Staff Profiles

Interests

I am interested in all aspects of the ancient world and world archaeology. My major specific interests are 1) the archaeology of Late Bronze Age Greece, the Aegean, and the eastern Mediterranean, and the transition to the Early Iron Age, 2) the archaeology, historiography, and discourses of collapse and resilience (including climate and the environment), 3) women in ancient history, 4) historiography, narratives, and counternarratives.

Current and Recent Projects

I am currently engaged in variety of projects on Mycenaean Greece, heritage and memory, on collapse and resilience, sometimes with reference to climate and the environment, and on environmental determinism in archaeology. One is an edited book entitled Collapse and Transformation: The Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age in the Aegean (Oxbow) and another is a book entitled Women of the Ancient Mediterranean (Cambridge University Press), I am a senior researcher on Project KREAS at Charles University, Prague, where I am based in the Czech Institute of Egyptology. I also work with the Climate Change in History Research Initiative, based at Princeton.

My recently published works include 'Bang or whimper' (Science) and 'Should I stay or should I go? Mycenaeans, migration, and mobility in the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age eastern Mediterranean' (Journal of Greek Archaeology), and the book Understanding Collapse: Ancient History and Modern Myths (CUP, 2017).

I have been an invited speaker/workshop/panel member at Charles University, Prague, as a guest of the Director of the Czech Institute of Egyptology, Princeton University as a guest of Timothy Newfield and John Haldon (Climate Change in History Research Initiative), at the Centre for Existential Risk, Cambridge University, and at the Conference for World Affairs, Boulder University, Colorado (guest of Charles Newman and Arthur Joyce).

Positions Held

• Senior Researcher, Czech Institute of Egyptology, Charles University, Prague (Project KREAS)
  
• Visiting Fellow, School of History, Classics and Archaeology
  
• Project Associate Professor, Tokyo University (2008-2015)
• Associate Lecturer, Northumbria University (2003-present)

Education

• PhD ('The collapse of palatial society in LBA Greece and the postpalatial period'), Durham University
• MA Museum Studies, Newcastle University (distinction)
• MEd (Applied Linguistics), Open University
• BA(Hons) Humanities with English Language, Open University (first class)
• BA(Hons) Ancient History and Archaeology, Newcastle University (first class)

I currently work as an Associate Lecturer in Academic Language Skills at Northumbria University, Newcastle.

• Middleton GD. Late Bronze Age Greece: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. In Preparation.
• Middleton GD. Collapse of Bronze Age Civilizations. In: Chiotis, E, ed. Climate Changes in the Holocene: Impacts and Human Adaptation. CRC Press, 2018, pp.269-290.
• Middleton GD. Collapse of the Bronze Age Aegean. Oxford Classical Dictionary 2018. Oxford: Oxford University Press. In Preparation.
• Middleton GD. 'I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 more': The Sea Peoples and Aegean migration at the end of the Late Bronze Age. In: Niesiołowski-Spanò, Łukasz ; Węcowski, Marek, ed. Change, Continuity, and Connectivity : North-Eastern Mediterranean at the turn of the Bronze Age and in the early Iron Age. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2018, pp.95-115.
• Middleton GD. This is the end of the world as we know it: Narratives of collapse and transformation. In: Vogelaar, AE, ed. The Discourses of Environmental Collapse. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2018.
• Middleton GD. Do civilisations collapse?. Aeon, 2017. Available at: https://aeon.co/essays/what-the-idea-of-civilisational-collapse-says-about-history.
• Middleton GD. The show must go on: Collapse, resilience, and transformation in 21st-century archaeology. Reviews in Anthropology 2017, 46(2-3).
• Middleton GD. I Will Follow You into the Dark: Death and Emotion in a Mycenaean Royal Funeral. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 2017, 36(4), 395-412.
• Middleton GD. Reading the thirteenth century BC in Greece: Crisis, decline, or business as usual?. In: Cunningham, T; Driessen, J, ed. Crisis to Collapse: The Archaeology of Social Breakdown. Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium: Louvain University Press, 2017, pp.87-97.
• Middleton GD. [Review of Jenkins (2016)] Keeping Their Marbles: How the Treasures of the Past Ended Up in Museums... and Why They Should Stay There. American Journal of Archaeology 2017, 121(3).
• Middleton GD. Review of Kerner, Dann, and Bangsgaard (2015) Climate and Ancient Societies. American Journal of Archaeology 2017, 121(2).
• Middleton GD. The kings and kingdoms of Mycenaean Greece. Ancient History 2017, 10, 12-15.
• Middleton GD. Understanding Collapse: Ancient History and Modern Myths. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2017.
• Middleton GD. Review of Cline (2014) 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed. American Journal of Archaeology 2016, 120(3).
• Middleton GD. El colapso del sistema palacial micenico (ca. 1200 a.C.). Desperta Ferro 2015, 30, 48-57.
• Middleton GD. Telling Stories: The Mycenaean Origins of the Philistines. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 2015, 34(1), 45-65.
• Middleton GD. That old devil called collapse. E-International Relations, 2013. Available at: http://www.e-ir.info/2013/02/06/that-old-devil-called-collapse/.
• Middleton GD. Nothing lasts forever: Environmental discourses on the causes of past societal collapse. Journal of Archaeological Research 2012, 20(3), 257-307.
• Middleton GD. Review of Galaty and Parkinson (2010) Archaic State Interaction: The Eastern Mediterranean in the Bronze Age. Anthropological Science 2012, 120(3), 251-252.
• Middleton GD. The Collapse of Palatial Society in Late Bronze Age Greece and the Postpalatial Period. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2010.
• Middleton GD. Bang or whimper. Science 2018, 361(6408), 1204-1205.
• Middleton GD. Bang or whimper?. Science 2018, 361(6408), 1204-1205.
• Middleton GD. Should I Stay or Should I Go? Mycenaeans, migration, and mobility in the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Eastern Mediterranean. Journal of Greek Archaeology 2018, 3, 115-143.
• Middleton GD. This is the end of the world as we know it: Narratives of collapse and transformation in archaeology and popular culture. In: The Discourses of Environmental Collapse: Imagining the End. London, UK: Taylor and Francis, 2018, pp.91-113.