Gabriella Armstrong: Gender, Agency and Landuse in the Balkans: Archeological Research on Prehistoric Communities in the Adriatic

My 2024 summer field research, funded in part by the Europe Center, allowed me to conduct preliminary dissertation research on agency and landuse across the Adriatic. I spent a majority of my time in the Balkans, specifically Kosovo and Albania, cataloguing artifacts and recording archaeological site information. I also went to southern Italy where I participated in similar landscape analyses. Thanks to the Europe Center’s generous support, I exceeded my summer research objectives and not only identified locations for more in-depth archaeological analysis, but also honed my research questions to be more region-specific.

My research seeks to evaluate how Bronze and Iron Age communities in the Adriatic manipulated their landscapes for desired outcomes. Through analyzing prehistoric human-landscape interactions in the Adriatic, I hope to shed light on our agency in the present: how we as individuals, communities, and societies, have the ability and responsibility to create positive and lasting change, especially as it relates to our impact on the environment. This past summer I traveled to Kosovo, Italy, and Albania to conduct preliminary dissertation fieldwork along these themes of prehistoric land and resource use.

I first traveled to Pristina, Kosovo where I analyzed artifacts (majority ceramics) excavated from Bronze and Iron Age hillforts in the Pejë and Istog Districts (Northeast Kosovo) as part of University of Michigan PhD Candidate and Albanian archaeologist Erina Baci’s dissertation research. The intent of this work was to collaborate with researchers working in adjacent regions and to obtain a better sense of the ceramics and material record I may encounter in my dissertation work. This was an especially enriching experience for me as I not only became more familiar with the artifact assemblages of these hillforts, but also was able to visit archaeological sites within and surrounding Pristina. Having this experience came in handy when I later traveled to the Mat Valley in Albania where I worked with a team organized by Dr. Giulia Saltini Semerari (Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Assistant Curator at the Museum of Anthropological Archaeology at the University of Michigan) that intends to analyze connectivity and exchange across the Adriatic, from the region of Salento, Italy to the Mat Valley for the Bronze and Iron Age periods. Local communities and historians requested that Dr. Saltini Semerari’s international team collaborate with Albanian researchers to identify archaeological sites to be documented and conserved. It is the hope that this documentation preserves cultural heritage in light of the new highway and related infrastructure projects which threaten to disturb and erase cultural memory along with the archaeological record.

In Italy, we teamed up with researchers from the University of Salento to learn more about the artifact assemblages of the region and to visit sites with prehistoric components. I was a part of the team that went into the landscape everyday to record GPS points for sites and features, and complete aerial geophysical scans of sites. We then traveled to our second region of interest bordering the Adriatic in the Mat Valley, where we worked with the Burrel Museum (local museum in the Mat Valley) and community members to start the process of identifying and recording archaeological sites in the region.

The most rewarding part of my summer research was my work with the Burrel Museum. This museum houses archaeological material collected from excavations in the mid to late 1900s. These artifacts needed to be cleaned, digitally recorded, and rehoused. Dr. Saltini Semerari’s team first worked with museum staff to come up with a plan to best suit their goals for these artifacts and then spent two weeks cleaning, identifying, recording, and organizing hundreds of artifacts. This was an amazing opportunity to receive more hands-on experience with artifacts from this region, but also a satisfying and meaningful way to give back to the community. I cannot thank the Europe Center enough for their generous support which allowed me to complete summer field research in three different locations, which has laid the necessary foundation for my dissertation research.