Professor
Affiliations
Archaeology Program, Department of Classical Studies
Areas of Expertise
Prehistoric archaeology; early hominin dispersals; lithic technology; history of archaeology
View Professor Runnels’s CV – November 2024
About
Professor Curtis Runnels has conducted research since 1973 primarily in Greece and neighboring regions on the Palaeolithic, the origins of agriculture, trade, and warfare, and the emergence of complex societies. Since 2008 he has participated in a program of combined geomorphological, geochronological, and archaeological research on the Greek island of Crete where Palaeolithic sites have been discovered dating from 40,000 years ago to more than 130,000 years ago. As Crete is an oceanic island cut off from the mainland for more than 5.3 million years, the presence of Palaeolithic artifacts on the island is evidence that early hominins were crossing the Aegean Sea in boats from as early as the Middle Pleistocene. This evidence for prehistoric seafaring suggests the possibility that other hominin dispersals in the Pleistocene, both in the Mediterranean and elsewhere in the world, also involved seafaring. Since 2015, Runnels has carried out research on possibly early archaeological sites in Wyoming and California, where lithic artifacts are found in desert pavements in arid environments. The lithic artifacts may be Pleistocene in age and a program of combined research similar to that on Crete is aimed at determining when and how they were incorporated into the desert pavements. It is thought that they predate the Clovis culture.
Selected Publications
- Thomas P. Leppard and Curtis Runnels, 2017, “Maritime Hominin dispersals in the Pleistocene: advancing the debate,” Antiquity 91: 510-519. doi:10.15184/aqy.2017.16
- Howitt-Marshall, D. and C. Runnels, 2016, “Middle Pleistocene sea-crossings in the eastern Mediterranean?” Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 42: 140-153. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2016.04.005
- Curtis Runnels, 2014, “Early Palaeolithic on the Greek Islands?” Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 27: 211-230.
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Curtis Runnels and Justin A. Holcomb, 2024, “From Sagas to Voyages: Prospecting, Agency and the Palaeolithic Exploration of the Greek Islands, The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/15564894.2024.2388538
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Curtis Runnels, 2021, “The Paleolithic Exploration of the Greek Islands and Middle Pleistocene Hominin Dispersals: The Case for Behavioral Variability over Behavioral Modernity,” in Matthew F. Napolitano, Jessica H. Stone, and Robert J. DiNapoli, eds., The Archaeology of Island Colonization: Global Approaches to Initial Human Settlement. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, pp. 87-101.
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Curtis Runnels, 2021, “Mehr als ein Laie: Schliemanns Bücher liefern den Beweis” [“Heinrich Schliemann’s Growing Professionalism as an Archaeologist: The Evidence of His Books”] in Leoni Hellmayer, ed., Heinrich Schliemann und die Archäologie [Heinrich Schliemann and Archaeology], special issue of the journal Antike Welt, pp. 69-77. Darmstadt: Philipp von Zabern.
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Curtis Runnels, 2020, “The Piney Branch Site (District of Columbia, USA) and the Significance of the Quarry-Refuse Model for the Interpretation of Lithics Sites,” Journal of Lithic Studies 7 (1): 1 – 17. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2218/jls.2986.
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Justin Holcomb, Curtis Runnels, and Karl Wegmann, 2020, “Deposit-centered archaeological survey and the search for the Aegean Palaeolithic: A geoarchaeological perspective,” Quaternary International 550: 169-183. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2020.04.043
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Justin Holcomb, Curtis Runnels, Duncan Howitt-Marshall, and Evangelos Sachperoglou, 2018, “New Evidence for the Palaeolithic in Attica, Greece,” Journal of Lithic Studies 5 (1): 1-8. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2218/jls.v5i1.
Courses
- CAS AR 210 Minoan and Mycenaean Civilization
- CAS AR 202 Archaeological Mysteries: Pseudoscience and Fallacy in the Human Past
- CAS AR 206 Ancient Technology: Evolution of Technology and Culture
- CAS AR 305 Palaeolithic Archaeology