Michele Rüzgar Massa is Assistant Professor at Bilkent University’s Department of Archaeology (Türkiye).
My primary areas of interest are the prehistoric and early historical Western Asia and Eastern Mediterranean, and I specialise in the archaeology of interaction, landscape archaeology, digital archaeology, archaeometry, paleoenvironmental studies, as well as different aspects of the process of urbanisation and state formation. I dedicated my doctorate (awarded in 2016) to establishing a novel conceptual and methodological framework for the investigation of interaction through the combination of Big Data approaches, GIScience, network analysis, geostatistics and in-depth analysis of archaeological material culture. This effort has led to publications exploring the causes and mechanisms involved in the circulation of raw materials, products, technologies, and cultural behaviours across Bronze/Iron Age Anatolia and Western Asia.
During my research stay at NINO, I will consolidate 15 years of studying mechanisms of interaction into a cohesive monograph, provisionally titled Modelling Interaction in Archaeology.
The book’s goal is to establish a novel theoretical and methodological framework for investigating exchange, cultural transmission, the formation of regional identities, and the movement of people in past societies, addressing these phenomena across different scales and with a longue durée perspective. It will achieve this by integrating both qualitative and quantitative methods – ranging from Big Data approaches, GIScience, and network analysis to geostatistics and detailed analysis of archaeological material culture. A large number of case studies from Anatolia and the Eastern Mediterranean, drawn from my own research and recent literature, will be employed to illustrate specific tools and observable patterns.