Staff profile

Professor Steven E Falconer

Professor, Chair Archaeology Program

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

School of Historical and European Studies

Martin Building 147, Melbourne (Bundoora)

 

Qualifications

BA Washington State, MA Arizona, PhD Arizona

Area of study

Archaeology

Brief profile

Professor Steve Falconer studies the rise and collapse of urbanized societies in the Eastern Mediterranean and Near East, turning particular attention to the interactions of small agrarian villages with their larger social, political and natural environments.  He utilizes settlement pattern, ceramic, faunal and metallurgical data to characterize rural life during the periodic development and abandonment of the region’s earliest polities and their regional economies.  Professor Falconer has directed excavations at a series of Bronze Age farming and herding settlements (ca. 2500-1500 B.C.) in Jordan along the Jordan Valley at Tell el-Hayyat, Tell Abu en-Ni’aj and Dhahret Umm al-Marar, and on the eastern flank of the Dead Sea at Zahrat adh-Dhra’ 1.  Currently he co-directs excavations at Bronze Age Politiko-Troullia (with Prof. Pat Fall) on the island of Cyprus.  Before joining La Trobe University in 2012, Steve was Professor of Archaeology in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University.

Research interests

Archaeology of Europe, the Mediterranean and the Levant

- Formation of Agrarian Landscapes

- Rise and Collapse of Early Urbanism

- Rural Communities in Urbanised Societies

Recent publications

  • Falconer, S.E. and P.L. Fall. In press. Spatial patterns, households and community behavior at Bronze Age Politiko-Troullia, Cyprus. Journal of Field Archaeology.
  • Falconer, S.E. and P.L. Fall. In press. Agricultural economies and pyrotechnologies in Bronze Age Jordan and Cyprus, in Archaeological Studies in Environment and Technology: Intersections and Transformations, edited by David Frankel, Jennifer Webb and Susan Lawrence. New York: Routledge.
  • Falconer, S.E., P.L. Fall and M. Soto-Berelov. In press. A Comparison of Vegetation and Settlement Models for the Jordan Rift in the Third and Second Millennia BCE, in Studies in the History and Archaeology of Jordan, vol. 11. Amman: Department of Antiquities, Jordan.
  • Falconer, S.E., P.L. Fall, J. Hunt and M.C. Metzger. In press. Agrarian Settlement at Politiko-Troullia, 2008. Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus, 2012.
  • Fall, P.L., S.E. Falconer, C. Galletti, T. Schirmang, E. Ridder, and J. Klinge. 2012. Long-term agrarian landscapes in the Troodos foothills, Cyprus. Journal of Archaeological Science 39: 2335-2347.
  • Falconer, S.E. and C. Redman, editors. 2009. Polities and Power: Archaeological Perspectives on the Landscapes of Early States. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
  • Falconer, S.E. and P.L. Fall. 2009. Settling the Valley: agrarian settlement and interaction along the Jordan Rift during the Bronze Age, in A Timeless Vale: Archaeological and Related Essays on the Jordan Valley, edited by E. Kaptijn and L. Petit, pp. 97-107. Archaeological Studies, Leiden University 19. Leiden: Leiden University Press.
  • Falconer, S.E. and C. Redman. 2009. The archaeology of early states and their landscapes, in Polities and Power: Archaeological Perspectives on the Landscapes of Early States, edited by S.E. Falconer and C. Redman, pp. 1-10. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
  • Falconer, S.E. and S.H. Savage. 2009. The Bronze Age political landscape of the Southern Levant, in Polities and Power: Archaeological Perspectives on the Landscapes of Early States, edited by S.E. Falconer and C. Redman, pp. 125-151. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
  • Falconer, S.E. 2008. The Middle Bronze Age, in Jordan: An Archaeological Reader, edited by R. Adams, pp. 263-280. London: Equinox.
  • Fall, P.L., S.E. Falconer, M. Horowitz, J. Hunt, M.C. Metzger and D. Ryter. 2008. Bronze Age Settlement and Landscape of Politiko-Troullia, 2005-2007. Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus 2008: 183-208.
  • Falconer, S.E., P.L. Fall and J.E. Jones. 2007. Life at the foundation of Bronze Age Civilization: agrarian villages in the Jordan Valley, in Crossing Jordan: North American Contributions to the Archaeology of Jordan, edited by T.E. Levy, P.M.M. Daviau, R.W. Younker and M. Shaer, pp. 261-268. London: Equinox Publishing.
  • Fall, P.L., S.E. Falconer and P.C. Edwards. 2007. Living on the edge: settlement and abandonment on the Dead Sea Plain, in Crossing Jordan: North American Contributions to the Archaeology of Jordan, edited by T.E. Levy, P.M.M. Daviau, R.W. Younker and M. Shaer, pp. 225-232. London: Equinox Publishing.
  • Savage, S.H., S.E. Falconer and T.P. Harrison. 2007.The Early Bronze Age city states of the southern Levant: neither cities nor states, in Crossing Jordan: North American Contributions to the Archaeology of Jordan, edited by T.E. Levy, P.M.M. Daviau, R.W. Younker and M. Shaer, pp. 285-300. London: Equinox Publishing.
  • Falconer, S.E. and P.L. Fall. 2006. Bronze Age Rural Economy and Village Life at Tell el-Hayyat, Jordan. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, International Series 1586.
  • Falconer, S.E., P.L. Fall, T.W. Davis, M.T. Horowitz and J. Hunt. 2005. Initial archaeological investigations at Politiko-Troullia. Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus 2005: 69-85.

Research projects

  • Multidisciplinary Investigations at Tell Abu en-Ni‘aj Excavations: Bronze Age Village Life During Urban Collapse (analyses and book manuscript preparation). 
  • Bronze Age Village Life and Landscape Dynamics at Politiko-Troullia: Investigation of the development of village agrarian life prior to rise of cities on Cyprus (excavation and analyses). 
  • Long-term Dynamics of Anthro-ecosystems in the Mediterranean Basin: a Natural Laboratory for the Human Role in Biocomplexity (analyses and publication).