Alex Knodell
My research is concerned with multi-scalar, diachronic approaches to archaeologies of landscape and interaction, especially in the Mediterranean and Middle East. I am particularly interested in Mediterranean prehistory and early history, networks, technology, urbanism, the archaeology of regions, and comparative approaches to complex societies.
I currently co-direct the Small Cycladic Islands Project with colleagues from the Ephorate of Antiquities of the Cyclades and the Norwegian Institute at Athens. From 2014 to 2017 I co-directed the Mazi Archaeological Project (Northwest Attica, Greece) with colleagues from Switzerland and Greece. From 2010 to 2013 I served as field director of the Brown University Petra Archaeological Project.
Since the fall of 2014 I have been in the Department of Classics at Carleton College, where I also direct the Archaeology Program. Prior to Carleton, I was a postdoctoral fellow at the Getty Research Institute as part of the Visiting Scholars Program on "connecting seas." My Ph.D. is from the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World at Brown University, where I wrote a dissertation on network dynamics in the Euboean Gulf in the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age.
You can find more information below and on my faculty profile page: https://apps.carleton.edu/profiles/aknodell/.
Address: Department of Classics
Carleton College
One North College Street
Northfield, MN 55057
I currently co-direct the Small Cycladic Islands Project with colleagues from the Ephorate of Antiquities of the Cyclades and the Norwegian Institute at Athens. From 2014 to 2017 I co-directed the Mazi Archaeological Project (Northwest Attica, Greece) with colleagues from Switzerland and Greece. From 2010 to 2013 I served as field director of the Brown University Petra Archaeological Project.
Since the fall of 2014 I have been in the Department of Classics at Carleton College, where I also direct the Archaeology Program. Prior to Carleton, I was a postdoctoral fellow at the Getty Research Institute as part of the Visiting Scholars Program on "connecting seas." My Ph.D. is from the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World at Brown University, where I wrote a dissertation on network dynamics in the Euboean Gulf in the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age.
You can find more information below and on my faculty profile page: https://apps.carleton.edu/profiles/aknodell/.
Address: Department of Classics
Carleton College
One North College Street
Northfield, MN 55057
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Books by Alex Knodell
https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/regional-approaches-society/
Papers by Alex Knodell
This chapter begins with a brief description of the nature of historical and archaeological evidence concerning ancient Greek cities, and the environ- mental and agricultural context in which they were situated. The next sections discuss the diachronic development of the Greek city, from the Early Iron Age to the Hellenistic period and the beginning of the Roman Empire, focusing on issues of population, settlement size, and urban form, as well as political systems and the distribution of power.
https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/regional-approaches-society/
This chapter begins with a brief description of the nature of historical and archaeological evidence concerning ancient Greek cities, and the environ- mental and agricultural context in which they were situated. The next sections discuss the diachronic development of the Greek city, from the Early Iron Age to the Hellenistic period and the beginning of the Roman Empire, focusing on issues of population, settlement size, and urban form, as well as political systems and the distribution of power.
The first part of the dissertation (Chapters 1-4) introduces the project and discusses current disciplinary issues, its theoretical framework, and its geographical context. The second part (Chapters 5-9) provides a diachronic explication of network dynamics in the Euboean Gulf, ranging across local, regional, and trans-Mediterranean scales. These chapters provide synthesis, analysis, and interpretation of a variety of related, though seemingly divergent, social phenomena, including the collapse of the Mycenaean palaces and the eighth-century political revolution, the disappearance of Linear B and adaptation of the Greek alphabet from the Phoenician script, the technological transition from bronze to iron as the dominant utilitarian metal, and a major shift in the nature of maritime interactions – from being predominantly eastern Mediterranean phenomena to encompassing nearly all the shores of the Middle Sea.
In sum, I argue first that human interactions across multiple scales feed into one another to shape the major social, political, and technological changes seen throughout the period in question, and second that networks provide a strong means of modeling and explaining these changes. In particular, the networks in which the Euboean Gulf operated increasingly exhibit characteristics of “small worlds” and “the strength of weak ties,” where the addition of even a single connection into a wider system can result in the relatively rapid diffusion of political, cultural, and technological ideas. At the same time, these networks go through phases of higher and lower degrees of centrality and stability, resulting in occasional societal upheaval and restructuring in explainable (though not necessarily predictable) patterns in the dynamics of social complexity.