Dr Miriam Rothenberg

Research Interests

Volcanoes, disasters, landscape archaeology, GIS, geoarchaeology, contemporary archaeology, African Diaspora, digital archaeology, memory and trauma, ruination and temporality
 

My current work looks at how the small, largely Afro-Caribbean community of Montserrat has been affected by and responded to 25 years of volcanic crisis, and how these responses relate to the Caribbean’s enduring legacy of slavery and colonialism. I place the Montserratian situation into dialogue with other geological and meteorological disasters in the Caribbean as well as with other examples of communities affected by volcanic eruptions, specifically in the ancient Mediterranean. My PhD thesis, titled Community and Corrosion: A Contemporary Archaeology of Montserrat’s Volcanic Crisis in Long-Term Comparative Perspective, was an investigation of the effects of this ongoing volcanic crisis. Drawing primarily from archaeological and ethnographic evidence, I investigated the development of post-disaster materialities, the ways in which the ruins of catastrophes mediate trauma, and the complexity inherent in the formation of the archaeological record. With a background in GIS and database design, and with degrees in both archaeology and geology, I am involved in a number of projects around the world as geoarchaeologist or GIS specialist. My recent fieldwork has included projects in Montserrat, Martinique, the United States (Rhode Island and New York), Sudan, and Greece.

Geographic areas

Caribbean, Ancient Mediterranean, northeastern USA