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ARCHAEOLOGY TODAY
"American Dark Ages: American rejection of Medieval Archaeology", Caroline Goodson (Birkbeck, University of London)
Thursday April 12, 2012 | 05:00 -07:00 PM | Stanford Archaeology Center

Here in the United States, the teaching and funding of archaeology generally avoids the study of the European and Islamic Middle Ages, leaving the period between late antiquity and early modernity to historians and art historians. Classical archaeology is a vibrant field in the U.S., so too is the early modern/ historical archaeology of Europe and the Americas; why not the middle ages? Looking at the history of the discipline, its origins in ecclesiastical history and Marxist politics, I shall explore what lies behind American academia's lack of interest, and what it means about the practice of archaeology and classics here in the U.S. Using at the City of Rome as a case study, I will show the richness of the field and the potential gains it holds for existing disciplines.

Caroline Goodson is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of History, Classics and Archaeology at Birkbeck, University of London. Her research interests and expertise focus on exploring the post-Roman Mediterranean world and its transition from Ancient to Medieval societies. Recent publications include a monograph titled, "The Rome of Pope Paschal I (817-824)" and a coedited and coauthored volume, "Cities, Texts, and Social Networks, 400-1500." She is a field director for excavations at the site of Villamagna in central Italy (http://www.villa-magna.org/).