Professor Fitzsimons has been at Trent University since 2004, first as a member of the Department of Ancient History & Classics (2004-2015), and more recently as a member of the Department of Anthropology. He is a prehistoric archaeologist whose research is based in the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Aegean and focuses on monumental architecture, funerary practices, socio-political and cultural identity, and early state formation. He has participated in a number of archaeological projects in Albania and Greece, including excavations at Kommos, Mallia, and Midea. Since 2002, he has served as the site architect for the Azoria Project excavations at Azoria, Crete (Greece), and since 2009, has been co-director of the Ayia Irini Northern Sector Archaeological Project, based at Ayia Irini on the island of Kea (Greece). Before coming to Trent, he taught at Miami University of Ohio and Iowa State University, and was the Jacob Hirsch Fellow at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, and since his arrival here, he has taught courses on the archaeology of the ancient Mediterranean (the Greek and Roman worlds, the Bronze Age Aegean, Iron Age Greece, Archaic Crete, and ancient Athens), Greek literature and ancient Greek language, and has also led archaeological field schools at Azoria (2005, 2006, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017) and Ayia Irini (2010).
FITZSIMONS, R.D. 2017. “Architectural Energetics and Archaic Cretan Urbanisation.” From Maple to Olive: A Colloquium to Celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the Canadian Institute in Greece, Athens, 10-11 June 2016, edited by D.W. Rupp and J. Tomlinson, 345-383. Publications of the Canadian Institute in Greece no. 10. Toronto: Canadian Institute in Greece.
FITZSIMONS, R.D. and E. Gorogianni. 2017. “Dining on the Fringe? A Possible Minoan-Style Banquet Hall at Ayia Irini, Kea.” In Minoan Architecture and Urbanism: New Perspectives on an Ancient Built Environment, edited by Q. Letesson and C. Knappett, 334-360. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gorogianni, E. and R.D. FITZSIMONS. 2016. “Social Complexity in MBA and LBA Cyclades: A View from Ayia Irini.” In Explaining Change in Aegean Prehistory, edited by C. Wiersma and S. Voutsaki, 124-158. Oxford: Oxbow.
Gorogianni, E., J. Cutler, and R.D. FITZSIMONS. 2015. “Something Old, Something New: Non-Local Brides as Catalysts for Cultural Exchange at Ayia Irini, Kea?” In Nostoi: Indigenous Cultures, Migration and Integration in the Aegean Islands and Western Anatolia during the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age. Proceedings of an International Conference Held at the Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations, Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey, March 31-April 3, 2011, edited by N. Stampolidis, Ç. Maner, and K. Kopanias, 853-886. Istanbul: Koç University Press.
FITZSIMONS, R.D. 2014. “An Energetic(s) Approach to Late Helladic Tomb Construction: Funerary Architecture and State Formation at Bronze Age Mycenae.” In Meditations on the Diversity of the Built Environment in the Aegean Basin and Beyond. Proceedings of a Colloquium in Memory of Frederick E. Winter, Athens 22-23 June 2012, edited by D.W. Rupp and J. Tomlinson, 83-120. Publications of the Canadian Institute in Greece 8. Athens: Canadian Institute in Greece.
FITZSIMONS, R.D. 2014. “Urbanization and the Emergence of the Greek Polis: The Case of Azoria, Crete.” In Making Ancient Cities: Studies of the Production of Space in Early Urban Environments, edited by A. Creekmore and K.D. Fisher, 288-338. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
FITZSIMONS, R.D. 2011. “Monumental Architecture and the Construction of the Mycenaean State.” In State Formation in Italy and Greece: Questioning the Neoevolutionist Paradigm, edited by N. Terrenato and D.C. Haggis, 75-118. Oxford: Oxbow.
Haggis, D.C., M.S. Mook, R.D. FITZSIMONS, C.M. Scarry and L.M.Snyder. 2011. “The Excavation of Archaic Houses at Azoria in 2005-2006.” Hesperia 80: 431-489.
Haggis, D.C., M.S. Mook, R.D. FITZSIMONS, C.M. Scarry, L.M.Snyder and W.C. West. 2011. “Excavations in the Archaic Civic Buildings at Azoria in 2005-2006.” Hesperia 80: 1-70.
FITZSIMONS, R.D. 2007. “Architecture and Power in the Bronze Age Argolid.” In Power and Architecture: Monumental Public Architecture in the Bronze Age Near East and Aegean. Proceedings of the international conference “Power and Architecture” organized by the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, the Université Catholique de Louvain and the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster on the 21st and 22nd of November 2002, edited by J. Bretschneider, J.M. Driessen and K. Van Lergerghe, 93-116. Leuven: Peeters Publishers.
Haggis, D.C., M.S. Mook, C.M. Scarry, L.M. Snyder, R.D. FITZSIMONS, E. Stephanakis and W.C. West. 2007. “Excavations at Azoria in 2003 and 2004, Part 1: The Archaic Civic Complex.” Hesperia 76: 243-321.