Simon Stoddart
Biographic Data
| ID | 75608 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Simon Stoddart |
| GIVEN NAMES | Simon |
| FAMILY NAME | Stoddart |
| SIGNATURE | STODDART S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Cambridge |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5480-7075 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 79 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 248 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 76 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 3 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1982 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
The process of nucleation amongst the early cities of central Italy in the first millennium BC
This article assesses the process of nucleation amongst the early cities of Tyrrhenian central Italy in the first millennium BC. The article examines the advantages, disadvantages and causes of nucleation. A multi-proxy and multi scalar perspective is implemented drawing on the available evidence for ancient DNA, isotopes, pedology/geoarchaeology, animal and plant remains, contextualized within the settlement archaeology. The article contains ori…
Pointing out the pattern
Beneath the city
Maria Chiara Bettini
From fragility to sustainability
The Maltese Archipelago is a microcosm of long-term Anthropocene human manipulation of the environment spanning the last 8000 years. Despite their apparent fragility, the islands continue to sustain an increasing population. This paper summarises the geoarchaeological methods employed by the ERC-funded FRAGSUS Project and an associated PhD project which explored the terraced landscapes of these islands. Our projects employed archaeological excava…
Analysis of periosteal lesions from commingled human remains at the Xagħra Circle hypogeum reveals the first case of probable scurvy from Neolithic Malta
ObjectivesPalaeopathological analysis is key for characterising population health at the individual level and across large assemblages but is rarely exploited to unite the remains of disarticulated individuals. This study explores the potential for individual identification through differential diagnosis of periosteal lesions in a commingled deposit, both to ascertain the number of individuals represented and provide a differential diagnosis.Mate…
Neolithic Ritual on the Island Archipelago of Malta
This paper addresses the ritual of Neolithic Malta in its island context drawing on recent research by the FRAGSUS project. Ritualised club houses placed in horticultural enclosures formed the focal point of the prehistoric Maltese landscape in the fourth and third millennia BC, providing a stable exploitation of the islands by the small populations of the period. This was a period when connectivity was more challenging than in the Bronze Age whi…
From the Axial Age to the Fifth Sun. The articulation of the local with the global
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Light and Dark in Prehistoric Malta
The Maltese islands offer an unusual opportunity for the analysis of the interplay of light and dark in a prehistoric context. The potential is provided by the excellent preservation of the architectural monuments which permit the framing of different scenarios of light and dark, tempered by the need to reconstruct tentatively some missing elements such as the roofs. A number of features, such as the intense sunshine and the dramatic storms, have…
Radiocarbon Dated Trends and Central Mediterranean Prehistory
This paper reviews the evidence for long term trends in anthropogenic activity and population dynamics across the Holocene in the central Mediterranean and the chronology of cultural events. The evidence for this has been constituted in a database of 4608 radiocarbon dates (of which 4515 were retained for analysis following initial screening) from 1195 archaeological sites in southern France, Italy and Malta, spanning the Mesolithic to Early Iron…
Italy, Sicily, Malta, and the Lipari Islands
Power and Place in Etruria
This volume fills a gap in the study of an important, yet neglected case of state formation, by taking a landscape perspective to Etruria. Simon Stoddart examines the infrastructure, hierarchy/heterarchy and spatial patterns of the Etruscans over time to investigate their political development from a new perspective. The analysis both crosses the divide from prehistory to history and applies a scaled analysis to the whole region between the Tyrrh…
An Etruscan Urban Agenda
This article presents the results of the weaving together of two traditions. The first is the cultural history of Etruscan urbanism which has been widely presented in numerous accounts and is not offered in detail here. The second is the regional-survey tradition of settlement archaeology which has not previously been synthesized as one continuous historical process from the late second millennium bc into the first millennium bc. The combined res…
Compositional characterization of Etruscan earthen architecture and ceramic production
This study presents the results of new research into Etruscan technology for earthen architecture as well as ceramic production in the upper Tiber Valley in central Italy, using as a case study the Etruscan settlement of Col di Marzo (Perugia). It determines the compositional differences of the raw material employed as building material and for ceramic production by X‐ray powder diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis and differential therm…
Placing and remembering the dead in late Neolithic Malta
This paper integrates the results of recent bioarchaeological and spatial analyses at one of the largest collective burial sites in Europe, the Xagħra Circle Hypogeum on Gozo. This suite of new approaches has addressed demography, funerary practices, interactions with the dead, and the changing use of space. Modelling structural events and reconstructing funerary practices from 2900 to 2350 cal BC, we trace persistent variation and flexibility in…
Connecting chert sources of Sicily with Neolithic chert artefacts of Malta
Tyrrhenian central Italy
This paper compares changes in vegetation structure and composition (using synthetic fossil pollen data) with proxy data for population levels (including settlements and radiocarbon dates) over the course of the last 10 millennia in Tyrrhenian central Italy. These data show generalised patterns of clearance of woodland in response both to early agriculturalists and urbanism, as well as the specific adoption of tree crops and variations in stock g…
Island questions
Identification of dermestid beetle modification on Neolithic Maltese human bone
Water and cosmology in the prehistoric Maltese world
Island risks and the resilience of a prehistoric civilization
Resilience in the face of uncertainty is a universal issue, but of particular concern for small islands where climate change and accelerated sea-level change are current worries. This paper investigates the issues of resilience and uncertainty in the case of prehistoric Malta, which at face value presented a natural environment fraught with many risks. The authors survey these dangers, especially the potential damage to food crops caused by soil …
Celebrations in prehistoric Malta
This paper investigates the tempo of celebration in prehistoric Malta through the deployment of new fieldwork data and comparison with ethnographic study of modern celebrations on the same island. The article commemorates the late Jeremy Boissevain and his stimulation of new ways of thinking about prehistory, assesses and updates the 1990 article in World Archaeology by two of the current authors, and deploys new computerized modelling of celesti…
Power and Place in Etruria
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Non-destructive method for the identification of ceramic production by portable X-rays Fluorescence (pXRF). A case study of amphorae manufacture in central Italy
Fingerprinting the Iron Age: Approaches to identity in the European Iron Age
Monuments in an island society
Island societies have been the focus of two principal lines of archaeological theory: the \nprocesses of initial colonization (Cherry 1981) and the transformations of social hierarchy \n(Renfrew 1974). Both these themes have been heavily influenced by ethnographic studies \nof the Polynesian islands, the supposed laboratory of island development for the \ndisciplines of biogeography and social anthropology. It is the second line of enquiry that i…
The social context of literacy in Archaic Greece and Etruria
In recent years much emphasis has been placed upon the effects of literacy in the transformation of the Mediterranean World between 800 and 400 BC. Alphabetic scripts have been seen by many, archaeologists and classicists alike, as one of the key factors that made many of the achievements of Mediterranean, particularly Greek, thought and culture possible. Alphabetic scripts encouraged widespread literacy, and widespread literacy was the necessary…
Inscribed Landscapes
The Iron Age Community of Osteria dell'Osa
Anna Maria Bietti Sestieri, one of the finest Italian protohistorians, deals in this monograph with a major archaeological site, the Iron Age cemetery of Osteria dell'Osa, near Rome. The cemetery materials provide rich insights into the emergence of the city-state in central Italy in the crucial period 900 580 BC. Paying particular attention to the causes of variation in burials - ritual, gender, age, status - Dr Bietti Sestieri is able to develo…
Neolithic diet at the Brochtorff Circle, Malta
From Neolithic Malta, there is evidence of increasing population size accompanied by increasingly elaborate material culture, including the famous megalithic architecture. Stoddart et al. (1993) argued that social tensions and controls increased as food resources diminished. One important requirement of this argument is that the Neolithic inhabitants of Malta depended entirely on domesticated plants and animals for subsistence and therefore, with…
Radiocarbon Dated Trends and Central Mediterranean Prehistory
This paper reviews the evidence for long term trends in anthropogenic activity and population dynamics across the Holocene in the central Mediterranean and the chronology of cultural events. The evidence for this has been constituted in a database of 4608 radiocarbon dates (of which 4515 were retained for analysis following initial screening) from 1195 archaeological sites in southern France, Italy and Malta, spanning the Mesolithic to Early Iron…
Tyrrhenian central Italy
This paper compares changes in vegetation structure and composition (using synthetic fossil pollen data) with proxy data for population levels (including settlements and radiocarbon dates) over the course of the last 10 millennia in Tyrrhenian central Italy. These data show generalised patterns of clearance of woodland in response both to early agriculturalists and urbanism, as well as the specific adoption of tree crops and variations in stock g…
Cult in an Island Society
This paper examines the cult practices of the Tarxien period on Malta (c. 3000–c. 2500 BC) within the wider context of island societies. A model of ritual organization is developed which emphasizes the isolation of Malta during the major phases of temple building. A comparison is made between two pairs of sites each comprising a temple and burial component, Tarxien and Hal Saflieni, Ggantija and the Brochtorff Circle. A more detailed comparison i…
The Tiber Valley Project
In 1997 a new collaborative research project was initiated by the British School at Rome. This project draws on a variety of sources of archaeological information to explore the regional impact of the City of Rome throughout the period from 1000 BC to AD 1300. The project provides a common collaborative research framework which brings together a range of archaeologists and historians working in various institutions. In this paper those involved i…
Territory, Time and State
Part I. 1. Introduction Caroline Malone, James McVicar, and Simon Stoddart: Part II. The Environmental Setting 2. Geology and geomorphology Mauro Coltorti 3. Pedology Mirjam Schomeaker, Eric Van Waveren, Peter Finke, Rene Sewuster, and Jan Servink 4. Vegetation and climate Franscesco Allegrucci, Edoardo Biondi, Rachel Fulton, Christopher Hunt, Simon Stoddary, and Rupert Housley Part III. The First Human Occupation and Transition to Agriculture: 5…
Island risks and the resilience of a prehistoric civilization
Resilience in the face of uncertainty is a universal issue, but of particular concern for small islands where climate change and accelerated sea-level change are current worries. This paper investigates the issues of resilience and uncertainty in the case of prehistoric Malta, which at face value presented a natural environment fraught with many risks. The authors survey these dangers, especially the potential damage to food crops caused by soil …
Composing Culture
On the Transition to Agriculture
Island questions
Mapping the Ager Faliscus road-system
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Recent Research on the City and Territory of Nepi (VT)
NUOVE RICERCHE SULLA CITTÀ E IL TERRITORIO DI NEPI (VT) In questo articolo si rendono noti i risultati dei lavori nella città e nel territorio di Nepi (VT). Vengono dati un resoconto ccmpleto dei reperti di superficie rinvenuti da Torre Stoppa e da Il Pizzo, datati all'età del bronzo, e la relazione finale del piccolo scavo vicino San Tolomeo, dentro la stessa città, che ha riportaio alia luce un mosaico di prima eta imperiale. Vengono inoltre pr…
A house for the temple builders
After many years new research is being undertaken into the prehistory of the islands of Malta at the invitation of the Maltese authorities. One of the early results of the work, started in 1987, is the discovery of evidence for domestic architecture to complement the already well known ritual monuments of the Maltese islands
Placing and remembering the dead in late Neolithic Malta
This paper integrates the results of recent bioarchaeological and spatial analyses at one of the largest collective burial sites in Europe, the Xagħra Circle Hypogeum on Gozo. This suite of new approaches has addressed demography, funerary practices, interactions with the dead, and the changing use of space. Modelling structural events and reconstructing funerary practices from 2900 to 2350 cal BC, we trace persistent variation and flexibility in…
Celebrations in prehistoric Malta
This paper investigates the tempo of celebration in prehistoric Malta through the deployment of new fieldwork data and comparison with ethnographic study of modern celebrations on the same island. The article commemorates the late Jeremy Boissevain and his stimulation of new ways of thinking about prehistory, assesses and updates the 1990 article in World Archaeology by two of the current authors, and deploys new computerized modelling of celesti…
Mortuary Ritual of 4th Millennium bc Malta
As part of the research of the joint Anglo-Maltese project on the island of Gozo, a Zebbug period rock-cut tomb was discovered in the south-east corner of the Brochtorff Circle. The integrity of this tomb and the interdisciplinary approach applied to its study make it a unique find from the Maltese islands and rare within the southern central Mediterranean. The article presents the stratigraphy, pottery, stone, shell and bone artefacts, skeletal …
Pointing out the pattern
From the Axial Age to the Fifth Sun. The articulation of the local with the global
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Opening the Frontier
The frontier between Gubbio (ancient Umbria) and Perugia (ancient Etruria), in the northeast part of the modern region of Umbria, was founded in the late sixth century bc . The frontier endured in different forms, most notably in the late antique and medieval periods, as well as fleetingly in 1944, and is fossilized today in the local government boundaries. Archaeological, documentary and philological evidence are brought together to investigate …
A century of prehistory and landscape studies at the British School at Rome
UN SECOLO DI STUDI PREISTORICI E DEL PAESAGGIO ALLA ‘BRITISH SCHOOL AT ROME’ Questo articolo esamina i cento anni di tradizione di studi preistorici e del paesaggio della ‘British School at Rome’. Questo secolo di ricerca consiste in tre fasi principali: la direzione di Ashby, quella di Ward-Perkins e gli ultimi tre decenni del ventesimo secolo. Le prime due sezioni, scritte principalmente da Tim Potter prima della sua scomparsa, ripercorrono lo …
The neolithic site of San Marco, Gubbio (Perugia), Umbria
RICOGNIZIONE E SCAVO DEL SITO NEOLITICO DI SAN MARCO, GUBBIO (PERUGIA), UMBRIA, 1985–7 La ricognizione e lo scavo dell'insediamento di San Marco rappresenta uno dei pochi esempi di studio interdisciplinare compiuti nell'Italia centrale e riguardante un sito neolitico. Sono stati studiati in maniera approfondita i vari aspetti geologici ed ambientali del sito, collocato su un conoide alluvionale. Sono state inoltre ottenute date al 14 C, eseguite …
A Review of the Evidence for Prehistoric Activity in Part of South Etruria
RASSEGNA DELLE TESTIMONIANZE DI ATTIVITÀ PREISTORICA IN PARTE DELL'ETRURIA DEL SUD Questo articolo mette in discussione la completezza della documentazione preistorica, anche nella zona intensamente studiata dalla British School. In esso si avanza l'ipotesi che le difficoltà metodologiche e d'ambiente hanno influito negativamente sulla documentazione preistorica più che su quella classica. Questa conclusione è basata sull'analisi di 17 siti origi…
The social context of literacy in Archaic Greece and Etruria
In recent years much emphasis has been placed upon the effects of literacy in the transformation of the Mediterranean World between 800 and 400 BC. Alphabetic scripts have been seen by many, archaeologists and classicists alike, as one of the key factors that made many of the achievements of Mediterranean, particularly Greek, thought and culture possible. Alphabetic scripts encouraged widespread literacy, and widespread literacy was the necessary…
A house for the temple builders
After many years new research is being undertaken into the prehistory of the islands of Malta at the invitation of the Maltese authorities. One of the early results of the work, started in 1987, is the discovery of evidence for domestic architecture to complement the already well known ritual monuments of the Maltese islands
Monuments in an island society
Island societies have been the focus of two principal lines of archaeological theory: the \nprocesses of initial colonization (Cherry 1981) and the transformations of social hierarchy \n(Renfrew 1974). Both these themes have been heavily influenced by ethnographic studies \nof the Polynesian islands, the supposed laboratory of island development for the \ndisciplines of biogeography and social anthropology. It is the second line of enquiry that i…
Environment, soils and early agriculture in Apennine Central Italy
Many studies of early agriculture and soils in Europe and in Italy, in particular, concentrated on the prime soils; relatively little attention has been given to more marginal zones. Broad comparisons have often been made between modern soils and the distributions of sites and little attention has been paid to indicators of pedological change, such as snails and pollen. Recent archaeological and environmental research in the valley of Gubbio (Umb…
John G. Pedley. Paestum. Greeks and Romans in Southern Italy. 184 pages, 124 illustrations. 1990. London
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Composing Culture
The neolithic site of San Marco, Gubbio (Perugia), Umbria
RICOGNIZIONE E SCAVO DEL SITO NEOLITICO DI SAN MARCO, GUBBIO (PERUGIA), UMBRIA, 1985–7 La ricognizione e lo scavo dell'insediamento di San Marco rappresenta uno dei pochi esempi di studio interdisciplinare compiuti nell'Italia centrale e riguardante un sito neolitico. Sono stati studiati in maniera approfondita i vari aspetti geologici ed ambientali del sito, collocato su un conoide alluvionale. Sono state inoltre ottenute date al 14 C, eseguite …
Towards a Historical Ethnology of the Mediterranean
On the Transition to Agriculture
Cult in an Island Society
This paper examines the cult practices of the Tarxien period on Malta (c. 3000–c. 2500 BC) within the wider context of island societies. A model of ritual organization is developed which emphasizes the isolation of Malta during the major phases of temple building. A comparison is made between two pairs of sites each comprising a temple and burial component, Tarxien and Hal Saflieni, Ggantija and the Brochtorff Circle. A more detailed comparison i…
The Iron Age Community of Osteria dell'Osa
Anna Maria Bietti Sestieri, one of the finest Italian protohistorians, deals in this monograph with a major archaeological site, the Iron Age cemetery of Osteria dell'Osa, near Rome. The cemetery materials provide rich insights into the emergence of the city-state in central Italy in the crucial period 900 580 BC. Paying particular attention to the causes of variation in burials - ritual, gender, age, status - Dr Bietti Sestieri is able to develo…
Mortuary Ritual of 4th Millennium bc Malta
As part of the research of the joint Anglo-Maltese project on the island of Gozo, a Zebbug period rock-cut tomb was discovered in the south-east corner of the Brochtorff Circle. The integrity of this tomb and the interdisciplinary approach applied to its study make it a unique find from the Maltese islands and rare within the southern central Mediterranean. The article presents the stratigraphy, pottery, stone, shell and bone artefacts, skeletal …
Fieldwork Grants
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The domestication of the proto-Villanovan mind
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Territory, Time, and State
Fieldwork Grants
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Territory, Time and State
Part I. 1. Introduction Caroline Malone, James McVicar, and Simon Stoddart: Part II. The Environmental Setting 2. Geology and geomorphology Mauro Coltorti 3. Pedology Mirjam Schomeaker, Eric Van Waveren, Peter Finke, Rene Sewuster, and Jan Servink 4. Vegetation and climate Franscesco Allegrucci, Edoardo Biondi, Rachel Fulton, Christopher Hunt, Simon Stoddary, and Rupert Housley Part III. The First Human Occupation and Transition to Agriculture: 5…
Fieldwork Grants
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Gis
Milco Wansleeben provides a useful review of some of the current problems of GIS, and I find much agreement with his comments. As he states most effectively, GIS provides the ability to execute repetitive routes rapidly. When practised well, it will not save time but allow the more thorough interrogation of the data within the same time
Nigel Spivey Etruscan art. 216 pages. 38 colour plates, 149 black-&-white plates, 3 figures. 1997. London
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Special section David Clarke's 'Archaeology
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Special section A celebration of 1848
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Special section
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Geography (52 works) · Archaeology (51 works) · History (45 works) · Ancient Mediterranean Archaeology and History (23 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (23 works) · Art (23 works) · History (21 works) · Computer Science (20 works) · Maritime and Coastal Archaeology (17 works) · Sociology (16 works)