Biography

Annapaola Passerini is an archaeological scientist specialized in the use of radiocarbon dating. She received a BA (2012) and an MA (2015) in archaeology from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (Italy), and completed a PhD in Anthropology at Cornell University (2024). As part of her Master’s and doctoral education she received training in radiocarbon dating at the Weizmann Institute of Science and at the W. M. Keck Carbon Cycle AMS Facility at the University of California, Irvine. Her research focuses on the application of 14C dating and Bayesian chronological modeling to elaborate on the understanding of time as both a physical dimension and lived, social experience. She is particularly committed to pushing the theoretical boundaries of radiocarbon dating by combining it with anthropological, sociological, and historical perspectives. Besides scientific dating, her research also tackles matters of chronopolitics in Soviet and post-Soviet archaeology. Her fieldwork experience includes excavations in France, Bulgaria, Canada, UK, Cyprus, Georgia, and Armenia. While at Cornell she was the recipient of an NSF-Arch DDRI grant (award #BCS-2106251).

Project Abstract

Continuity, Change, and the Dynamics of Time: A Chronometric Study of Multitemporal Assemblages

This project challenges how object-based chronologies render dynamics of time in archaeology. Using high-resolution radiocarbon dating and Bayesian chronological modeling, the project seeks to distinguish the dynamics of human generations from the temporalities of materials that were inherited (past in the past) or created (present) in the past. This research conceptualizes the archaeological record as a multitemporal assemblage, an approach that brings into focus the organic life dated by radiocarbon and its interactions with the inorganic record. The project will explore these themes by re-examining archaeological and radiocarbon data from the Bronze Age South Caucasus (4th-2nd millennia BCE). As it reflects on the role of archaeology as a technology of temporal representation, the project will also produce an epistemological critique of archaeological science against the history of Soviet and post-Soviet archaeology in the region. 

For periods undocumented by written history, radiocarbon dating offers an ingenious solution to obtain independent calendar dates. Advances in calibration, measuring technology, and Bayesian modeling now enable levels of accuracy and precision at a human and generational scale. Despite this potential, radiocarbon applications in archaeology are often subordinated to the justification of predetermined typological paradigms that conflate human temporality with the duration of constructed material typologies. In the South Caucasus the legacy of these paradigms continues to constrain archaeological inquiry within stereotyped classifications of the past. This is especially true for the Bronze Age, depicted as a succession of discrete lifestyles attached to temporal boundaries that reproduce received (and fixed) notions of speed, duration, and eventfulness. This project challenges the theoretical assumptions behind applied concepts of temporality and change in the South Caucasus. Rather than looking at material typologies as the end goal of scientific dating, the project brings the organic life that is directly dated by radiocarbon back into the center of archaeological chronology.

Curriculum vitae

Education

2024   PhD in Anthropology (archaeology), Cornell University

2020   MA in Anthropology (archaeology), Cornell University

2015    MA in Archaeology, Ca' Foscari University of Venice

2012    BA in Archaeology, Ca' Foscari University of Venice

Academic Positions

2024   Einstein Center Chronoi Fellow

Selected Publications

2024. "Understanding the End of the Kura-Araxes Phenomenon: The Radiocarbon Perspective." In The End of the Kura-Araxes Phenomenon and the EB-MB Transition in the South Caucasus: The Chrono-Cultural Aspect, edited by Ruben Badalyan and Bérengère Perello, 7–38. ARAXES, vol. 3. Turnhout: Brepols. 

2022. "Thirty Years in the Making: A Review of Kura-Araxes Periodization from a Radiocarbon Perspective." In Paradise Lost: The Phenomenon of the Kura-Araxes Tradition along the Fertile Crescent. Collection of Papers Honouring Ruben S. Badalyan on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday, edited by Aram Kosyan, Pavel S. Avetisyan, Kristine Martirosyan-Olshansky, Arsen Bobokhyan and Yervand Grekyan, 323–348. ARAMAZD, vol. 16, no. 1–2. Oxford: Archaeopress. https://doi.org/10.32028/ajnes.v16i1-2.1836.

2018, co-authored with Elena Rova and Elisabetta Boaretto. "Chronology (and Chronologies) of the Kura-Araxes Culture in the Southern Caucasus: An Integrative Approach Through Bayesian Analysis." Origini 41 (1): 81–138.

2016, co-authored with Lior Regev, Elena Rova and Elisabetta Boaretto. "New Radiocarbon Dates for the Kura-Araxes Occupation at Aradetis Orgora, Georgia." Radiocarbon 58 (3): 649–677. https://doi.org/10.1017/RDC.2016.37.