Sorry, you need to enable JavaScript to visit this website.

Department of Archaeology

 

Biography

I was born and bred in London. As an undergraduate at Oxford I studied History and received an education in archaeology from Andrew Sherratt. I took an MA in Aegean and Anatolian Prehistory at Bristol, and first came to Cambridge in 1987 to start a PhD with John Cherry. I returned briefly to Oxford as a Junior Research Fellow in 1991, and from 1993 spent twenty years at UCL’s Institute of Archaeology, starting as Lecturer in Aegean Archaeology and ending as Professor of Mediterranean Archaeology. In 2014 I returned to Cambridge to take up my current position. In 2015 I was elected a Fellow of the British Academy. I have held visiting fellowships at All Souls, Oxford, and at institutions in the US. My books have won the Runciman Prize, James R. Wiseman Prize, Wolfson History Prize and Premio Nonino. I am married with two young children.

Research

I see archaeology as a form of deep history, as the best way of understanding the global experience of humankind over time and why we are where we are today. My interests are therefore broad, comparative and not period-specific. My first grounding was in the Aegean, where I have been centrally involved in a project on the island of Kythera for the last twenty years. The Aegean, not least as an in-between place in spatial, analytical and interpretative terms, taught me the value of theory, material culture study, landscape archaeology, archaeological science, comparison and connectivity. From there my interests led outwards to island archaeology world-wide and to the overall early history of the Mediterranean, itself a space that brings together Europe, Africa and Asia. My most recent projects explore the long-term dynamics of Mediterranean Africa, and the archaeology of politics and urban life through the lens of fieldwork on Iron Age to Roman Kythera. I have a long-term interest in trans-Eurasian cultural processes and in the scope for an archaeology of oceanic connectivity.

Key Publications

Key publications

Broodbank, C. and G. Lucarini 2019. ‘Mediterranean Africa, 9600-1000 BC: an interpretive synthesis of knowns and unknowns’ Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 32, 2.

Broodbank, C. 2018. ‘Does island archaeology matter?’, in A. Knodell and T. Leppard (eds.) Regional Approaches to Social Complexity; Studies in Honour of John F. Cherry, 188-206. Sheffield: Equinox.

Broodbank, C. 2013. The Making of the Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean from the Beginning to the Threshold of the Classical World. London: Thames and Hudson.

Broodbank, C. 2010. ‘“Ships a-sail from over the rim of the sea”: voyaging, sailing and the making of Mediterranean societies c. 3500-500 BC’, in A. Anderson, J.H. Barrett and K. Boyle (eds.) The Global Origins of Seafaring (McDonald Institute Monographs), 249-64. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.

Broodbank, C. and E. Kiriatzi 2007. ‘The first “Minoans” of Kythera re-visited: technology, demography and landscape in the pre-palatial Aegean’, American Journal of Archaeology 111: 241-74.

Broodbank, C. 2007. ‘The pottery’, in C. Renfrew, C. Doumas, L. Marangou and G. Gavalas (eds.), Keros, Dhaskalio Kavos: The Investigations of 1987-88 (McDonald Institute Monographs), 115-237. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.

Broodbank, C. 2006. ‘The origins and early development of Mediterranean maritime activity’, Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 19: 199-230.

Broodbank, C. 2004. ‘Minoanisation’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 50: 46-91.

Broodbank, C. 2000. An Island Archaeology of the Early Cyclades.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Broodbank, C. 1989. ‘The longboat and society in the Cyclades in the Keros-Syros culture’, American Journal of Archaeology 93: 319-37.

Publication

Journal articles

2026 (Accepted for publication)

Lucarini, G., Bokbot, Y., Wilkinson, T., Benattia, H., Bigoulimen, A., Brucato, A., Cygan, M., Farr, L., Hachami, H., Kiriatzi, E., Laoutari, R., Lombardi, L., Matsilio, A., Martinez Sanchez, R., Mazzini, I., Morales, J., Muti, G., Pelegrin, J., Radi, M., Rega, FM. and Broodbank, C., 2026 (Accepted for publication). Expanding Oued Beht: Final Neolithic, Bronze Age, medieval and later discoveries from excavation and survey in 2023 Libyan Studies,

2025 (Accepted for publication)

2025

Benattia, H., Bokbot, Y., Onrubia-Pintado, J., Benerradi, M., Bougariane, B., Bouhamidi, B., Carballo-Pérez, J., Echcherif-Baamrani, O., Elqably, A., Ghayati, N., Hachami, H., Kbiri-Alaoui, M., Lazarescu, R., Lombardi, L., Lucarini, G., Martínez-Sánchez, RM., Mateu-Sagés, M., Menéndez-Molist, P., Montero-Ruiz, I., Ouakrim, Z., Pérez-Jordà, G., Radi, M., Ramon-Torres, J., Sobrevia-Corral, E., Touri, T. and Broodbank, C., 2025. Rethinking late prehistoric Mediterranean Africa: architecture, farming and materiality at Kach Kouch, Morocco Antiquity, v. 99
Doi: http://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2025.10

2024 (Accepted for publication)

Broodbank, C., Lucarini, G., Bokbot, Y., Benattia, H., Bigoulimen, A., Farr, L., Garcia-Molsosa, A., Hachami, H., Laoutari, R., Lombardi, L., Marsilio, A., Martin, L., Morales, J., Radi, M., Rega, FM. and Wilkinson, T., 2024 (Accepted for publication). Oued Beht, Morocco: A new complex early farming society in northwest Africa and its implications for western Mediterranean interaction during later prehistory Antiquity,
Doi: http://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2024.101

2022 (Accepted for publication)

Leppard, TP., Cochrane, EE., Gaffney, D., Hofman, CL., Laffoon, JE., Bunbury, MME. and Broodbank, C., 2022 (Accepted for publication). Global Patterns in Island Colonization during the Holocene Journal of World Prehistory,

2022

Leppard, TP., Cochrane, EE., Gaffney, D., Hofman, CL., Laffoon, JE., Bunbury, MME. and Broodbank, C., 2022. Global Patterns in Island Colonization during the Holocene Journal of World Prehistory, v. 35
Doi: http://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-022-09168-w

2021

Lucarini, G., Bokbot, Y. and Broodbank, C., 2021. New Light on the Silent Millennia: Mediterranean Africa, ca. 4000–900 BC African Archaeological Review, v. 38
Doi: http://doi.org/10.1007/s10437-020-09411-9

2020

Broodbank, C. and Lucarini, G., 2020. The Dynamics of Mediterranean Africa, ca. 9600–1000 bc: An Interpretative Synthesis of Knowns and Unknowns Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, v. 32
Doi: http://doi.org/10.1558/jma.40581

Lucarini, G., Wilkinson, T., Crema, ER., Palombini, A., Bevan, A. and Broodbank, C., 2020. The MedAfriCarbon Radiocarbon Database and Web Application. Archaeological Dynamics in Mediterranean Africa, ca. 9600–700 BC Journal of Open Archaeology Data, v. 8
Doi: http://doi.org/10.5334/joad.60

2019

Cheddadi, R., Palmisano, A., López-Sáez, JA., Nourelbait, M., Zielhofer, C., Tabel, J., Rhoujjati, A., Khater, C., Woodbridge, J., Lucarini, G., Broodbank, C., Fletcher, WJ. and Roberts, CN., 2019. Human demography changes in Morocco and environmental imprint during the Holocene Holocene, v. 29
Doi: http://doi.org/10.1177/0959683619826657

2018 (Accepted for publication)

Radivojevic, M., Roberts, B., Pernicka, E., Stos-Gale, Z., Martinon-Torres, M., Rehren, T., Bray, P., Brandherm, D., Ling, J., Mei, J., Vandkilde, H., Kristiansen, K., Shennan, S. and Broodbank, C., 2018 (Accepted for publication). The Provenance, Use and Circulation of Metals in the European Bronze Age: The state of debate Journal of Archaeological Research, v. 27
Doi: http://doi.org/10.1007/s10814-018-9123-9

2015

Broodbank, C., 2015. Should we worry about migrants targeting Europe? BBC History Magazine,

2014 (Published online)

Broodbank, C., 2014 (Published online). So... What? Does the Paradigm Currently Want to Budge So Much? Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, v. 27
Doi: http://doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v27i2.267

Broodbank, C., Barker, G., Foxhall, L. and Manning, S., 2014 (Published online). Reviewing Cyprian Broodbank’s The Making of the Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean from the Beginning to the Emergence of the Classical World (London: Thames & Hudson, 2013) Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, v. 27
Doi: http://doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v27i1.101

Broodbank, C., Galanidou, N., Leppard, TP., Phoca-Cosmetatou, N., Rabett, RJ. and Runnels, C., 2014 (Published online). Discussion and Debate Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, v. 27
Doi: http://doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v27i2.255

2014

Broodbank, C., 2014. Back to the (Early) Mediterranean JOURNAL OF MEDITERRANEAN ARCHAEOLOGY, v. 27

2013

Broodbank, C., 2013. “Minding the Gap”: Thinking About Change in Early Cycladic Island Societies from a Comparative Perspective American Journal of Archaeology, v. 117
Doi: http://doi.org/10.3764/aja.117.4.0535

PETERS, M., 2013. THE MYCENAEAN SEMINAR 2011–12 – SPINNING A COMMUNICATIONS WEB: MEDIA INTERACTIVITY AND THE POLITICAL MANAGEMENT OF MYCENAEAN MESSENIA Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, v. 56
Doi: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.2041-5370.2013.00054.x

2008

2007

Broodbank, C. and Kiriatzi, E., 2007. The First "Minoans" of Kythera Revisited: Technology, Demography, and Landscape in the Prepalatial Aegean American Journal of Archaeology, v. 111
Doi: http://doi.org/10.3764/aja.111.2.241

Broodbank, C., Rehren, T. and Zianni, A-M., 2007. Scientific Analysis of Metal Objects and Metallurgical Remains from Kastri, Kythera 1 The Annual of the British School at Athens, v. 102
Doi: http://doi.org/10.1017/s006824540002147x

2006 (Published online)

2004

2000 (Published online)

Broodbank, C., 2000 (Published online). The Insularity of Island Archaeologists: Comments on Rainbird's 'Islands out of Time' Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, v. 12
Doi: http://doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v12i2.29972

2000

Broodbank, C., 2000. Perspectives on an Early Bronze Age Island Centre: An Analysis of Pottery from Daskaleio‐Kavos (Keros) in the Cyclades Oxford Journal of Archaeology, v. 19
Doi: http://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0092.00113

1999 (Published online)

Broodbank, C., 1999 (Published online). Island dynamics and Minoan expansion in the Aegean: the Kythera Island Project Archaeology International, v. 3
Doi: http://doi.org/10.5334/ai.0308

1999

1997

Broodbank, C., 1997. A Greek countryside: The southern argolid from prehistory to the present day - Jameson,MH, Runnels,CN, VanAndel,TH JOURNAL OF FIELD ARCHAEOLOGY, v. 24

Broodbank, C., 1997. Artifact & assemblage: The finds from a regional survey of the southern Argolid, Greece, vol 1, The prehistoric & early iron age pottery and the lithic artifacts - Runnels,CH, Pullen,DJ, Langdon,S JOURNAL OF FIELD ARCHAEOLOGY, v. 24

1994

BROODBANK, C., 1994. IMAGINED ISLANDS - CULTURAL PERCEPTIONS OF LANDSCAPE AND SEASCAPE IN THE CYCLADIC ARCHIPELAGO DURING PREHISTORY AND PROTOHISTORY AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY, v. 98

1993

Broodbank, C., Myers, JW., Myers, EE. and Cadogan, G., 1993. The Aerial Atlas of Ancient Crete Journal of Field Archaeology, v. 20
Doi: http://doi.org/10.2307/530062

1992 (Published online)

1992

BROODBANK, C., 1992. COLONIZATION AND CULTURE IN THE NEOLITHIC AND EARLY BRONZE-AGE CYCLADES AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY, v. 96

1991

1989

Broodbank, C., 1989. The Longboat and Society in the Cyclades in the Keros-Syros Culture American Journal of Archaeology, v. 93
Doi: http://doi.org/10.2307/505584

Book chapters

2024

Brudenell, M., 2024. Chapter 15 - The pottery (Must Farm pile-dwelling settlement: Volume 2. Specialist reports)

2018

Broodbank, C., 2018. Does island archaeology matter?

2016 (No publication date)

Broodbank, C., 2016 (No publication date). The transmitting sea

Broodbank, C., 2016 (No publication date). The uniqueness of Mediterranean prehistory

2016

2014

Broodbank, C. and Kiriatzi, E., 2014. Pottery mobility, landscape survey and maritime activity: a view from Kythera

Broodbank, C., 2014. Mediterranean Prehistory

Broodbank, C., 2014. Afterword

2011

Broodbank, C., 2011. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean world in the age of Andrew Sherratt

2010

Broodbank, C., 2010. Braudel's Bronze Age

Broodbank, C., 2010. 'Ships a-sail from over the rim of the sea': voyaging, sailing and the making of Mediterranean societies c. 3500-500 BC

2009

Broodbank, C. and Kiriatzi, E., 2009. The Kythera Island Project by the British School at Athens: aims, methodologies and preliminary results’,

2008

Broodbank, C., 2008. Long after hippos, well before palaces: a commentary on the cultures and contexts of Neolithic Crete

Broodbank, C., 2008. The Early Bronze Age in the Cyclades

2005

Broodbank, C., Kiriatzi, E., Rutter, JB. and Sherratt, ES., 2005. From the pharoah's feet to the slave-women of Pylos? The history and cultural dynamics of Kythera in the third palace Period v. 1432

2004

Broodbank, C., 2004. Aphrodite observed: insularity and antiquities on Kythera through outsiders’ eyes

2000

Broodbank, C., 2000. Colonization and configuration in the insular Neolithic of the Aegean

Books

2024

Broodbank, C., 2024. The Making of the Middle Sea

2014

Renfrew, C., 2014. THE MAKING OF THE MIDDLE SEA A history of the Mediterranean from the beginning to the emergence of the classical world

2000

Broodbank, C., 2000. An Island Archaeology of the Early Cyclades

Teaching and Supervisions

Teaching

I currently teach mainly on the paper A1 — World Archaeology

Research supervision

Since 1994 I have been lead or secondary supervisor for some 45 PhD students, across a range of subjects, approaches and regions of the world. Almost all those students completed successfully, and many are in post today. I am currently particularly interested in supervising topics within the deep history and archaeology of the Mediterranean, the Aegean, and globally of islands and oceans, but am equally open to other compelling suggestions.

Recently completed Cambridge PhD students:

• Roeland Decorte
• Michael Loy

Current research students:

• Emily Wright
• Dylan Gaffney
• Rafael Laoutari
• Polina Kapsali
• Elisa Scholz

Other Professional Activities

I have a long association (since 1983) with the British School at Athens, through which I co-direct (with Dr Evangelia Kiriatzi) the Kythera Island Project. I am a Fellow of the British Academy and of the Society of Antiquaries, as well as a Corresponding Member of the Archaeological Institute of America. I currently also advise the publishing house Thames & Hudson.

Job Titles

Disney Professor of Archaeology, Director, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research

General Info

Takes PhD students
Not available for consultancy
Research Expertise / Fields of study
Material Culture
Archaeological Theory
Cultural Evolution

Contact Details

McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research
Department of Archaeology
University of Cambridge
Downing Street
cb122 [at] cam.ac.uk
Cambridge
CB2 3ER
01223 (3)39340

Affiliations

Person keywords
Deep History
Mediterranean
Aegean
Islands
comparative
Subjects
Archaeology
Themes
Environment, Landscapes and Settlement
Material Culture
Rethinking Complexity
Geographical areas
Aegean
Africa
Egypt and Sudan
Europe
Mediterranean
Mesopotamia and the Near East
Oceania and the Pacific
Periods of interest
Classical - Roman
Copper/Bronze Age
Iron Age
Neolithic
Other Historical
Other Late Prehistory
Other Prehistory
Palaeolithic/Mesolithic