Elisa Perego
I am a Honorary Research Associate at UCL. I was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at OREA, the Austrian Academy of Sciences & Honorary Research Associate at Institute of Archaeology, UCL in 2017 to 2019. My work in archaeology focuses on social marginality, inequality and social change in the late prehistoric and early Roman central Mediterranean. I also work on European late prehistory and archaeological theory. My most recent research focuses on health and disability in relation to COVID-19.
In 2013-2014 I was the Ralegh Radford Rome Fellow at The British School at Rome, with a project entitled ''MICROPOLITICAL APPROACHES TO SOCIAL INEQUALITY: CASE STUDIES FROM FIRST-MILLENNIUM BC ITALY''.
In 2012-2013 I undertook a research project entitled ''MICRO-HISTORIES IN THE LONG-TERM PROCESS: MARGINALITY, GENDER AND ETHNICITY IN EASTERN CISALPINE GAUL, c. 400 BC – 25 AD'', supported by The Celtic Research Trust.
I completed my PhD at the Institute of Archaeology, UCL, in 2012. My doctoral research focused on the construction and negotiation of personhood in the Italian region of Veneto between the late Bronze Age and the early Roman period. Before starting my PhD, I undertook a Masters degree in Archaeology at UCL. My MA dissertation discussed issues of ritual and liminality in Iron Age Venetic funerary rites. In 2004, I was awarded a Laurea Magistrale in Classics and Archaeology by State University of Milan. My first degree thesis focused on gender and women's social role in Iron Age Veneto.
You are very welcome to contact me if you share the same interest for the archaeology of late prehistoric, protohistoric and early Roman Italy, or if you want more information about my work.
Supervisors: Dr. Corinna Riva and Prof. Sue Hamilton
In 2013-2014 I was the Ralegh Radford Rome Fellow at The British School at Rome, with a project entitled ''MICROPOLITICAL APPROACHES TO SOCIAL INEQUALITY: CASE STUDIES FROM FIRST-MILLENNIUM BC ITALY''.
In 2012-2013 I undertook a research project entitled ''MICRO-HISTORIES IN THE LONG-TERM PROCESS: MARGINALITY, GENDER AND ETHNICITY IN EASTERN CISALPINE GAUL, c. 400 BC – 25 AD'', supported by The Celtic Research Trust.
I completed my PhD at the Institute of Archaeology, UCL, in 2012. My doctoral research focused on the construction and negotiation of personhood in the Italian region of Veneto between the late Bronze Age and the early Roman period. Before starting my PhD, I undertook a Masters degree in Archaeology at UCL. My MA dissertation discussed issues of ritual and liminality in Iron Age Venetic funerary rites. In 2004, I was awarded a Laurea Magistrale in Classics and Archaeology by State University of Milan. My first degree thesis focused on gender and women's social role in Iron Age Veneto.
You are very welcome to contact me if you share the same interest for the archaeology of late prehistoric, protohistoric and early Roman Italy, or if you want more information about my work.
Supervisors: Dr. Corinna Riva and Prof. Sue Hamilton
less
InterestsView All (35)
Uploads
Edited volumes by Elisa Perego
Political disintegration, economic crises, the controversial and yet dramatic consequences of global warming and pollution, as well as the spread of poverty and social disruption in western countries, have made collapse one of the key topics in the humanities and social sciences. In the frenetic run for identifying the global causes and large-scale consequences of collapse, however, crisis events taking place at the micro-scale are not always explored by scholars addressing these issues in present and past societies. At the same time, the voices of the marginal and non-élite people that might be the main victims of collapse events are often silenced in ancient history and archaeology.
This workshop will address questions such as: How can collapse be identified in the archaeological record? What kind of archaeological, bioarchaeological and environmental evidence can be considered indicative of collapse? Is it appropriate to use this term for crisis events that take place at the micro-scale without evidence of extensive destruction in the archaeological record?
Topics of interest for our discussion include, but are not limited to, how crisis events affect the lives of people with different identities; the role of socially excluded groups in collapse events; climate change and climate downturns; “micro-scale” cases of natural disaster; migration and displacement; technology and production in contexts of intense socio-cultural change; cultural resistance and survival.
Collapse and Inequality is an output of the CoPOWER MSCA Project based at the OREA Institute. Building on the long-term projects “Collapse or Survival” and “The End of the Spectrum: Towards an Archaeology of Marginality” at UCL, this workshop contributes to the new research group at OREA “Prehistoric Identities”.
Section 1 addresses the construction of identity by focusing mainly on the manipulation of age, ethnic and gender categories in society in regions and sites that reached notable power and splendour in first millennium BC Italy. These include Etruria, Latium, Campania and the rich settlement of Verucchio, in Emilia Romagna.
Section 2 offers a counterpoint to Section 1 by focusing on the concepts of ‘periphery’, marginality and the frailty of élite (or sub-élite) power in phases of dramatic socio-political change. Moreover, this Section approaches the idea of identity construction in ‘fringe’ geographical areas that are sometimes overlooked in Anglophone scholarship, such as the Veneto, Samnium, western Emilia and Trentino–South Tyrol. With its overall emphasis on scholarly multivocality, this volume is one of the first ever to strongly advocate for a study of social exclusion and extreme social marginality in late prehistoric and proto-historic Italy.
Papers by Elisa Perego
in archaeology. Particular emphasis is placed upon research trends that have emerged in the last thirty years, as this
period witnessed the increasing importance of such themes in archaeological analysis. Initially, I discuss three research
agendas that have approached the human body from a positivist viewpoint, largely drawing on research methodologies
developed in the ‘hard sciences’ (i.e. bioarchaeology, processualism, and Darwinian and evolutionary archaeology).
Secondly, I discuss approaches that tend to explore the person as both a social and a biological entity, thereby focusing
on the socio-cultural practices through which past people were ‘constructed’ differently in different cultural contexts (i.e.
postprocessualism and interpretative archaeology). In the final sections of the chapter I critically assess two major strands
that have largely developed from this second framework, namely gender and personhood.
Political disintegration, economic crises, the controversial and yet dramatic consequences of global warming and pollution, as well as the spread of poverty and social disruption in western countries, have made collapse one of the key topics in the humanities and social sciences. In the frenetic run for identifying the global causes and large-scale consequences of collapse, however, crisis events taking place at the micro-scale are not always explored by scholars addressing these issues in present and past societies. At the same time, the voices of the marginal and non-élite people that might be the main victims of collapse events are often silenced in ancient history and archaeology.
This workshop will address questions such as: How can collapse be identified in the archaeological record? What kind of archaeological, bioarchaeological and environmental evidence can be considered indicative of collapse? Is it appropriate to use this term for crisis events that take place at the micro-scale without evidence of extensive destruction in the archaeological record?
Topics of interest for our discussion include, but are not limited to, how crisis events affect the lives of people with different identities; the role of socially excluded groups in collapse events; climate change and climate downturns; “micro-scale” cases of natural disaster; migration and displacement; technology and production in contexts of intense socio-cultural change; cultural resistance and survival.
Collapse and Inequality is an output of the CoPOWER MSCA Project based at the OREA Institute. Building on the long-term projects “Collapse or Survival” and “The End of the Spectrum: Towards an Archaeology of Marginality” at UCL, this workshop contributes to the new research group at OREA “Prehistoric Identities”.
Section 1 addresses the construction of identity by focusing mainly on the manipulation of age, ethnic and gender categories in society in regions and sites that reached notable power and splendour in first millennium BC Italy. These include Etruria, Latium, Campania and the rich settlement of Verucchio, in Emilia Romagna.
Section 2 offers a counterpoint to Section 1 by focusing on the concepts of ‘periphery’, marginality and the frailty of élite (or sub-élite) power in phases of dramatic socio-political change. Moreover, this Section approaches the idea of identity construction in ‘fringe’ geographical areas that are sometimes overlooked in Anglophone scholarship, such as the Veneto, Samnium, western Emilia and Trentino–South Tyrol. With its overall emphasis on scholarly multivocality, this volume is one of the first ever to strongly advocate for a study of social exclusion and extreme social marginality in late prehistoric and proto-historic Italy.
in archaeology. Particular emphasis is placed upon research trends that have emerged in the last thirty years, as this
period witnessed the increasing importance of such themes in archaeological analysis. Initially, I discuss three research
agendas that have approached the human body from a positivist viewpoint, largely drawing on research methodologies
developed in the ‘hard sciences’ (i.e. bioarchaeology, processualism, and Darwinian and evolutionary archaeology).
Secondly, I discuss approaches that tend to explore the person as both a social and a biological entity, thereby focusing
on the socio-cultural practices through which past people were ‘constructed’ differently in different cultural contexts (i.e.
postprocessualism and interpretative archaeology). In the final sections of the chapter I critically assess two major strands
that have largely developed from this second framework, namely gender and personhood.
key words : Bronze Age and Iron Age Veneto ; Este ; ethnicity ; Frattesina ; marginality ; Padua ; social inclusion ; Venetic language
Questo contributo proporrà un inquadramento teorico per l'analisi della costruzione etnica, dell'inclusione sociale e del cambiamento socio-politico nella regione italiana del Veneto tra l'età del Bronzo Finale e la prima età del Ferro (XII-IX secolo a.C. circa). Sulla base di ricerche sviluppatesi nell'ambito delle science sociali e volte ad enfatizzare la natura complessa e variabile dell'etnicità nei diversi contesti culturali, questo articolo si propone di contribuire ad aprire un dibattito sulla validità degli approcci teorici correnti al problema della formazione etnica nell'Italia protostorica. In particolar modo, intendo suggerire un cambiamento di prospettiva dalle complesse pratiche di etnogenesi che poterono svilupparsi in relazione a macro-gruppi identificati per esempio negli Etruschi, nei Veneti o nei
Latini della tradizione classica - alle più sottili pratiche di negoziazione identitaria che
dovettero svilupparsi presso differenti agenti sociali al micro-livello della pratica quotidiana. In questo modo, tenterò di gettare luce sulla negoziazione di forme di inclusione sociale che cominciarono potenzialmente a svilupparsi in Veneto nelle fasi precedenti alla transizione tra Bronzo Finale e prima età del Ferro.
ABSTRACT
Between the late Bronze Age and the Iron Age, many human societies in the central Mediterranean and continental Europe underwent crucial socio-political changes that scholars have subsumed under the headings of increased social stratification, the centralization of political power, and in some cases urbanization and statehood.
This pivotal turning point in European history was a non-linear process of development that displayed marked regional diversity and phases of accelerated evolution followed by collapse or crisis at the micro-scale. Notably, transformation in socioeconomic and political structuring was accompanied by dramatic changes in ritual, religious ideology and funerary practice (e.g. spread of cremation), which seem to testify to evolving social ideas about gender, personhood, identity and the body.
In many contexts, such as Italy, research on rising social stratification has often focused on large-scale narratives of resource exploitation, settlement re-organization and evolving trade routes – or on the elite social segments that supposedly spearheaded these processes. By contrast, this paper will draw attention to the individuals that were marginalized, abused and exploited in connection with the power dynamics that developed as part of these transformations.
Within the framework of an archaeology of marginality (see Perego and Scopacasa 2016), I will address and debate some key theoretical and methodological issues (e.g. role of bioarchaeology) that may contribute to new perspectives in Urnfield and Final Bronze Age research.
Bibliography: E. Perego and R. Scopacasa (2016) Burial and social Change in First-millennium BC Italy: Approching Social Agents. Gender, personhood and marginality. Oxford: Oxbow.
This contribution proposes a theoretical framework for the investigation of ethnicity, group membership and socio-political change in the Italian region of Veneto between the Final Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age (approximately 12th – 9th centuries BC). By drawing on research in the humanities and social science emphasising the multi-faceted, culturally variable and blurred nature of ethnicity, this article will suggest that a review of current approaches to ethnic formation in late prehistoric and proto-historic Italy is needed. In particular, I will propose a shift in the focus of research from the grand-scale of ethnogenesis as discussed in relation to macro-entities such as the Etruscans, the Veneti and the Latins – to the more subtle practices of interaction and identity negotiation that took place among social agents at the micro-scale. In doing so, I will tackle the issue of whether specific forms of social inclusion and construction of group membership that are attested in Veneto during the 1st-millennium BC might have started to develop before the Final Bronze Age/ Iron Age transition.
For information concerning the workshop cf, Blake et al 2014: http://mefra.revues.org/2435#ftn1
Hanno partecipato a questo incontro: Enrico Benelli (CNR-ISMA ; relazione: Culture arcaiche fra Tronto e Sangro: facies archeologiche o compagini etniche?), Salvatore Bianco (Soprintendenza per i Beni archeologici della Basilicata) e Ada Preite (EPHE ; relazione: Identificazione degli Enotri: fonti e modelli interpretativi), Anna Maria Bietti Sestieri (Università degli Studi del Salento ; relazione: The Villanovan in the Italian contemporary context: rule or exception?), Emma Blake (University of Arizona-AAR ; relazione: A Network Approach to Bronze Age regional groups), Stéphane Bourdin (EFR ; relazione: « Prétutiens », Vestins, Péligniens: problèmes d’identité ethnique en Italie centrale), Emmanuel Dupraz (Université Libre de Bruxelles ; relazione: Les Marses: confection et réélaboration d’une identité), Elisa Perego (BRS ; relazione: Final Bronze Age and social change in Veneto), Christopher Smith (BSR ; relazione: Early rituals of regional identity and kinship from Lazio).
http://expandingboundaries.uk/
Registration will start on Friday 24th October in Room 106 at the UCL Science Library. For those who do not have a valid UCL library card to enter the Science Library directly, Room 106 can be also accessed through The Petrie Museum. Registration will continue on Saturday 25th October at the UCL Institute of Archaeology (Room 609/staff common Room, adjacent to Room 612).
Further information can be found on http://expandingboundaries.uk/
PLEASE NOTE: the conference is FREE of charge, but we require a small donation of £5 to cover the costs of wine reception and coffee breaks.
PLEASE ALSO NOTE: if on Saturday 25th you wish to take lunch at the Institute of Archaeology for a small extra-charge, please let us know ASAP.
Thank you very much.
We look forward to welcome you in London.
Best wishes,
Veronica and Elisa
EXBO 2014 will feature the following sessions:
Session 1: Thinking outside the Archaeology box: new technologies applied to the past
Session 2: Diverse approaches to rock-art
Session 3: Funerary archaeology: method and theory
Session 4: Coercion, marginality and the rise of state authority
Session 5: Science-based approaches to the past and past technology
KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Prof. M. Parker Pearson (University College London)
In order to answer these questions we encourage the participation of both prehistorians of Egypt/Nubia/Sudan and researchers from different backgrounds (e.g. archaeological sciences, Mediterranean, World and Comparative Archaeologies, Anthropology) who share an interest in prehistory and wish to provide theoretical and/or scientific-laden perspectives on research themes common to their disciplines and Egypto/Nubian archaeology.
In particular, alongside papers addressing the state of the discipline, we would like to invite speakers to focus on how the on-going dialogue between science and theory can inform research on cultural interaction and exchange; violence, inequality and social marginality; the rise of social complexity; landscape and body theory in pre- and protohistoric archaeology.
For more information, please contact the conference organizers Veronica Tamorri (veronica.tamorri@ durham.ac.uk) and Elisa Perego (elisaperego78@ya hoo.it).
"
Il frutto iniziale di ricerca svolta nell'ambito di un network internazionale di studiosi, questo simposio affrontera' il tema del cambiamento sociale da una prospettiva innovativa, focalizzandosi sugli effetti delle talora drammatiche trasformazioni socio-politiche occorse nel Mediterraneo centrale nel primo millennio a.C. su (a) regioni e paesaggi marginali, (b) attori sociali alternativi rispetto a soggetti maschili appartenenti a classi sociali elitarie, e (c) micro-contesti la cui complessita' ci obbliga a rinegoziare la definizione di categorie come 'collasso', 'crisi' e 'continuita''.
""
- Does the presence of women, sub-adults, elderly and non-elite people change through time and/or in different regions of Italy, and what does this tell us about how representative the funerary evidence is of society at large?
- What is the relationship between social status and gender/age identities? When does gender/age become more/less important in ritual expressions of status and social structure?
- How do we interpret the involvement of women and sub-adults in empowering activities such as ritual drinking? How does the ritual use of alcohol/food in the funerary sphere function as a means to negotiate the role and status of the dead and the mourners?
- Is the placement of the dead in the landscape indicative of issues of territoriality, and when is the use of cemeteries suggestive of communal commitment to specific places?
The deadline for abstracts is April 15th. Later submissions may be considered but we advise potential speakers to contact us by the deadline above. There will be flexibility regarding the length of papers, which can last from 20-45 minutes. Titles and abstracts (around 200 words) should be sent to the workshop convenors: Elisa Perego (elisaperego78@yahoo.it) and Rafael Scopacasa (rs236@exeter.ac.uk). The deadline for registration is April 30th, but we strongly advise those interested in accommodation at the BSR to contact Rafael Scopacasa before that date.
Workshop convenors:
Elisa Perego
PhD candidate
Institute of Archaeology
University College London
31-34 Gordon Square
London WC1H 0PY
United Kingdom
Rafael Scopacasa
Ralegh Radford Rome Fellow
The British School at Rome
Via Gramsci 61, Roma 00197
This session will explore taboos related to corporality and decay, the interconnectivity between bodies and grave goods and the permanence and ephemerality of corpses, performances and funerary monuments. Papers are invited to investigate different perspectives on ancestrality, the creation of social memory via mortuary behaviour, and the negotiation of relational modes of personhood through the disarticulation and mingling of dead bodies.
The aim of the session is to bring together young researchers and experts from prehistoric and historical archaeology to discuss new theoretical approaches to the study of the body in funerary practices. Scholars from historical archaeology are particularly encouraged to apply in order to illuminate how theoretically-laden frameworks, enriched with the wealth of data and written sources, can be employed to cast further light on bodily practices in the archaeological record.
large array of topics already discussed in mainstream anthropological discourse has been left relatively unexplored. Comprehensive methodological and theoretical reflection is partially missing. The aim of this session is to offer a remedy to the pitfalls identified in current archaeological research by exploring the social role of practices of alcohol consumption in Bronze and Iron Age Europe in the more general framework of ritually formalized food practices. Contributors are welcome to engage with topics which include but are not limited to:
- the construction of identity and selfhood via alcohol consumption;
- the role of gender, age, rank, religion and ethnicity in determining people’s approach to the beverage: papers are particularly encouraged to investigate the possible engagement of women, children, non-elite and marginal
individuals to drinking habits;
- the interplay between practices of alcohol and solid food
consumption at the funeral and in other ritual contexts;
- the impact of innovative approaches to the materiality of alcohol production and fruition;
- we also wish to investigate the yet scarce, but sometimes very significant, data derived from scientific residue analysis of containers, in order to insert new material into the debate.
Veneto is a region located in north-east Italy where a complex social organisation emerged since the beginning of the Iron Age period (approximately 900 BC). There is evidence that during the 1st millennium BC this region was inhabited by an Indo-European population, namely the Veneti mentioned in Graeco-Roman historical sources. Veneto was annexed to the Roman State in the 1st century BC, but Romanisation was a longer and gradual socio-cultural process taking place between the 2nd century BC and the early 1st century AD.
Regular excavations of Venetic tombs started in 1876 and have continued to the present day. In recent years, a greater attention has been paid to the identification and preservation of organic specimens found in the funerary context. In particular, the introduction of sophisticated micro-excavation techniques has permitted the identification of textile in the form of burned fragments, mineralised remains, yarn and even imprints on objects and mud. Overall, the evidence available indicates that textiles were widely used during Venetic funerals for a variety of ritual and practical purposes. For example, the bones of the dead were placed in a shroud or a textile container before their deposition in cremation urns. The use of wrapping the urn with a cloth, or even with a real ‘dress’ adorned with ornaments, has been noticed in several elite graves. This ritual practice seems to indicate that the urn may have been conceived as a symbol of the deceased him/herself, or a surrogate of his/her body. There is also increasing evidence that grave goods were sometimes wrapped in a cloth similarly to cinerary urns.
By analysing a sample of over 400 Venetic cremation graves that have been published between the early 20th century and 2008, this preliminary study is intended to evaluate the informative potential of both recent findings and tombs excavated in the past. Funding is currently sought to carry out a much larger project involving an extensive study of textiles in Iron Age northern Italy.
"
Partendo dall’analisi di una serie di corredi datati al X secolo, in cui la ceramica da mensa è rarissima o assente, suggerirò che il rituale funerario del tardo Bronzo Finale non poneva una particolare enfasi sull’esibizione delle suppellettili da banchetto e, possibilmente, sull’ingestione del cibo come rituale collettivo. Un nuovo interesse verso la consumazione di alimenti durante il rito funebre sembra diffondersi nel IX secolo, quando la deposizione di vasellame in associazione all’urna diventa più comune e può riguardare vasi direttamente importati o imitanti modelli mutuati dalle popolazioni confinanti. Il diffondersi di complessi servizi da banchetto nelle tombe emergenti di Este e Padova a partire dall’VIII secolo segnala un’ulteriore evoluzione del costume funerario locale, forse direttamente influenzato dal contatto con le elites Etrusche e Nordalpine, come suggerito dalla presenza di vasellame importato nelle deposizioni qui considerate. Una successiva fase di elaborazione culturale può essere datata a partire dal VI secolo a.C., quando la diffusione di ceramica attica nel Veneto è considerata possibile indizio dell’acquisizione di pratiche simposiache. Una significativa rappresentazione iconografica del banchetto reclinato di ascendenza greco-etrusca è offerta dalla placchetta Este Carceri 48 (prima metà del V secolo a.C.), la cui enfasi sui rituali del versare, tuttavia, non sembra trovare riscontro nel materiale funerario rinvenuto in Veneto. Questo breve excursus verrà concluso dall’analisi della ricchissima deposizione di Nerka Trostiaia, datata alla prima metà del III secolo, dove il rituale funerario adottato segnala una straordinaria sintesi di elementi autoctoni e stranieri."
social inequality: case-studies from first-millennium BC Italy. Papers of the British School at Rome,
82, pp 360-361 doi:10.1017/S0068246214000397
In order to answer these questions we encourage the participation of both prehistorians of Egypt/Nubia/Sudan and researchers from different backgrounds (e.g. archaeological sciences, Mediterranean, World and Comparative Archaeologies, Anthropology) who share an interest in prehistory and wish to provide theoretical and/or scientific-laden perspectives on research themes common to their disciplines and Egypto/Nubian archaeology.
In particular, alongside papers addressing the state of the discipline, we would like to invite speakers to focus on how the on-going dialogue between science and theory can inform research on cultural interaction and exchange; violence, inequality and social marginality; the rise of social complexity; landscape and body theory in pre- and protohistoric archaeology.
Abstracts of no more than 200 words for a twenty-minute paper should be sent to Veronica Tamorri and Dr Elisa Perego (exbo14@gmail.com) by Monday 14th July 2014. For further information, please contact the conference organisers."