Guy Middleton

My research interests include the archaeology of the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age eastern Mediterranean and the archaeology and theory of collapse and transformation.

Academic publications

2021.  ‘A tale of three cities: Urban and cultural resilience and heritage between the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age in the eastern Mediterranean.’ Urban History 48(4), 724-748.

2019.  ‘Collapse of the Bronze Age Aegean.’ Oxford Classical Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.013.8241

2018.  ‘Bang or whimper?’ Science 361(6048): 1204-1205.

2018.  ‘Should I stay or should I go? Migration and mobility in the central and eastern Mediterranean at the end of the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age.’ Journal of Greek Archaeology 3: 115-144. [Mediterranean Seminar article of the month August 2020: http://www.mediterraneanseminar.org/article]

2018.  ‘Collapse of Bronze Age civilizations.’ In Chiotis, E. (ed.). Climate Changes in the Holocene: Impacts and Human Adaptation. London: CRC Press, pp. 269-290.

2018.  ‘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 Niesiolowski-Spano, L. and Wecowski, M. (eds.). Change, Continuity, and Connectivity: North-Eastern Mediterranean at the turn of the Bronze Age and in the Early Iron Age. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, pp. 95-115.

2018.  ‘This is the end of the world as we know it: Narratives of collapse and transformation.’ In Vogelaar, A., Hale, B., and Peat, A. (eds.). The Discourses of Environmental Collapse. London: Routledge, pp. 91-113.

2017.  ‘I will follow you into the dark: Death and emotion in a Mycenaean royal funeral.’ Oxford Journal of Archaeology 36(4): 395-412.

2017.  ‘The show must go on: Collapse, resilience, and transformation in twenty-first century archaeology.’ Reviews in Anthropology 46 (2-3): 78-105.

2017.  ‘Reading the thirteenth century BC in Greece: Crisis, decline, or business as usual?’ In Cunningham, T. and Driessen, J. (eds.). Crisis to Collapse: The Archaeology of Social Breakdown. Aegis 11. Louvain: Louvain University Press, pp. 87-97.

2015.  ‘Telling stories: The Sea Peoples, Aegean migration, and the Mycenaean origins of the Philistines.’ Oxford Journal of Archaeology 34(1): 45-65. 

2012.  ‘Nothing lasts forever: Environmental discourses on the causes of past societal collapse.’ Journal of Archaeological Research 20(3): 257-307. [Chosen as one of ten ‘exemplary’ articles for the 25^th anniversary of the journal.]

Popular publications

2021. ‘Poseidon’s wrath.’ Aeon. https://aeon.co/essays/how-a-vanished-ancient-greek-city-helps-us-think-about-disasters

2020. ‘Did a volcanic eruption in Alaska help end the Roman republic?’ The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/did-a-volcanic-eruption-in-alaska-help-end-the-roman-republic-141196 [103 Facebook shares]

2018.  ‘Pictures of you: Remembering collapse.’ 39Null 6: 80-82.

2017.  ‘Do civilisations collapse?’ Aeon. https://aeon.co/essays/what-the-idea-of-civilisational-collapse-says-about-history

2017.  ‘The kings and kingdoms of Mycenaean Greece.’ Ancient History 10: 10-15.

2015.  ‘El colapso del sistema palacial micenico (ca. 1200 a.C.).’ [‘The collapse of Mycenaean palace states c. 1200.’] Desperta Ferro 30: 48-57. [written in English, published in Spanish]

2013.  ‘That old devil called collapse.’ E-International Relations. http://www.e-ir.info/2013/02/06/that-old-devil-called-collapse/