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iweb.langara.bc.ca
Scholarly Activity
New submission from RSAF Final Report
Tuesday, December 10, 2019 1:57:22 AM

1. Please introduce yourself – include pertinent background information relating to the topic of your
research project. Include your project title.
Dr Jennifer Knapp: I am currently the department chair of Interdisciplinary Studies and the coordinator of
Classical Studies. I graduated in 2014 with my PhD in Classical Archaeology; my dissertation focused on
the development of Hellenistic period ceramics in Calabria. I have been working on archaeological
projects in Calabria since 2005 and currently am studying material from 3 different sites there. I am
heading the Oppido Mamertina Ceramics project; I am part of a team studying the ancient town of
Contrada Mella, a Hellenistic/Republican native Italic city site in Calabria, Italy.
2. Please discuss your educational background and your work experience that led you to taking on this
research project. If possible, include a quote that helps define your interest in this project.
I graduated in 2014 with my PhD in Classical Archaeology; my dissertation focused on the development
of Hellenistic period ceramics in Calabria. I have been working on archaeological projects in Calabria
since 2005 and currently am studying material from 3 different sites there. I have been analyzing pottery
for archaeological sites since 2000.
3. Please explain the concept for your project in terms that others not in your field would understand,
like an executive summary.
We are studying the pottery used in everyday activities: primarily cooking, storage, and transport of food.
This pottery was found during archaeological excavations conducted between 1987 and 2001 at the site
of Contrada Mella (near Oppido Mamertina), which dates from the 4th c. BCE until the 1st c. CE. Various
other academics have promised to study this material, while I was working on the pottery used for dining,
but as they never did, I formally took it over as of 2018. We will add this data to that collected from the
other pottery I studied at the site and use it to establish dates for various areas of the site, to understand
what activities were taking place in certain areas, and to understand what people how people were
cooking and eating.
4. Identify goals and objectives for the project, and how the results may be used, perhaps to solve a
problem, or to inform further research in that field.
Our goals are to analyze the pottery left unstudied. Once this analysis is completed, we will have a better
understanding of the particular site, but we will also be able to add significantly to greater knowledge
about the ceramics used for cooking and food preparation in this area of ancient Magna Graecia. There
are few publications on this type of material for this time period for Calabria, so the study will serve as a
valuable reference for others excavating and analyzing similar archaeological materials.
5. Briefly explain the steps taken to conduct the project research, and the results found.
This first season we had to assess the situation; the ceramics have been stored in a variety of
environments and we were not clear how much there was to study. We systematically went through
every crate, opened every bag of pottery, sorted the pottery, identified it, counted and weighed it, then
took more detailed notes about certain pieces. Currently we are working entirely on data collection, which
requires us to sort through a large amount of material and find peices that can be identified and dated.
Important pieces are measured, drawn, and photographed. All the data is recorded while we work and
then entered into a database. Altogether, we sorted 376kg of pottery (roughly 20,000 sherds).
6. Who else was involved in this project? How did their involvement help? Ie: other faculty, students,
community partners
I took two current Langara students and one former student (now at UBC) with me. The students were
trained to do the earlier stages of sorting, recording, and data collection. The former student, who has
been working with me for several years, was able to supervise the newer students, allowing me to focus

on more detailed tasks. One of the current students is particularly good at drawing pottery.
7. What were/are you hoping to get from conducting this research?
I had hoped to have a complete record of the coarseware pottery (cooking/storage/transport vessels)
from the site of Contrada Mella. There was far more material than expected, and so we will need another
season to complete the study.
8. Can you share any personal stories that made this research experience memorable/valuable?
Nothing specific, but beyond the actual research, we lived on a small farm in the mountains of Calabria.
The students gained a valuable cultural experience and they enjoyed the presence of all the animals-pigs, chickens, goats, dogs, and cats. We were often invited to meals with our landlords and at one
particular party we were treated to traditional Calabrian music played on traditional instruments and were
taught to dance. We also took the students to Sicily for several days; we toured archaeological sites and
museums. Probably everyone's favourite thing about the trip is the restaurant Do'Priuri, where we ate
about half our dinners (https://www.facebook.com/dopriuri/)
9. Do you have any tips/suggestions/ideas for applying this research in your field? Or for others in
their fields? Or for conducting future research of this kind?
Not at this time.
10. Any final comments? What are the “next steps” for this project? And for you?
We will need another season to collect the rest of the data from the pottery that is still not studied. I will
then start the long task of collating the data, identifying pieces and dating them, looking for trends and
connections across archaeological contexts. Any drawings we make of the pottery have to be scanned
and inked on the computer. Eventually it will be written up as several chapters for the publication of the
excavations. The entire study will likely take several years after the 2 seasons in the field, as there will be
a lot of library research to conduct for each piece we have identified and recorded as important. We will
also be comparing this data with the more dateable pieces (the fine pottery used for dining) that I studied
for my dissertation and using it to help date this set of pottery.
Please upload any images that will help to showcase your project.
IMG_3425.JPG