Laura Motta, PhD

Assistant Professor of Environmental Archaeology

University of Michigan

Abstract:

The site of Karanis, a Greco-Roman farming village in Egypt’s Fayum region, was extensively excavated by the University of Michigan between 1924 and 1935. Documenting the evolution of the site through a system of “levels” running from the Ptolemaic Period to Late Antiquity, the excavators left behind a dense archival record now housed at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology (Ann Arbor, Michigan). Also brought back to Ann Arbor was an immense quantity of material culture remains that provides critical insights into the daily life and economy of the settlement in the Roman period, including stores of crops exceptionally well preserved. Despite 100 years of research and long-standing scholarly tradition, much of these materials and records have yet to be systematically studied, contextualized and published. A new research effort is underway in the framework of the EoS funded AGROS Project: Agriculture, Diet and (mal)Nutrition in Greco-Roman Egypt.  Preliminary results have already challenged some long standing assumptions about the settlement decline in relation to the fall of the Roman Empire.  In particular, a series of radiocarbon dates, the first ever for a Greco-Roman settlement in Egypt, have overhauled the chronology of the site, showing  that Karanis was abandoned in the seventh century CE, much later than previously believed. 

Bio

Laura Motta is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Archaeology in the Department of Classical Studies, University of Michigan. She specializes in people-environment interactions in the Mediterranean during the later prehistory and early historical periods.  Her research focuses on the investigation of social complexity in urban settings through food redistribution patterns, agricultural practices, and landscape modifications. She is currently involved in projects in Italy, Turkey, and Egypt. She is the Curator for Archaeobiological collections and director of the Archaeobiology Lab at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, and the director of environmental archaeology for the Gabii Project.