Professor Martin Pitts

My research deals with the roles of material culture in late Iron Age and Roman northwest Europe, often studied using quantitative approaches. I have particular interests in consumption, and how circulating objects played a role in historical globalising processes through the transformation of objectscapes and societies. I am a founding director of the Exeter Centre for Motion and Connectivity in the Ancient World, which was established in 2015 to spearhead research into the impact of ancient connectivity, globalising processes and human mobility. Much of my work concerns the analysis of pottery and related archaeological finds from settlement and mortuary contexts. My research also touches upon mass consumption and globalisation in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Chinese porcelain and its European imitations), for comparative perspectives. These topics and themes all play a major role in my undergraduate and MA teaching, which includes modules on Barbarian societies, Rome: globalisation and materiality, and Britain in the Roman world. I am especially happy to discuss working with PhD candidates in the following research areas:

• Archaeology of late Iron Age and Roman northwest Europe
• Globalisation, objectscapes, and the circulation of material culture
• Quantitative approaches to pottery and artefacts
• Standardisation and mass consumption in antiquity
• Archaeology of Roman urbanism and economies