National Lecture Program

AIA Lecturer: Pam J. Crabtree

Affiliation: New York University

Pam Crabtree is Professor of Anthropology at New York University, and holds her degrees from the University of Pennsylvania (M.A. and Ph.D.) and Barnard College.  Her fields of research are zooarchaeology, Medieval archaeology (in particular Anglo Saxon archaeology), later Prehistoric Europe, Near Eastern archaeology and prehistory.  She has published widely, and her current projects include Early Medieval Britain–The Rebirth of Towns in the Post-Roman West (Cambridge University Press).

Abstracts:


The early medieval period in Ireland is well known both historically and archaeology, but the Iron Age period (roughly 600 BCE to 400 CE) that preceded it is far less well studied. One of the most interesting features of the Irish Iron Age is the appearance of a series of large hilltop enclosures that are known as “royal sites.” These were not occupations sites, but they appear to have been the sites of periodic ritual feasting and other activities. This talk will discuss the archaeological excavations that have been carried out at Dún Ailinne, Co. Kildare, the most extensively excavated of these royal sites. The talk will include a summary of the original 1968-75 excavations where I was a student excavator, as well as the more recent programs of survey (2006-08) and excavation (2016-present) at the site.

 

Short bibliography and/or website on lecture topic:

This is a short and accessible article that describes the work that was done by Prof. Bernard Wailes: https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/excavations-at-dun-ailinne/

Here is the link to the Wikipedia article which has a list of more recent publications: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%BAn_Ailinne

This presentation explores the archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England from the end of the Roman period to the development of towns in the 8th and 9th centuries CE and the formation of the Anglo-Saxon state in the late 9th and 10th centuries.

 

Short bibliography and/or website on lecture topic:

Crabtree, P., 2018. Early Medieval Britain: the re-Birth of Towns in the Post-Roman West. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Amheida (Roman Trimithis) is located in the Dakleh Oasis in the western Egyptian desert. Excavations carried out in the town have focused on a 3rd-century middle class household and a 4th-century villa. Additional excavations have been conducted at the 4th-5th-century church complex an Ain el-Gedida, also located in the oasis. This presentation will review the archaeology of these three sites and then show how archaeological data can be used to reveal differences in diet and social status between the three sites.

 

Short bibliography and/or website on lecture topic:

https://www.amheida.org/index.php?content=home

Recent excavations at the Burcht and Gorterstraat sites in early medieval Antwerp have produced rich, carefully collected faunal assemblages that provide new information on the economic foundations of early medieval Antwerp. Working closely with colleagues who study the microstratigraphy and insect assemblages from these sites, we have also worked to reconstruct the environment of 8th-11th-century Antwerp. This presentation will detail the zooarchaeological data from early medieval Antwerp and compare them to other early medieval sites in Northwest Europe

 

Short bibliography and/or website on lecture topic:

Pam Crabtree, Eileen Reilly, Barbora Wouters, Yannick Devos, Tim Bellens and Anne Schryvers, Environmental Evidence from Early Urban Antwerp: New Data from Archaeology, Micromorphology, Macrofauna and Insect Remains.  Quaternary International 460 (2917): 107-123.

support Us

The AIA is North America's largest and oldest nonprofit organization dedicated to archaeology. The Institute advances awareness, education, fieldwork, preservation, publication, and research of archaeological sites and cultural heritage throughout the world. Your contribution makes a difference.