Hugh Elton

Professor, Department of Cultural Studies

 B.A. (Sheffield), D.Phil. (Oxford)

 Lady Eaton College S107, ext.7838, hughelton@trentu.ca

 Research Interests: field survey, archaeology of warfare, GIS, climate change, the late Roman eastern Mediterranean, the regions of Cilicia and Isauria in Southern Turkey

Current Projects

I am currently looking for MA students for next year, for the following topic:

1. Collection methods in intensive field survey. Traditionally intensive field surveys collect large numbers of ceramics, but in practice the majority of identified sherds are rims. This project will reanalyze data from three recent field surveys in the eastern Mediterranean (Göksu, Avkat, Antikythera) to test the hypothesis that we should only be collecting rims in most circumstances. Experience in intensive field survey and/or GIS and/or statistical methods preferred.

Recent Publications

• Jacobs, I. and ELTON, H., eds., Asia Minor in the Long Sixth Century: Current Research and Future Directions (Oxford, Oxbow Books, 2019).
• ELTON, H. "Pulcheria, Roman Augusta, 414–453 CE" in The Oxford Classical Dictionary, digital ed. Oxford University Press. [2019].  doi: 10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.013.7000. 
• ELTON, H. “The countryside in Southern Asia Minor in the long sixth century AD” in Jacobs, I. and Elton, H., eds., Asia Minor in the Long Sixth Century: Current Research and Future Directions (Oxford, Oxbow Books, 2019), 91-108.
• ELTON, H., The Late Roman Empire in late antiquity: a political and military history (Cambridge, CUP, 2018). 
• ELTON, H., Haldon, J., Huebner, S.R., Izdebski, A., Mordechai, L., and Newfield, T.P., “Plagues, climate change, and the end of an empire: A response to Kyle Harper's The Fate of Rome”
• "Climate," History Compass. 16.12 (2018); e12508. https://doi.org/10.1111/hic3.12508.
• "Plagues and a crisis of empire," History Compass. 16.12 (2018); e12506. https://doi.org/10.1111/hic3.12506.
• "Disease, agency, and collapse," History Compass 16.12 (2018); e12507. https://doi.org/10.1111/hic3.12507.
• Haldon, J., ELTON, H., and Newhard, J., Archaeology and Urban Settlement in late Roman and Byzantine Anatolia (Cambridge: CUP, 2018).
• ELTON, H., Cassis, M., Doonan, O., Elton, H. and Newhard, J., ‘Evaluating Archaeological Evidence for Demographics, Abandonment, and Recovery in Late Antique and Byzantine Anatolia’, Human Ecology 46.3 (2018), 381-398. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-018-0003-1.
• ELTON H., Roberts, N., Cassis, M., Doonan, O., Eastwood, W., Haldon, J., Izdebski, A. and Newhard, J.  "Not the end of the world? Post-Classical decline and recovery in rural Anatolia", in Human Ecology 46.3 (2018), 1-18; https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-018-9973-2
• ELTON, H. “The settlement at Alahan: an example of dispersed urbanism?”, in Aydınoğlu, Ü. and Mörel, A., eds., Antik Dönemde Akdeniz’de Kırsal ve Kent (Rural Settlements and Urban Centers in Mediterranean during Antiquity) (Mersin, 2017), 5-14.
• ELTON, H., J. Haldon and J. Newhard, “Euchaita”, in Niewöhner, P., ed., The Archaeology of Byzantine Anatolia. From the End of Late Antiquity to the Coming of the Turks (Oxford: OUP 2017), 375-388.

Recent Presentations

• November 2019            “Feeding Constantinople”, Trent GIS Day, Trent University.
• October 2019                with Mark Jackson, “Isauria and the End of the Roman Empire“, British Institute at Ankara, Turkey; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1II_R-6JOA.