Catherine Pratt

prattAssistant Professor

BA (UNC, Chapel Hill), MA (UCLA), PhD (UCLA)
Office: Lawson Hall 3211
Extension: 84373
Email: cpratt25@uwo.ca


Special Interests:

Greek archaeology with a focus on the Aegean Bronze and Iron Ages; Mediterranean cultural interaction; Near Eastern and Egyptian archaeology; Ancient Greek economics, especially production and trade in oil and wine; ceramic analysis.

Current Projects

  • “Palace and Landscape at Palaikastro. Excavation seasons 2012-2016. Building AP1 and associated features” with Nicoletta Momigliano and Carl Knappett (in preparation).
  • The Pre-Classical Amphoras of the Athenian Agora.” This project is a reexamination of the pre-Classical amphora corpus to shed light on the early uses of amphoras and their contextual existence as part of polis formation and articulation.   
  • Mainland vs. Cretan Production of Transport Stirrup Jars: a Comparison of Material from Pylos, Zygouries, and the House of the Oil Merchant” (in preparation)

Recent Publications

  • Cultural Commodities: Oil and Wine in Pre-Classical Greece. (Monograph; under review).
  • 2016    “The Rise and Fall of the Transport Stirrup Jar in the Bronze Age Aegean.” American Journal of Archaeology 120(1): 27-66
  • 2015    “The SOS Amphora: An Update.” Annual of the British School at Athens 110: 213-245.
  • 2015    “Minor Transnationalism in the Ancient Mediterranean? The Case of Phoenicians on Crete in the Early Iron Age.” Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies 18.3[2009]: 305-335.
  • “Greek Commodities Moving West: Comparing Corinthian and Athenian Amphorae in the Early Archaic Period.” In Maritime Transport Containers in the Mediterranean Bronze and Iron Ages. Bernard Knapp and Stella Demesticha, editors. SIMA PB 183, pages 195-213 (2016)
  • “Maritime Transport Containers: Into the Iron Age. The Aegean” with Stella Demesticha. In Mediterranean Connections: Maritime Transport Containers and Seaborne Trade in the Bronze and Early Iron Ages, by Stella Demesticha and A. Bernard Knapp. Pages 132-147. Routledge (2016)
  • “Commerce (Business and Trade).” In A Cultural History of Alcohol, Max Nelson, editor. London: Bloomsbury Press. Other contributors to the volume: Fritz Graf, Giulia Sissa, Jean-Pierre Brun, Laurence Villard, and Tyler Jo Smith. (ca. 10,000 words; submitted)

Conferences and Presentations:

  • 2017 “Phases of Feasting at Palaikastro: LM III Ceramics from Building AP1 ” in the session: Investigating Prehistoric Urbanization in East Crete: New Work at Palaikastro, 2012-16. Archaeological Institute of America Annual Meeting, Toronto. January 5-8.
  • 2016 “"The Embodied Economy of Victory: Oil and the Panathenaic Amphora" . International Olympic Academy and Harvard Center For Hellenic Studies Symposium. Ancient Olympia, Greece. July 13, 2016.
  • 2016 “Cultural Commodities: Oil and Wine in Pre-Classical Greece” invited AIA Society Lecture, Texas Tech University. April 7, 2016.
  • 2015   “Greek Commodities Moving West: Comparing Corinthian and Athenian Amphorae in the Early Archaic Period” in the Session: Pots in the Water: Maritime Transport Containers in the Mediterranean Bronze and Iron Ages, A. Bernard Knapp and Stella Demesticha, Organizers. September 2-5, 2015. European Archaeological Association Annual Meeting. Glasgow, UK.
  • “Missing Links in Transport Vessel Technology from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age” November 8th, 2012. University of Western Ontario. London, Canada.
  • “Pottery and Trade in the Late Bronze Age: Minoans, Mycenaeans, Cypriots and the Levant” August 2012. Jaffa Cultural Heritage Project Fieldschool. Tel Aviv, Israel.
  • “Objects and Agents: Transnational Interaction Between Cretans and Phoenicians in the Early Iron Age” January, 2012. Archaeological Institute of America Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA.
  • “Cretan and Phoenician interaction in the Early Iron Age: a new approach” April, 2011. Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA “Wednesday Seminar Series.”