UC Press Blog

By Allison Kidd, guest editor of Studies in Late Antiquity's special issue, "A Late Antiquity on Its Own Terms: Approaches to Adaptation and Innovation in the Late Antique Urban Environment." 

The recent special issue of Studies in Late Antiquity, "A Late Antiquity on Its Own Terms: Approaches to Adaptation and Innovation in the Late Antique Urban Environment" features a group of papers that explore critical debates about urban development in the Mediterranean from the late third to seventh century. Late antique cities have long been dismissed as pale shadows of their earlier forms at the height of Greco-Roman antiquity, a narrative shaped by Enlightenment-era antiquarians like Edward Gibbon and Johann Joachim Winckelmann. In this traditional model, urban populations are cast as victims of a volatile and precarious world, incapable of meeting the demands of changing political, social, religious, and economic circumstances. This outdated view continues to influence both scholarship and education, despite substantial archaeological evidence that has come to light in recent decades to refute the homogeneity of such a bleak outlook. 

This disparity has made it challenging to create a unified narrative without oversimplification. Rather than leaning into this impasse, the articles in this special issue aim to approach late antique urbanism from a different vantage point. By using theoretical frameworks in social anthropology and postprocessualist archaeology—Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and Material Engagement Theory (MET)—the authors move beyond attempts to explain the what, where, and when of late antique cities to answer how, why, and for what purposes objects were created, used, or discarded in these urban environments.

Rethinking Agency in the Late Antique City 

Agency-based methods like ANT and MET require investigating the reciprocal impact that humans and things have on one another. Whereas materials (and the objects created from them) lack conscious intent, they nevertheless influence human decisions and actions. For example, a potter's work is shaped by the physical and chemical properties of clay—its moisture, texture, and reaction to manipulation and heat—which in turn affects the potter’s techniques and the final product. 

Such an approach does not de-center human impact, as critics of agency studies often claim. Instead, it treats material culture as important primary source material, functioning much the same way as written primary sources for scholars today. The literary record does not satisfactorily describe all processes of urban development in Late Antiquity; but when it does tell us about the people involved in urbanism, it tends to focus on the high-level individuals who funded, planned, and organized urban development, or even disengaged from it. The material record, on the other hand, is often the only record that provides insight into the people who executed urban development or had to devise innovative solutions when circumstances changed.

Bringing the Impact of Non-Elite Contributors to the Fore

Papers in this special issue are arranged according to geographic purview, from specific local urban contexts to larger, interregional developments. The authors do not present instances of radical change or stasis but rather explore subtle negotiations of public space and its associated institutions. They therefore draw our attention not only to agents of the state, church, or local officials but also to individuals who were active in the urban landscape yet often remain silent in the historical record, such as merchants, project managers, and craftspeople. They further reveal the extent to which these individuals were driving forces for urban development through their capital, labor, and ideological investment. This is especially evident in the way each author addresses the topic of resource management. 

By integrating new materialist and postprocessualist perspectives, this special issue provides a richer, more nuanced understanding of late antique urbanism. This collaborative endeavor bridges disciplinary divides, offering insights that challenge traditional narratives, and celebrates the complexity and resolve of late antique urban communities.

We invite you to read Studies in Late Antiquity's special issue, "A Late Antiquity on Its Own Terms: Approaches to Adaptation and Innovation in the Late Antique Urban Environment," for free online for a limited time.

Print copies of the special issue (issue 8.3) can be purchased on the journal’s site. For ongoing access to PHR, please ask your librarian to subscribe and/or purchase an individual subscription.