The Archaeology of Frontiers, Borderlands, and Boundaries

Catalog description

This class is intended to familiarize students with the material culture and experiences of ancient frontiers and borderlands. Among the questions that students will consider are: to what extent are frontiers real or abstract barriers? Who and what determines where and why borders are established? How do people cross them? Who can cross them? And how does material culture mediate, contribute to, and become entangled, in these processes and doings? To explore these questions, the class's main case study will be the frontiers and borderlands of the Roman Empire. Rather than simply being a historical overview, however, we will examine the archaeological evidence of Rome's periphery (the limes) through weekly thematic lenses. These themes include conceptions of boundaries, gender, violence, the role of military and police forces, transborder communities, connectivity, movement, and landscapes. While ancient Rome's frontiers are the main setting, this course also incorporates applicable readings from different spatial and temporal contexts, as well as pertinent theoretical approaches. This is to connect the patterns seen on the Empire's edge with other human experiences, draw attention to ancient Rome's influential conceptualization of borders, and, finally, to provide additional comparative evidence and interpretive frameworks.