibliographies indicated for each essay, but the
emphasis placed on comparison in this course may mean that you wish to explore
more widely. Note that you are NOT expected to have read all the readings given for
each lecture, but should select according to the issues that you are asked to address; it
is also worth mentioning that although the readings for some questions are more
widely spread than others, selection is anticipated in the latter case, and the expected
amount of reading is equivalent for all questions. I am happy to provide guidance on
more specifically tailored reading for the approach you wish to take in your answer.
Essay 1:
1. How coherent an EITHER ecological OR cultural entity was the Mediterranean
during prehistory?
Core reading: Lectures 1-3.
2. Why is EITHER field survey OR maritime archaeology OR provenance and
residue analysis so crucial a dimension of Mediterranean archaeology?
Core: Lecture 4 (and 3 for maritime).
3. How might we best safeguard the heritage of the early Mediterranean from the
threats it faces today?
Core: Lecture 5.
4. How profoundly did geography and palaeoclimate influence the expansion of
hominins and later hunter-gatherers around the Pleistocene Mediterranean?
Core: Lecture 6.
5. How diverse were the processes by which the Neolithic become established across
the Mediterranean?
Core: Lecture 7.
6. Why has north Africa proven so hard to integrate in wider Mediterranean
prehistory?
Core: Lectures 8, 9.
7. Is a world-systemic perspective on the early Mediterranean analytically helpful?
Core: Lecture 9.
Essay 2:
1. What might an eastern Mediterranean archaeologist learn from the prehistory of
Iberia?
Core: Lectures 11, 14
29
2. How can we explain the contrasting trajectories from the Neolithic to the end of
the Bronze Age of any THREE of the following island regions: Cyprus, Crete,
Malta, Sardinia, the Aeolian islands, and the Balearics?
Core: Lectures 8, 12, 13, 14.
3. Were social or technological factors more important in the expansion of
Mediterranean maritime activity?
Core: Lectures 7, 12, 15, 17.
4. How critical were EITHER metals OR olive and vine cultivation to Mediterranean
economies?
Core: Lectures 8, 9, 13, 15, 17.
5. How profoundly did EITHER political organization OR inter-regional trade change
between the Bronze and Iron Ages?
Core: Lectures 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18.
7. Why, despite their antiquity in the Near East, did EITHER empires OR towns take
so long to become established throughout the Mediterranean basin?
Core: Lectures 13, 17, 18.
8. Why were prehistoric Mediterranean societies so prone to collapse?
Core: Lectures 2, 11, 16.
Proposed submission deadlines for essays, subject to discussion on 2nd October 2008:
Essay 1: Friday 15th March 2013
Essay 2: Monday 22nd April 2013
30