PREHISTORY OF THE MEDITERRANEAN UP TO THE II MILLENNIUM

The course aims to provide the students with the methodological and theoretical tools necessary to achieve a multidisciplinary understanding of archaeological data, using the Mediterranean as a case study. Particular attention will be paid to Sicily, from its first colonization to the earliest documented contacts with the Aegean, and to human mobility and technological transfer, focusing in particular on pottery technology.

75% of classes will be taught in English

 Based on the Dublin descriptors the objectives of the course are:

1) Knowledge and understanding. Provide students with knowledge of the cultural development of the Mediterranean from its origins to the beginning of the 2nd century BC, through the use of important case studies for the different periods.

2) Ability to apply knowledge and understanding. Ensure that the student is able to tackle research in the field of Aegean prehistory, through the acquisition of adequate tools and methodologies relevant to archaeological, epigraphic and bibliographic research. This will be achieved through in-depth examination of specific research themes in a seminar context.

3) Autonomy of judgment. The student will develop a critical approach to texts by systematically comparing descriptions of monuments and their in situ analysis.

4) Communication skills. Provide students with specialized vocabulary to enable them to communicate adequately to the scientific community.

5) Learning skills. Develop autonomy in the ability to identify the most representative scientific texts and understand them adequately.

The course is organised in three sections:

A: Formation and development of Mediterranean civilizations up to the beginning to the II millennium BC (Tomkins, 3 Credits)

B: Early seafaring and technological transfer in the Mediterranean during prehistory, with a special focus on the initial dispersals of farming and pottery (Tomkins, 3 Credits)

C: Prehistory of Sicily (Todaro, 3 Credits)

Module A: Formation and development of Mediterranean civilizations (Tomkins, 3 Credits)

C. Broodbank, The Making of the Middle Sea. A History of the Mediterranean from the Beginning to the Emergence of the Classical World, chapters I-VII, pp. 8-344;

Module B: Early seafaring and technological transfer (Tomkins, 3 Credits)

·      Guilaine, Jean. A personal view of the neolithisation of the Western Mediterranean. Quaternary International 470 (2018), 211-225.

·      K. Harvati, Röding, C., Bosman, A.M., Karakostis, F.A., Grün, R., Stringer, C., Karkanas, P., Thompson, N.C., Koutoulidis, V., Moulopoulos, L.A. and Gorgoulis, V.G.,. Apidima Cave fossils provide earliest evidence of Homo sapiens in Eurasia. Nature, 571 (7766) (2019), 500-4.

·      P. Jordan, Gibbs, K., Hommel, P., Piezonka, H., Silva, F. and Steele, J., Modelling the diffusion of pottery technologies across Afro-Eurasia: emerging insights and future research. Antiquity, 90 (2016), 590-603.

·      T. Leppard, Modeling the Impacts of Mediterranean Island Colonization by Archaic Hominins: The Likelihood of an Insular Lower Palaeolithic Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 27 (2014), 231-53;

·      T. Leppard, Process and Dynamics of Mediterranean Neolithization (7000-5500 BC), Journal of Archaeological Research 30 (2021), 231-83.

·      T. Strasser, C. Runnels, K. Wegmann, E. Panagopoulou, F. Mccoy, C. Digregorio, P. Karkanas, and N. Thompson. "Dating Palaeolithic sites in southwestern Crete, Greece." Journal of Quaternary Science 26, no. 5 (2011), 553-560.

·      P. Tomkins, Just an everyday story of pots? Thinking through the controversies, materialities and dependencies of initial pottery and organic containers in the East Mediterranean, in O. Nieuwenhuyse†, R. Bernbeck and K. Berghuis (eds.) Container Cultures (in press). Oxford: Oxbow (text provided by the professor)

Module C: Prehistory of Sicily (Todaro, 3 Credits)