Publications by Miriam Rothenberg
Routledge Handbook on Cultural Heritage and Disaster Risk Management, 2024
Journal of Field Archaeology, 2024
Nuraghi are ubiquitous in the Bronze Age Sardinian landscape, but the reasons for their distribut... more Nuraghi are ubiquitous in the Bronze Age Sardinian landscape, but the reasons for their distribution and wider function remain poorly understood. Here, we evaluate the argument that these megalithic fortified towers were situated for visual control and thus represent nodes of political or coercive power. Using a dataset of 102 nuraghi, we perform a normalized cumulative viewshed to quantify nuraghe visibility in southwestern Sardinia. We analyze the co-occurrence of highly visible areas with variables pertinent to economic control of the landscape using a model comparison approach. The results suggest that there is no underlying structure to the location of the nuraghi that can be related to visual appreciability of the wider environment, indicating that visual control was not an important consideration during the later 2nd millennium B.C. We consider what the driving rationale may have been behind such a predominant site type that is yet apparently unrelated to political control.
Archaeology as Festival: Virtual Wanderings through festivalCHAT during Covid-19, 2023
The SAA Archaeological Record, 2023
Archaeological Review from Cambridge, 2021
International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 2021
Caribbean sugar mills were powered by water, animals, wind, or steam, yet the evidence indicates ... more Caribbean sugar mills were powered by water, animals, wind, or steam, yet the evidence indicates major differences between islands in terms of which mill type predominated. We suggest that windmills offered few, if any, advantages over animal mills and several serious disadvantages. Why, then, were so many windmills built during the eighteenth century on some of the islands of the eastern Caribbean and so few on others? Here, we draw on Costly Signaling Theory to help explain these patterns. The preference for windmill-building may have had less to do with functional requirements or economic efficiency than with cultural competition, the signaling of membership of the planter class, and the display of power throughout the plantation landscape.
International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 2020
Caribbean plantation landscapes were designed to mediate interactions between planters and enslav... more Caribbean plantation landscapes were designed to mediate interactions between planters and enslaved laborers. In this paper, wind-powered sugar mills on the island of Montserrat are singled out as being prominent components of the plantation environment that were not only economically productive, but also served as markers of planter power and control. The mills' distinctive shape and height render them instantly identifiable, and their integral role in the sugar production process makes them signifiers of that industry. Here, viewshed analysis is employed to demonstrate the visual ubiquity of Montserrat's sugar mills before emancipation, emphasizing the affective power of these edifices even beyond the borders of the individual plantations they served.
Internet Archaeology, 2017
Introduction The Welsh Government's historic environment service, Cadw (Welsh: 'to keep, protect'... more Introduction The Welsh Government's historic environment service, Cadw (Welsh: 'to keep, protect'), released a mobile app in early 2016 so that members of the public can learn about and plan visits to heritage sites cared for by Cadw. With more than one hundred archaeological sites available for browsing, conveniently ordered by spatial proximity to the user, and with a clean and accessible user-interface, the app effectively showcases the richness and distinctive character of Wales's archaeological record. The software provides basic information about each site and how to visit it, as well as more in-depth information for select locations. It is kept up to date with content related to current heritage events in Wales.
Antiquity, 2019
The Batn el-Hagar in Sudan has traditionally been characterised as sparsely occupied during the M... more The Batn el-Hagar in Sudan has traditionally been characterised as sparsely occupied during the Middle Kingdom Period, with most activity limited to the Egyptian fortresses along the Second Cataract. A new survey programme undertaken by the Uronarti Regional Archaeological Project offers evidence for a more richly occupied landscape.
Public Archaeology, 2016
On 14 and 15 April 2016, the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World hosted a c... more On 14 and 15 April 2016, the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World hosted a conference on 'Archaeology and Futurity', which sought to consider archaeology as a future-oriented discipline, and address themes of time and temporality, contemporaneity, and the social relevance of archaeology beyond the academy. The conference was organized by Postdoctoral Fellow Matthew Reilly and featured twelve speakers from around the world. Over the course of two days, the conference participants presented individual papers in three themed sessions, each followed by a moderated discussion. Laurent Olivier (Musée d'Archéologie Nationale, France) and Cornelius Holtorf (Linnaeus University, Sweden) offered opening and closing plenary remarks, respectively. Papers ranged from purely theoretical exercises to applied case studies, and incorporated a broad range of perspectives looking towards the future of the discipline.
Advances in Archaeological Practice, 2016
Museum educators and graduate students at Brown University's Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology ... more Museum educators and graduate students at Brown University's Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology and the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World, along with the RISD Museum at the Rhode Island School of Design, are entering their eighth year of partnering with sixth-grade social studies teachers in Providence Public Schools in a five-session classroom and museumbased archaeology program called Think Like an Archaeologist. This experiential program uses the study of archaeological methods to address state and national social studies standards and bridges social studies content with the literacy standards of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) that aim at moving students toward twenty-first-century skill building. Students not only understand the science behind the content in their textbooks but also learn how to use museum objects and archaeological artifacts as primary resources. Students also learn to "read" artifacts, express their ideas in spoken and written language as historians, and use academic vocabulary as required by CCSS while thinking like archaeologists. Through teacher feedback and student evaluations, we know this program to be a successful example of the benefits of teaching archaeological skills in middle school curricula—so much so that it has now been re-created at additional schools in other regions.
MA Dissertation by Miriam Rothenberg
This dissertation presents the findings of a study of Italian mobility and connectivity between r... more This dissertation presents the findings of a study of Italian mobility and connectivity between rural sites, using case studies in the Ager Veientanus (Tiber Valley) and the Sangro Valley. The methods were borrowed and adjusted from Bell, Wilson, and Wickham’s 2002 paper ‘Tracking the Samnites: landscape and communications routes in the Sangro Valley, Italy’, and the Sangro Valley portion of this study is largely methodological. Regional field survey data were used with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and elevation data to generate least-cost paths between sites and scatters for several sequential periods, including those covering Rome’s emergence as the dominant power in Italy. The resulting path networks were compared with one another, with the overall distribution of sites, and with known locations of ancient roads. It was found for both regions that paths tended to persist through multiple periods and that their locations were closely linked with dominant topological features. In the Ager Veientanus, many of the paths that appeared frequently in the models corresponded well with the locations of Etruscan and Roman roads. An important exception to this trend was the Via Flaminia (constructed 220 BC), which did not align well with any of the major modelled paths, and some of the paths that ran perpendicular to Rome did not have Roman roads to match them. These results speak to questions of rural mobility, land use, and economy, and have important implications for South Etruria’s physical and political transition from a land of competing Etruscan city-states to part of Rome’s suburbium.
Conference Presentations by Miriam Rothenberg
On July 18th, 1995, after centuries of relative quiet, Montserrat's Soufrière Hills volcano sudde... more On July 18th, 1995, after centuries of relative quiet, Montserrat's Soufrière Hills volcano suddenly and violently sprang to life. The months that followed saw a series of evacuations of the southern portions of the island due to the volcanic threat, rendering this landscape—including the capital town of Plymouth—an abandoned 'Exclusion Zone'. By 2000, the majority of the island's population had left more or less permanently, many for the United Kingdom. Those who stayed faced the challenge of rebuilding the island and adjusting to life in resettlement communities. This paper investigates how the landscapes of the Exclusion Zone, the northern 'Safe Zone', and the liminal area between them have come to reflect different aspects of the ongoing volcanic risk. Furthermore, it explores how the volcanic diaspora has affected the identity of Montserratian communities that moved to the north of the island and those that settled farther afield.
The papers in this session fall into two main categories: archaeologists forget, and the politics... more The papers in this session fall into two main categories: archaeologists forget, and the politics of forgetting. In our introductory paper we wish to cover a third angle of the archaeology of forgetting, namely forgetting as a productive process. In the first half of this paper we will address the role forgetting plays in constructing appropriate actions around mourning and burial. Mortuary actions exist within a heightened moment in the life course, in which remembering and forgetting play a significant role. We will explore whether actions that encourage forgetting can be identified in the archaeological record. Following this, we will look at some of the ways in which societies selectively remember and forget aspects of the past when recovering from trauma, and in how the material record manifests the creation of a post-trauma cultural identity.
We address these themes with two central case studies of Roman and Islamic cemeteries at Çatalhöyük, and the post-volcanic eruption landscapes of contemporary Montserrat. These two disparate examples draw together to illuminate which aspects of individual and societal forgetting are visible at different scales of analysis, from the personal and immediate choices of what to put in a grave, to the shifting landscape use of an island community across generations.
As James Delle recently argued, Caribbean plantation landscapes were built environments designed ... more As James Delle recently argued, Caribbean plantation landscapes were built environments designed to mediate interactions between planters and enslaved labourers. In this paper, wind-powered sugar mills on the island of Montserrat are singled out as being prominent components of the plantation environment that were not only economically productive, but also served as markers of planter power and control. The mills’ distinctive shape and height renders them instantly identifiable, and their integral role in the sugar production process – and location in the heart of the plantation complex – makes them signifiers of that industry. Here, viewshed analysis is employed to demonstrate the visual ubiquity of Montserrat’s sugar mills before emancipation in 1834, emphasizing the affective power of these edifices even beyond the borders of the plantations they served. It is also argued that the windmills’ persistence as common and recognizable landscape features plays a role in the lasting colonial legacy on Montserrat.
Broadly speaking, archaeologists divide our sources for studying the past into the material recor... more Broadly speaking, archaeologists divide our sources for studying the past into the material record and the textual record, but with the ‘Digital Revolution’ of the mid-twentieth century, a third significant aspect of culture has taken shape: the digital. For contemporary (and future) archaeologists, acknowledgement of this digital record will be crucial for understanding human cultures. Although digital things are frequently engaged with and stored in material objects (e.g. hard drives, smartphones), the programs and lines of code that make up the digital experience are inherently non-physical. Even so, our experience is shaped by how they are linked, structured, and presented, thus giving digital environments a sense of ‘materiality without physicality’. This includes both the individual texts and media that are left behind, and the structuring capacities of computer programs, user interfaces, and methods of communication and transmission.
In the face of an increasingly blurred boundary between the digital and non-digital spheres – e.g. through the proliferation of digital social networks and the development of an ‘Internet of Things’ – we must begin to consider the digital record from an archaeological perspective. To do so requires both investigating the impact of emerging media on archaeology, and considering our responsibility, as students of material culture, to understand and share the broader cultural effects of rapidly evolving digital technology. In order to make archaeology relevant to contemporary and future generations, therefore, we need not only for archaeology to be embedded in digital media, but for there to be an archaeology of that digital media.
Since 2012, Brown University has conducted annual excavations on College Hill with the aim of und... more Since 2012, Brown University has conducted annual excavations on College Hill with the aim of understanding diachronic changes in the campus’ physical environment and student activities. This poster presents the results of archaeometric research conducted on a variety of artifacts (ceramic, glass, and metal) excavated from a single context abutting Hope College dormitory (constructed 1822). The artifacts were analyzed using p-XRF, optical microscopy, SEM, and EDS, in order to understand their intended function and process of manufacture. This high-resolution, localized, and scientific approach significantly enhanced the understanding of College Hill at a specific moment in time, while also demonstrating continuity in student activities there from the dorm’s construction to the present. Of particular interest is a ceramic drain pipe sherd, the analysis of which has helped to refine the picture of Hope College’s architectural history, contextualizing it in more general infrastructural trends in 19th century New England.
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) represent an important and increasingly popular tool in geol... more Geographic Information Systems (GIS) represent an important and increasingly popular tool in geology and other fields. Community-based learning is an excellent way for students to gain a better appreciation for the functionality of GIS, while encouraging independent thinking and problem solving. Community-based learning pairs students with local organizations to help the organizations address a need. This relationship is mutually beneficial, as it teaches students to complete a project efficiently and professionally, while allowing them to serve their community in a meaningful way. Community-based learning fosters ties between colleges and their communities through the sharing of knowledge.
Students in Oberlin College’s “Applied GIS” geology course partnered with non-profit and government organizations to complete community-based research projects in northeastern Ohio. Students were required to act independently, gathering data from various sources, planning data processing, preparing data, and performing data analysis. This learning style placed emphasis on both the students’ autonomy in the process, and on the teamwork necessary to complete the projects. Students’ partnership with their community partners paralleled real-world, employee-employer relationships through the completion of a detailed project proposal, consistent communication, creation and presentation of a final poster, and a written final report. Although some problems arose during these projects, most could have been solved or avoided through improved communication with project partners, better time management, and closer instructor supervision. Despite these challenges, each group was able to create a poster and present their findings to community partners at the end of the course.
The students’ technical and analytical abilities in GIS greatly improved as a result of the time and effort expended on their projects. Feedback from the community partners has shown that the projects provided a useful service for organizations that would otherwise have been unable to conduct such research. The community-based research projects proved to be highly beneficial for both the students and greater community, increasing student knowledge while allowing them to give back to the larger community.
Conference sessions by Miriam Rothenberg
As time passes, we forget. In the ongoing conversation about memory and archaeology, this session... more As time passes, we forget. In the ongoing conversation about memory and archaeology, this session frames forgetting as a productive and selective process. The act of forgetting, deliberate or otherwise, shapes which ideas persist in communities of practice. Archaeology is a discipline built around absences; we piece together our truths from a highly fragmentary material record. The concept of forgetting, analogous to that of destruction of the material record, can be constructed as both inadvertent decay and deliberate omission. Pulling apart those two types of forgetting in past and contemporary societies is a key aim of this session.
Archaeology tends to be concerned with what remains; we are afraid of losing things or allowing traces of the past to slip through the cracks. However, this is a perspective not necessarily shared with our subjects of study. Following recent ontological approaches to the past which emphasise the potential radical differences between different ways of living, we seek papers which address material absences that might be interpreted as omissions. We are interested in critically appraising whether we can identify moments of forgetting as deliberate or otherwise, and whether such omissions are archaeologically visible in prehistoric, historic, and contemporary societies. Paper submissions are encouraged to deal with topics as broad as the role of the state in forgetting, transgenerational memory and different scales of memory/ forgetting, the difference between memory and knowledge of the past, and the knotty problem of how to discuss material culture which is absent from the archaeological record.
Talks by Miriam Rothenberg
Presentation of my in-progress dissertation research about Montserrat's ruinscapes and community ... more Presentation of my in-progress dissertation research about Montserrat's ruinscapes and community responses to the recent eruptions of the Soufrière Hills Volcano (1995-present).
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Publications by Miriam Rothenberg
MA Dissertation by Miriam Rothenberg
Conference Presentations by Miriam Rothenberg
We address these themes with two central case studies of Roman and Islamic cemeteries at Çatalhöyük, and the post-volcanic eruption landscapes of contemporary Montserrat. These two disparate examples draw together to illuminate which aspects of individual and societal forgetting are visible at different scales of analysis, from the personal and immediate choices of what to put in a grave, to the shifting landscape use of an island community across generations.
In the face of an increasingly blurred boundary between the digital and non-digital spheres – e.g. through the proliferation of digital social networks and the development of an ‘Internet of Things’ – we must begin to consider the digital record from an archaeological perspective. To do so requires both investigating the impact of emerging media on archaeology, and considering our responsibility, as students of material culture, to understand and share the broader cultural effects of rapidly evolving digital technology. In order to make archaeology relevant to contemporary and future generations, therefore, we need not only for archaeology to be embedded in digital media, but for there to be an archaeology of that digital media.
Students in Oberlin College’s “Applied GIS” geology course partnered with non-profit and government organizations to complete community-based research projects in northeastern Ohio. Students were required to act independently, gathering data from various sources, planning data processing, preparing data, and performing data analysis. This learning style placed emphasis on both the students’ autonomy in the process, and on the teamwork necessary to complete the projects. Students’ partnership with their community partners paralleled real-world, employee-employer relationships through the completion of a detailed project proposal, consistent communication, creation and presentation of a final poster, and a written final report. Although some problems arose during these projects, most could have been solved or avoided through improved communication with project partners, better time management, and closer instructor supervision. Despite these challenges, each group was able to create a poster and present their findings to community partners at the end of the course.
The students’ technical and analytical abilities in GIS greatly improved as a result of the time and effort expended on their projects. Feedback from the community partners has shown that the projects provided a useful service for organizations that would otherwise have been unable to conduct such research. The community-based research projects proved to be highly beneficial for both the students and greater community, increasing student knowledge while allowing them to give back to the larger community.
Conference sessions by Miriam Rothenberg
Archaeology tends to be concerned with what remains; we are afraid of losing things or allowing traces of the past to slip through the cracks. However, this is a perspective not necessarily shared with our subjects of study. Following recent ontological approaches to the past which emphasise the potential radical differences between different ways of living, we seek papers which address material absences that might be interpreted as omissions. We are interested in critically appraising whether we can identify moments of forgetting as deliberate or otherwise, and whether such omissions are archaeologically visible in prehistoric, historic, and contemporary societies. Paper submissions are encouraged to deal with topics as broad as the role of the state in forgetting, transgenerational memory and different scales of memory/ forgetting, the difference between memory and knowledge of the past, and the knotty problem of how to discuss material culture which is absent from the archaeological record.
Talks by Miriam Rothenberg
We address these themes with two central case studies of Roman and Islamic cemeteries at Çatalhöyük, and the post-volcanic eruption landscapes of contemporary Montserrat. These two disparate examples draw together to illuminate which aspects of individual and societal forgetting are visible at different scales of analysis, from the personal and immediate choices of what to put in a grave, to the shifting landscape use of an island community across generations.
In the face of an increasingly blurred boundary between the digital and non-digital spheres – e.g. through the proliferation of digital social networks and the development of an ‘Internet of Things’ – we must begin to consider the digital record from an archaeological perspective. To do so requires both investigating the impact of emerging media on archaeology, and considering our responsibility, as students of material culture, to understand and share the broader cultural effects of rapidly evolving digital technology. In order to make archaeology relevant to contemporary and future generations, therefore, we need not only for archaeology to be embedded in digital media, but for there to be an archaeology of that digital media.
Students in Oberlin College’s “Applied GIS” geology course partnered with non-profit and government organizations to complete community-based research projects in northeastern Ohio. Students were required to act independently, gathering data from various sources, planning data processing, preparing data, and performing data analysis. This learning style placed emphasis on both the students’ autonomy in the process, and on the teamwork necessary to complete the projects. Students’ partnership with their community partners paralleled real-world, employee-employer relationships through the completion of a detailed project proposal, consistent communication, creation and presentation of a final poster, and a written final report. Although some problems arose during these projects, most could have been solved or avoided through improved communication with project partners, better time management, and closer instructor supervision. Despite these challenges, each group was able to create a poster and present their findings to community partners at the end of the course.
The students’ technical and analytical abilities in GIS greatly improved as a result of the time and effort expended on their projects. Feedback from the community partners has shown that the projects provided a useful service for organizations that would otherwise have been unable to conduct such research. The community-based research projects proved to be highly beneficial for both the students and greater community, increasing student knowledge while allowing them to give back to the larger community.
Archaeology tends to be concerned with what remains; we are afraid of losing things or allowing traces of the past to slip through the cracks. However, this is a perspective not necessarily shared with our subjects of study. Following recent ontological approaches to the past which emphasise the potential radical differences between different ways of living, we seek papers which address material absences that might be interpreted as omissions. We are interested in critically appraising whether we can identify moments of forgetting as deliberate or otherwise, and whether such omissions are archaeologically visible in prehistoric, historic, and contemporary societies. Paper submissions are encouraged to deal with topics as broad as the role of the state in forgetting, transgenerational memory and different scales of memory/ forgetting, the difference between memory and knowledge of the past, and the knotty problem of how to discuss material culture which is absent from the archaeological record.