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Joanne Mary Rowland

  • Position: Visiting Simpson Professorship
  • Department: Department of Sociology, Egyptology and Anthropology
  • Email: joanne.rowland@aucegypt.edu
Brief Biography

Joanne Mary Rowland's research has focused on the fifth to third millennium BC in Egypt (Neolithic, Predynastic and Early Dynastic) since 1997 for her master's degree and then PhD. She has been active in fieldwork since 1998, and from 2005 has directed projects in the Delta, including Quesna and Merimde Beni Salama. In 2024, she became the director of the Naqada Regional Archaeological Survey and Site Management Project in southern Egypt.

After completing her PhD at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, and starting to develop her teaching portfolio, Rowland became an Egyptological fellow at the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art at the University of Oxford from 2006 to 2009. Here she worked with colleagues on a project synchronizing historical chronology with scientific dating, which involved collaboration with worldwide museum collections. Following this, from 2009 to 2010, Rowland moved to Brussels to the Royal Museums of Art and History to work on the Elkab project, which saw her co-field direct fieldwork during a season when the Old Kingdom settlement was first located.

Following this, she became junior professor in Egyptian archaeology from 2010 to 2016 at the Freie Universität Berlin, where she taught on a range of courses of varied period and theme, and began the Neolithic of the Nile Delta Project as part of the TOPOI Excellence Cluster. In 2016, Rowland moved to the University of Edinburgh, where she is now senior lecturer in archaeology. Here, she instigated the Egyptian archaeology taught component at the university, which has since expanded, including an Online Ancient Worlds MSc program. Rowland has participated in conferences, symposia and workshops on a regular basis since 2000, both focused on Egyptian prehistory and early history, and broader international congresses including research relating to the archaeologists from Quft, as well as results from the field projects and associated research. She has lectured to Egyptology friends' groups, the wider public and local archaeology societies. Rowland is the current chair of the Board of Trustees of the Friends of the Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology at University College London, UK.

Research Interest
  • Later prehistory and early history of the Egyptian Nile Valley
  • The archaeology of the Nile Delta across prehistoric and historic periods
  • The processes of Neolithization in the Near East and North Africa
  • The origins of complex societies within Egypt, with special interest in the analysis of mortuary practices from 5000 to 2500 BC
  • Archaeological field methods, including the history of and developments within human-environmental relationships during prehistory
  • Egyptian state formation
  • Environmental survey and reconstruction of the paleoenvironment in the Nile Delta
  • Chronology, including scientific dating methods
Education
  • PhD in archaeology, thesis: "Social Transformation in the Delta From the Terminal Predynastic to the Early Dynastic Period: A Comparative Study," Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 1999 to 2003 (awarded January 19, 2004)
  • Master of Arts in Archaeology, dissertation: "A Study Into the Distribution of Wealth at the Terminal Predynastic to Early Dynastic Site of Kafr Hassan Dawood," Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 1997 to 1998
  • Certificate in archaeological illustration, Birkbeck, University of London
  • Bachelor of Arts in Ancient History and Egyptology, University College London, 1993 to 1996

Books and Monographs

  • Zakrzewski, S., Shortland, A. and Rowland, J. M., Science in the Study of Ancient Egypt, Routledge, 2016.
  • Rowland, J. M., Tassie, G. J. and Lucarini, G., eds., Revolutions. The Neolithisation of the Mediterranean Basin: The Transition to Food Producing Economies in North Africa and Southern Europe, Edition TOPOI, 2021, https://edition-topoi.org/book/1594-revolutions/.

Book Chapters

  • Tassie, G. J., Rowland, J. M. and van Wetering, J. F. L., "Surveying the Naqada Region, Upper Egypt: Results from Fieldwork in 2018–19," in Egypt at Its Origins 7: Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference “Origin of the State. Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt,” Paris, September 19 to 23, 2022, edited by Y. Tristant, J. Villaeys and E. M. Ryan, Peeters, 2024, pp. 679–714.
  • Rowland, J. M., "New Perspectives on Activity Areas Within the Village and Wider Landscape at Merimde Beni Salama," in Egypt at Its Origins 6: Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference "Origin of the State. Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt," Vienna, September 10 to 15, 2017, edited by E. C. Köhler, F. Junge, N. Kuch and A. K. Jeske, Peeters, 2021, pp. 653–677.
  • Rowland, J. M., "Human-Environmental Relationships Within Neolithic Adaptations," in Gift of the Nile: Proceedings of the Colloquium on Ancient Egypt and the Environment, Vancouver, April 3, 2017, edited by C. Johnston, The Egyptian Expedition, 2021, pp. 67–86.
  • Rowland, J. M., "New Perspectives and Methods Applied to the 'Known' Settlement of Merimde Beni Salama, Western Nile Delta," in Revolutions. The Neolithisation of the Mediterranean Basin: The Transition to Food Producing Economies in North Africa and Southern Europe, edited by J. M. Rowland, G. J. Tassie and G. Lucarini, Edition TOPOI, 2021.
  • Rowland, J. M. and Tassie, G. J., "A New Funerary Monument Dating to the Reign of Khaba: The Quesna Mastaba in the Context of the Early Dynastic-Old Kingdom Mortuary Landscape in Lower Egypt," in Abusir and Saqqara in the Year 2015: Proceedings of the Conference Held in Prague (June 22 to 26, 2015), edited by M. Bárta, F. Coppens and J. Krejčí, Czech Institute of Egyptology, 2018, pp. 369–389.
  • Bernbeck, R., Cubasch, U., Gass, A., Kaiser, E., Parzinger, H., Pollock, S., Rowland, J. M., Russo, E., Schier, W. and Tassie, G., "Notes for a Political Ecology of Non-Sedentary People," in ETopoi Journal for Ancient Studies, edited by G. Grasshoff and M. Meyer, Special Volume 6: Space and Knowledge, 2016, pp. 45–73.
  • Rowland, J. M., "Interregional Exchange: The Evidence from Kafr Hassan Dawood, East Delta," in The Nile Delta as a Centre for Cultural Interactions Between Upper Egypt and the Southern Levant in the 4th Millennium BC, edited by A. Mączyńska, Poznań Archaeological Museum, 2014, pp. 255–282.
  • Rowland, J. M. and Hamdan, M., "The Holocene Evolution of the Quesna Turtle Back: Geological Evolution and Archaeological Relationships Within the Nile Delta," in Prehistory of Northeastern Africa – New Ideas and Discoveries, edited by J. Kabaciński, M. Chłodnicki and M. Kobusiewicz, Poznań Archaeological Museum, 2012, pp. 11–24.

Journal Articles

  • Hood, A., El Dorry, M., Odler, M., Quiles, A., Rowland, J. M. and Zakrzewski, S., "Beyond Dating: Science in Egyptology," Interdisciplinary Egyptology, vol. 1, no. 1, 2023, https://doi.org/10.25365.integ.2023.x1.12.
  • Woodman, N., Ikram, S. and Rowland, J. M., "Environmental Implications of Ptolemaic Period Rodents and Shrews from the Sacred Falcon Necropolis at Quesna, Egypt (Mammalia: Muridae and Soricidae)," BMC Ecology and Evolution, vol. 22, no. 148, 2022, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12862-022-02101-x.
  • Woodman, N., Ikram, S. and Rowland, J. M., "A New Addition to the Embalmed Fauna of Ancient Egypt: Güldenstaedt’s White-Toothed Shrew, Crocidura gueldenstaedtii (Pallas, 1811) (Mammalia: Eulipotyphla: Soricidae)," PLOS ONE, April 7, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249377.
  • Pennington, B., Sturt, F., Wilson, P., Rowland, J. M. and Brown, A. G., "The Fluvial Evolution of the Holocene Nile Delta," Quaternary Science Reviews, 2017, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2017.06.017.
  • Rowland, J. M. and Tassie, G. J., "Prehistoric Sites Along the Edge of the Western Nile Delta: Report on the Results of the Imbaba Prehistoric Survey 2013–14," Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, vol. 100, 2014, pp. 56–71.
  • Rowland, J. M., Ikram, S., Tassie, G. J. and Yeomans, L., "The Sacred Falcon Necropolis of Djedhor(?) at Quesna: Recent Investigations from 2006–2012," Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, vol. 99, 2013, pp. 53–84.
  • Bronk Ramsey, C., Dee, M. W., Rowland, J. M., Higham, T. F. G., Harris, S. A., Brock, F., Quiles, A., Wild, E. M., Marcus, E. S. and Shortland, A. J., "Radiocarbon-Based Chronology for Dynastic Egypt," Science, vol. 328, no. 5985, 2010, pp. 1554–1557.
  • Dee, M. W., Brock, F., Harris, S. A., Bronk Ramsey, C., Shortland, A. J., Higham, T. F. G. and Rowland, J. M., "Investigating the Likelihood of a Reservoir Offset in the Radiocarbon Record for Ancient Egypt," Journal of Archaeological Science, vol. 37, no. 4, 2010, pp. 687–693.