May 25, 2023
To celebrate our 2023 Fellowship recipients, we will be spotlighting each of our winners in news stories on the AIA website. We have reached out to our winners to learn about their projects and about their experiences in archaeology.
We’re excited for you to meet Lisa Nevett, one of the AIA-NEH Grant recipients for this year. Lisa Nevett is Professor of Classical Archaeology and Director of the Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology with the University of Michigan. She holds her degrees from the University of Cambridge, and her research interests include the archaeology of the Greek world during the first millennium BCE, the Roman world c. 1st century BCE to 4th century CE, material culture as a source for social history, household archaeology, the built environment, and gender archaeology. She is Co-Director of the Olynthos Project, and her most recent publications include An Age of Experiment: Classical Archaeology Transformed (1976-2014) (ed. with J. Whitley, 2018, Cambridge, MacDonald Institute of Archaeology Monograph Series). Professor Nevett was a 2019/2020 AIA Joukowsky Lecturer.
AIA-NEH Grant for Post-fieldwork Research and Publication recipient: Lisa Nevett (she/her); The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
What is your fellowship project about?
Our grant funding will support provenance analysis of a sample of the 145,000 artefacts collected during the Olynthos Project, a research program carried out between 2014 and 2019 at the ancient city of Olynthos in northern Greece as a collaboration between the Greek Archaeological Service and the British School at Athens. We will use pXRF analysis and ceramic petrography to discover the provenance of a sample of the ceramic and stone artifacts as a key to understanding:
– To what extent may the materials used to make different classes of artifact have been sourced from the same geographical location? (do they use the same clays and tempers?)
– To what extent and in what ways, did the sources of those classes of artifacts change over time?
– To what extent might historical processes (e.g. changing political alliances, which are recorded in the historical sources in some detail) have influenced the sources of goods, and hence patterns of trade and exchange?
How did you get your start in archaeology?
I went to Greece as an undergraduate to work as a student excavator on the British School at Athens’ project at Assiros in northern Greece. I subsequently held a year-long fellowship at the School when I was finishing my Ph.D. on Classical and Hellenistic Greek housing.
Where in the world has archaeology brought you (fieldwork, research, conference travel, etc.)?
I have undertaken field work in Greece, Libya, Turkey and Hebrides (Scotland). I have carried out archival research, attended conferences and given lectures across Europe and North America.
What is one of the most memorable things that has happened to you in the field?
Late one evening during our 2019 field season, the Halkidiki (where the site of Olynthos lies) was hit by a tornado. The winds were terrifying. Luckily no-one from our team was injured but there was widespread devastation, especially closer to the coast, and on the site of ancient Olynthos itself, numerous trees were damaged.
How has the AIA contributed to your success/professional goals?
The AIA has provided a forum for meeting colleagues, students from other institutions (and sometimes other countries) and other archaeological enthusiasts. This has happened not only at Annual Meetings but also through the Institute’s sponsorship of its lecture program, as a result of which I have been privileged both to meet visiting speakers in Ann Arbor and also to travel and speak to a range of different local societies.
Learn more about what Fellowship opportunities are available through the AIA or reach out to our Director of Programs, Meredith Langlitz, at mlanglitz@archaeological.org.
