Photo of Alex Knodell

Alex Knodell

Associate Professor of Classics, Classics
Director of Archaeology, Archaeology

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.


At Carleton since 2014.

Current Courses

  • Spring 2024
    ARCN 251: Greece at a Crossroads: History, Landscape, and Material Culture:Digital Archaeology and Virtual Reality
  •  
    CLAS 200: Greece at a Crossroads: History, Landscape, and Material Culture
  •  
    POSC 237: Greece at the Crossroads Program: Borders, Boundaries and Human Mobility