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.

Positions Held

• Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
• Honorary Fellow, Department of Classics and Ancient History (Durham University)
• Visiting Fellow, School of History, Classics and Archaeology (Newcastle University)

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 a Lecturer in Academic Language Skills at Northumbria University, Newcastle.

• Articles

  • Middleton GD. Writing women into the ancient Mediterranean world. Teaching History 2023, 57(2), 10-13.
  • Middleton GD. Feasts, famines, and megadroughts: The Late Bronze Age collapse. Ancient History Magazine 2023, 43, 20-23.
  • Middleton GD. Warfare in the Late Bronze Age Aegean - chariots for a king. Ancient Warfare 2022, 15(3), 20-23.
  • Middleton GD. 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 2021, 48(4), 724-748.
  • Haldon J, Chase AF, Eastwood W, Medina-Elizalde M, Izdebski A, Ludlow F, Middleton GD, Mordechai L, Nesbitt J, Turner B. Demystifying collapse: climate, environment, and social agency in pre-modern societies. Millenium 2020, 17(1), 1-33.
  • 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. The show must go on: Collapse, resilience, and transformation in 21st-century archaeology. Reviews in Anthropology 2017, 46(2-3).
  • Middleton GD. The kings and kingdoms of Mycenaean Greece. Ancient History 2017, 10, 12-15.
  • 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. Telling Stories: The Mycenaean Origins of the Philistines. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 2015, 34(1), 45-65.
  • Middleton GD. El colapso del sistema palacial micenico (ca. 1200 a.C.). Desperta Ferro 2015, 30, 48-57.
  • Middleton GD. Nothing lasts forever: Environmental discourses on the causes of past societal collapse. Journal of Archaeological Research 2012, 20(3), 257-307.

• Authored Books

  • Middleton GD. Women in the Ancient Mediterranean World: From the Palaeolithic to the Byzantines. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024. In Preparation.
  • Middleton GD. Understanding Collapse: Ancient History and Modern Myths. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2017.
  • Middleton GD. The Collapse of Palatial Society in Late Bronze Age Greece and the Postpalatial Period. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2010.

• Book Chapters

  • Middleton GD. Warfare, climate and the collapse of the Bronze Age in the Near East/Middle East. In: Showalter D; Roy K, ed. Oxford Handbook of Warfare in Asia. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024. In Press.
  • Middleton GD. Ceremonial weaponry. In: Hitchcock L; Davis B, ed. A Companion to Aegean Art and Architecture. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2024. In Press.
  • Middleton GD. From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea: Tsunamis and coastal catastrophes in the ancient Aegean and eastern Mediterranean. In: Williams H; Clare R, ed. The Ancient Sea: Imaginations Of The Utopian And The Catastrophic In Classical Narratives And Their Reception. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2023, pp.21-42.
  • 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.
  • 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. '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. 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. 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.

• Digital or Visual Media

  • Middleton GD. Interview on collapse. 2022. In Preparation.

• Edited Book

  • Middleton GD, ed. Collapse and Transformation: The Late Bronze Age to Early Iron in the Aegean. Oxford: Oxbow, 2020. In Preparation.

• Notes

  • Middleton GD. Revisiting 1177 BCE and the Late Bronze Age Collapse. Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies 2022, 10(2), 186-191.
  • Middleton GD. Bang or whimper?. Science 2018, 361(6408), 1204-1205.

• Online Publications

  • Middleton GD. The horrors of Pompeii. New York: Aeon Media Group Ltd, 2023. Available at: https://aeon.co/essays/what-pompeiis-ruins-say-about-its-enslaved-prostituted-women.
  • Middleton GD. Poseidon’s wrath. New York: Aeon Media Group Ltd, 2021. Available at: https://aeon.co/essays/how-a-vanished-ancient-greek-city-helps-us-think-about-disasters.
  • Middleton GD. Did a volcanic eruption in Alaska help end the Roman republic?. 2020. Available at: https://theconversation.com/did-a-volcanic-eruption-in-alaska-help-end-the-roman-republic-141196.
  • Middleton GD. Do civilisations collapse?. Aeon, 2017. Available at: https://aeon.co/essays/what-the-idea-of-civilisational-collapse-says-about-history.
  • 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/.

• Reviews

  • Middleton GD. Getting closer to the Late Bronze Age Collapse in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean, c. 1200 BC. Antiquity 2024, 98(397), 260-263.
  • Middleton GD. Michael E. Smith, Urban Life in the Distant Past: The Prehistory of Energized Crowding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023. Xviii + 350pp. 83 figures. 17 tables. £100.00 hbk.Review products. Urban History 2023, 50(4), 840-842.
  • Middleton GD. Review of Radner, Moeller, and Potts (eds.) (2022) ‘The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East: From the Hyksos to the Late Second Millenium BC. Vol. III.’. American Journal of Archaeology 2023, 127(4), E101-103.
  • Middleton GD. Review of Barca (2023) ‘Knossos, Mycenae, Troy: The Enchanting Bronze Age and Its Tumultuous Climax.’. Journal of Anthropological Research 2023, 79(4), 525-527.
  • Middleton GD. Review of Murphy (2021). ‘Rituals, Collapse, and Radical Transformation in Archaic States.’. American Journal of Archaeology 2022, 126(1).
  • Middleton GD. [Book review] Developments in Early Greece - (A.R.) Knodell (2021) Societies in Transition in Early Greece. An Archaeological History. The Classical Review 2022, 72(2), 656-659.
  • Middleton GD. [Book review] A Companion to the Archaeology of Early Greece and the Mediterranean Edited by Irene S. Lemos and Antonis Kotsonas (2019). American Journal of Archaeology 2021, 125(2).
  • Middleton GD. [Book review] Inscriptions on Women - (E.A.) Hemelrijk (2021) Women and Society in the Roman World. A Sourcebook of Inscriptions from the Roman West.. The Classical Review 2022, 72(1), 249-252.
  • Middleton GD. Review of Kerner, Dann, and Bangsgaard (2015) Climate and Ancient Societies. American Journal of Archaeology 2017, 121(2).
  • 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 Cline (2014) 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed. American Journal of Archaeology 2016, 120(3).
  • 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.

• Scholarly Edition

  • Middleton GD. Collapse of the Bronze Age Aegean. Oxford Classical Dictionary 2018. Oxford: Oxford University Press. In Preparation.