Inaugural Lecture - Professor Martin Pitts
“Alternative histories through material culture. Contaminating encounters and objectscapes in the Roman north”
| A Department of Classics and Ancient History lecture | |
|---|---|
| Date | 15 November 2023 |
| Time | 16:00 to 17:00 |
| Place | Streatham Court Old B |
| Provider | Department of Classics and Ancient History |
| Organizer | HASS |
Event details
Abstract
Professor Martin Pitts
My research deals with the late Iron Age to Roman transition in northwest Europe, and the application of quantitative methods to studying artefacts and material culture. I have particular interests in consumption, and how circulating objects played a role in historical globalising processes through the transformation of objectscapes and societies. I am a founding director of the Exeter Centre for Motion and Connectivity in the Ancient World, which was founded in 2015 to spearhead research into the impact of ancient connectivity, globalising processes and human mobility.
Much of my work concerns the analysis of pottery and archaeological finds assemblages, from settlement and mortuary contexts. In addition to the Roman period, my research also touches upon mass consumption and globalisation in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Chinese porcelain and its European imitations), for comparative perspectives.
These topics and themes all play a major role in my undergraduate and specialist MA teaching, which includes modules on Barbarian societies, Rome: globalisation and materiality, and Britain in the Roman world. I am especially happy to consider working with PhD candidates in the following research areas:
- Roman archaeology, esp. late Iron Age to Roman northwest Europe
- Globalisation, objectscapes, and the circulations and impacts of objects
- Quantitative approaches to pottery and material culture
- Standardisation and mass consumption in antiquity
- Urbanism and the archaeology of the Roman economy
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“Alternative histories through material culture. Contaminating encounters and objectscapes in the Roman north”
History is often framed in terms of flows of people: the move ‘out of Africa’, the spread of farmers in the Holocene, and ‘colonisations’ by Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans. In this lecture, I argue that history is also about flows of objects, which transformed objectscapes and societies through a myriad of contaminating encounters with short- and long-term consequences. Drawing upon the rich data of archaeological material culture, I sketch an alternative view of Roman imperial expansion in northwest Europe (Britain, Gaul and Germany), and explore the implications for local objectscapes in a globalised and globalising world (c. 100 BCE – 400 CE). The examples I shall discuss concern the social occasions of eating and drinking, and include the impact of Italian wine, standardised dining services, African-style casseroles, and (possible) Mithraic ritual vessels
Location:
Streatham Court Old B
