Rural Landscapes and Peasant Communities

fall 2020

RuralHouse_(Madonnie).jpg

ARCH 2245 (CRN 17546)
Peter van Dommelen
Thu 4.00 - 6.30 pm, Rhode Island Hall 108

The overarching aim of this course is to explore rural settlement and agrarian production in the Mediterranean, in both the ancient and the recent to contemporary past. The archaeological starting-point is provided by the numerous scatters of surface remains that archaeological surveys across the Mediterranean have collected and that are usually interpreted as 'farmsteads' broadly datable to Classical Antiquity. Another rationale is that the ancient economy was before anything else an agrarian economy, and in order to begin to understand both, it is crucial to know more about rural organization and agrarian production. Rural settlement studies, geomorphological surveys and environmental analysis offer one avenue for exploring the rural past, but another approach is offered by archaeological, historical and ethnographic studies of the recent and contemporary past that offer valuable material for comparison. Together, these approaches enable both an overview and revealing insights into rural landscapes in the broadest sense of the term.

In this course, we will look well beyond rural settlement scatters and animal bones to examine the social and economic significance of rural settlement through comparison with ethnographic and historical rural studies from across the Mediterranean and elsewhere in the world in order to explore rural household and community organization as well as agrarian production in the both the ancient and recent past.

This semester (Fall 2020), this course will be taught as a hybrid course. While it is primarily a graduate seminar, and thus based on reading and discussion, it is also open to (advanced) undergraduates. See elsewhere in the syllabus and on these Canvas pages for the accommodations made to undergraduates.

The detailed logistics of the course to make the most of the hybrid set-up will be discussed during the first seminar (September 10).

ARCH2245 Fall20 S01 Rural Landscapes and Peasant Communities in the Mediterranean