Alex Knodell

Education & Professional History

University of Wisconsin (Madison), BA; Brown University, PhD

I am an archaeologist specializing in the ancient Mediterranean and Middle East, especially during prehistoric and classical times. Most broadly, I am interested in archaeological approaches to landscape, interaction, and long-term social change. Much of my research on these topics has focused on Greece, and how the regions within it relate to each other and their wider Mediterranean setting in the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age (c. 1400-700 BCE). This is the subject of my book, Societies in Transition in Early Greece: An Archaeological History (University of California Press).

I have done archaeological fieldwork in Greece, Jordan, Guatemala, and the US, most recently by leading two multidisciplinary regional surveys in Greece. The first is the Mazi Archaeological Project, focusing on the Mazi Plain, a small mountain plain at a crossroads between central and southern Greece, which also forms part of the border between the regions of Attica and Boeotia. The second is the Small Cycladic Islands Project, which began in 2019 as a survey of several small, currently uninhabited islands in the Cycladic archipelago.

At Carleton, I teach in the Classics Department and direct the interdisciplinary Archaeology Program. I teach courses on the archaeology of the ancient Mediterranean world, ancient languages and cultures (and their significance in later times), and archaeological method and theory.

I am currently based in Greece, on sabbatical for the 2022-2023 Academic Year. I am available to answer questions about the Archaeology Program or Spring 2024 OCS Program in Greece over email.

Some recent, representative publications are listed below. A full list can be found on my CV; many can be found in digital form here.

Books

Knodell, A.R. 2021. Societies in Transition in Early Greece: An Archaeological History. Oakland: University of California Press.

Knodell, A.R., and T.P. Leppard, eds. 2018. Regional Approaches to Society and Complexity: Studies in Honor of John F. Cherry. Monographs in Mediterranean Archaeology 15. Sheffield: Equinox.

Articles and Book Chapters

Knodell, A. R. 2022. “Palatial and Non-Palatial Landscapes in the Mycenaean World: Territorial Models for Boeotia and Euboea.” In Political Geographies of the Bronze Age Aegean, edited by G. J. van Wijngaarden and J. Driessen, 113–124. Babesch Supplements 43. Leuven: Peeters.

Knodell, A. R., T. C. Wilkinson, T. P. Leppard, and H. A. Orengo. 2022. “Survey Archaeology in the Mediterranean World: Regional Traditions and Contributions to Long-Term History.” Journal of Archaeological Research: 1–67 (plus online supplementary content).

Athanasoulis, D., A.R. Knodell, Ž. Tankosić, Z. Papadopoulou, M. Sigala, C. Diamanti, Y. Kourayos, and A. Papadimitriou. 2021. “The Small Cycladic Islands Project (2019-2020): A Comparative Survey of Uninhabited Landscapes near Paros and Antiparos, Greece.” Antiquity 95 (380): e12, 1–9.

Fachard, S., S.C. Murray, A.R. Knodell, and K. Papangeli, with contributions by N. Papazarkadas and F. Marchand. 2020. “The Fortress of Eleutherai: New Insights from Survey, Architecture, and Epigraphy.” Hesperia 89(3): 476–549.

Gauß, W., and A.R. Knodell. 2020. “Aeginetan Pottery in the Aegean World: Mapping Distributions around an Island Hub.” In From Past to Present: Studies in Memory of Manfred O. Korfmann, edited by S. Blum, T. Efe, T. Kienlin, and E. Pernicka, 245–262. Studia Troica Monographien 11. Bonn: Habelt.

Knodell, A.R., D. Athanasoulis, Ž. Tankosić, J.F. Cherry, T.K. Garonis, E.I. Levine, D. Nenova, and H.Ç Öztürk. 2020. “An Island Archaeology of Uninhabited Landscapes: Offshore Islets Near Paros, Greece (The Small Cycladic Islands Project).” Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology: 1–37.

Fachard, S., and A.R. Knodell. 2020. “Out of Attica: Modeling Mobility in the Mycenaean Period.” In Athens and Attica in Prehistory, edited by N. Papadimitriou, J.C. Wright, S. Fachard, and N. Polychronakou-Sgouritsa, 407–416. Oxford: Archaeopress.

Knodell, A.R. 2018. “Collapse and Failure in Complex Societies.” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 28(4): 713–717.

Knodell, A.R. 2017. “A Conduit Between Two Worlds: Geography and Connectivity in the Euboean Gulf.” In An Island Between Two Worlds: The Archaeology of Euboea from Prehistoric to Byzantine Times, edited by Ž. Tankosić, F. Mavridis, and M. Kosma, 195–213. Papers and Monographs from the Norwegian Institute at Athens 6. Athens: Norwegian Institute at Athens.

Knodell, A.R., S.E. Alcock, C. Tuttle, C.F. Cloke, T. Erickson-Gini, C. Feldman, G.O. Rollefson, M. Sinibaldi, and C. Vella. 2017. “The Brown University Petra Archaeological Project: Landscape Archaeology in the Northern Hinterland of Petra, Jordan.” American Journal of Archaeology 121(4): 621–683.

Knodell, A.R., S. Fachard, and K. Papangeli. 2017. “The Mazi Archaeological Project 2016: Survey and Settlement Investigations in Northwest Attica (Greece).” Antike Kunst 60: 146–163.