Faculty Lecture
Island Archaeology: So What? Retelling the Past from the Margins
- Helen Dawson (Freie Universität Berlin)
- Datum
- dinsdag 27 oktober 2026
- Tijd
- Bezoekadres
-
Van Steenis
Einsteinweg 2
2333 CC Leiden
Abstract
Over the past 25 years, island archaeology has highlighted the value of islands as model systems for understanding environmental and cultural processes. Less attention has been given to what studying islands contributes to archaeology as a discipline: the all-important “so what?” question. This paper addresses this issue through the concept of “optimal marginality” and considers its broader implications for how we view the past.
Small and remote islands have often been considered uninhabitable from a mainland perspective. However, their repeated use suggests that characteristics perceived as disadvantageous may instead have been attractive to island communities. Comparative analysis shows that they experienced shorter, more recurrent periods of occupation in prehistory, but their repeated abandonment can be understood within wider networks of mobility and connectivity. Similar assumptions shape interpretations of other places considered marginal. An “optimal marginality” approach thus considers remoteness and smallness as relational qualities shaped by changing environments, cultural practices and social networks, showing how island archaeology can help question dominant narratives and reconsider whose histories we place centre-stage.
About Helen Dawson
Helen Dawson is a prehistoric archaeologist specialising in the comparative study of island cultures and the author of "Mediterranean Voyages: The Archaeology of Island Colonisation and Abandonment". Until recently, she was Scientific Coordinator of the "Islands of Transformation" project at the University of Tübingen and an Adjunct Professor in Applied Critical Archaeology and Heritage at the University of Bologna. She is currently an Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of Prehistoric Archaeology at Freie Universität Berlin and is Chair of the Advisory Board of the Small Island Cultures Research Initiative (SICRI), through which she brings the wider interdisciplinary field of Island Studies into dialogue with her research on settlement, abandonment, identities, and networks.