Dr. Michela Spataro

Michela Spataro is a scientist in the department of Scientific Research at the British Museum (London, UK). Previously, as a Leverhulme Research Fellow at the Institute of Archaeology, she completed an archaeometric project on the earliest pottery from the central Balkans, the Starčevo culture. She has a degree in Literature and Philosophy and a PhD in archaeology from the Institute of Archaeology, University College London (UK).

She has published more than 60 articles, mainly on prehistoric ceramics from Europe, Egypt, Sudan, Pakistan, China and Russia, and four books on European ceramics and societies, and archaeometric methods. She organised several international symposia on the Balkan Neolithic and ceramic technology.

Her interests focus on provenance and technology of prehistoric ceramics in the Balkans, to understand the economy and social aspects of Neolithic communities.

Key publications
Spataro, M. 2018. Origins of specialisation: the ceramic chaîne opératoire and technological-take-off at Vinča-Belo Brdo, Serbia. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 37(3),247-265

Spataro, M. 2017. Innovation and regionalism in the Middle/Late Neolithic of south and south-eastern Europe (ca. 5500-4500 cal. BC): a ceramic perspective. In Burnez-Lanotte, L. (ed.) Matières à Penser: Raw materials acquisition and processing in Early Neolithic pottery productions. Société préhistorique française (Séances de la Société préhistorique française, 11), 61–80. Paris.

Spataro, M. and Villing, A. (eds.) 2015. Ceramics, Cuisine and Culture: the Archaeology and Science of Kitchen Pottery in the Ancient Mediterranean World. Oxbow, Oxford