D. Matthew Buell, PhD

Assistant Professor, Classics, Modern Languages and Linguistics

Contact information

Email:

matthew.buell@concordia.ca

Website:

Gournia Excavation Project

Biography

I obtained my doctorate in Classical Archaeology from the University at Buffalo, SUNY in 2014. For my dissertation I employed an integrated approach, using material remains,texts, and landscape data, to examine and compare the socio-political and economic organization of three Bronze Age polities, Alalakh in the Amuq Valley (Syria/Anatolia), Galatas in the Upper Pediada (Crete), and Pylos in Messenia (Greek mainland). Following the completion of my doctorate, I served as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Trent University in the in the Department of Ancient History & Classics (2014-2015). I have been at Concordia since fall 2015.

I am a specialist in the material culture and history of ancient Greece and Rome. My most recent research focuses on urbanization and city-planning in the ancient world. I am especially interested in the recursive relationship between people and their built and unbuilt environments.

I have worked as an archaeologist in the Mediterranean for the past 15 years. Since 2002, I have been involved in archaeological work at the Late Roman site of Kourion on Cyprus. From 2005-2010 I served as one of the principal investigators on the Galatas Survey Project, a multidisciplinary regional survey project on Crete. Over the course of the past eight years, I have been working at the Bronze Age site of Gournia where I have served as a Field Director and architectural specialist. The Gournia Excavation Project is a multiyear, collaborative research project aimed at examining how this Minoan settlement developed and changed over time.

Teaching activities

Recent classes taught include...

Classes:
Clas 230/Hist 219: Ancient Near East
Clas 242/Hist 225: History of the Roman Republic
Clas 260: Introduction to Greek Archaeology
Clas 264: Egyptian Archaeology
Clas 267: Archaeology of the Greek Bronze Age
Clas 341/Hist 323: Greek History from Alexander to the Roman Conquest
Clas 363: Archaeology of Archaic Greece
Clas 364: Classical Greek Art and Archaeology
Clas 365: Art and Archaeology of the Hellenistic Age

Tutorials:
Clas 480: The Archaeology of Empires
Clas 480: Long-Term Patterns in Mediterranean History

Publications

Recent Publications

2017. (with J.C. McEnroe) “Community Building/Building Community at Gournia”, Minoan Architecture and Urbanism: New Perspectives on an Ancient Built Environment, Q. Letesson and C. Knappett eds. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 204-227.

2017. “Of Bulls and Banquets: James Walter Graham’s Contributions to Minoan Archaeology and their Lasting Influence,” in From Maple to Olive: A Colloquium to Celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the Canadian Institute in Greece, Canadian Institute in Greece, Athens, Greece, June 10-11. D. W. Rupp and J. Tomlinson eds. Athens: CIG, 1-23.

2015. (with L. V. Watrous, S.G. Gallimore, K. Glowacki, B. Kunkel, E. Margaritis, J.C. McEnroe, P.A. Pantou, R.A.K Smith, L.A. Turner, and J.Y. Younger) "A Preliminary Report on the Excavations at Gournia, Crete, 2010-2012", Hesperia, 84.3:397-465.

2015. “Minoan Cityscapes: Urban Planning in Neopalatial Society”, in Minoan Archaeology: Perspectives for the 21st Century. S. Cappel, U. Günkel-Maschek, and D. Panagiotopoulos eds. Louvain: Presses univrsitaires de Louvain, 77-96.

2014. “The Rise of a Minoan City and the (Re)Structuring of its Hinterlands: A View from Galatas", in Making Ancient Cities: Space and Place in Early Urban Societies, A.T. Creekmore III and K. D. Fisher eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 257-291.

2014. “Districts, Neighborhoods, and the Streets that Bind Them: Urban Planning in Minoan Cities”, in Meditations on the Diversity of the Built Environment in the Aegean Basin: A Colloquium in Memory of Frederick E. Winter, June 22-23 2012. D. W. Rupp ed. Publications of the Canadian Institute in Greece, No. 7. Athens: CIG, 55-82.

2010. (with C.M. Mavromatis and D.A. Parks) “The Kourion Mapping Project: A Contextual Spatial Analysis of the Kourion Acropolis”, Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus. 2009: 261-94.

Forthcoming
L.V. Watrous, D.M. Buell, E. Kokinou, P. Soupios, A. Sarris, S. Beckmann, G. Rethemiotakis, L.A. Turner, S. Gallimore, and M.D. Hammond. The Galatas Survey: Socio-Economic and Political Development of a Contested Territory in Central Crete during the Neolithic to Ottoman Periods. Philadelphia: INSTAP Academic Press.

Copies of some publications can be obtained on my Academia Page.