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Lecturer I

• Affiliation(s)

  • Museum of Anthropology
  • Department of Classical Studies

• Fields of Study

  • Late prehistory, first millennium BCE Italy, complex societies and state formation processes, paleoethnobotany

• About

  Laura Motta is a paleoethnobotanist and her  present research focuses on Iron Age Italy and the Bronze Age Carpathian Basin. She is particularly interested in exploring social complexity trough food production/redistribution patterns and in the early phases of the first cities. Her current field work is at the site of the Archaic city of Gabii, near Rome and at Sant’Omobono in Rome.

• Education

  • PhD, Archaeology, University of Cambridge, 2011
  • CPGS, Archaeological Science, University of Cambridge, 1998
  • BA, Archaeology, University of Pisa, 1994

• Research Areas of Interest

  • Complex societies and state formation processes,  paleoethnobotany,  late prehistory, first millennium BCE Italy

• Selected Publications:

• Articles

  • (2002) Planting the seed of Rome, Vegetation History and Archaeobotany
  • (1997) I paesaggi di Volterra nel tardoantico, Archeologia Medievale

• Book Chapters

  • (2011) Seeds and the city. Archaeobotany and state formation in early Rome, State Formation in Italy and Greece: Questioning the Neoevolutionist Paradigm
  • (2006) The origins of the state par excellence. Power and society in Iron Age Rome, Celtes et Gaulois, l’Archéologie face à l’Histoire, 4: les mutations de la fin de l’âge du Fer
  • (2006) Uno stato debole? Alcune riflessioni su potere pubblico e potere privato in Roma arcaica, Studi di protostoria in onore di Renato Peroni