John Peter Oleson (born 1946) is a
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
classical archaeologist
Classical archaeology is the archaeological investigation of the Mediterranean civilizations of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Nineteenth-century archaeologists such as Heinrich Schliemann were drawn to study the societies they had read about ...
and historian of
ancient technology
Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history cov ...
. His main interests are the
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
* Rome, the capital city of Italy
* Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lett ...
Near East
The ''Near East''; he, המזרח הקרוב; arc, ܕܢܚܐ ܩܪܒ; fa, خاور نزدیک, Xāvar-e nazdik; tr, Yakın Doğu is a geographical term which roughly encompasses a transcontinental region in Western Asia, that was once the hist ...
,
maritime archaeology
Maritime archaeology (also known as marine archaeology) is a discipline within archaeology as a whole that specifically studies human interaction with the sea, lakes and rivers through the study of associated physical remains, be they vessels, s ...
(particularly Roman harbours), and ancient technology, especially
hydraulic technology, water-lifting devices, and
Roman concrete construction.
Life
Born in 1946 in
, United States, Oleson was schooled at the
Loomis School
The Loomis Chaffee School (; LC or Loomis) is a selective independent, coeducational, college preparatory school for boarding and day students in grades 9–12, including postgraduate students, located in Windsor, Connecticut, seven miles nort ...
in
Windsor, Connecticut
Windsor is a town in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States, and was the first English settlement in the state. It lies on the northern border of Connecticut's capital, Hartford. The population of Windsor was 29,492 at the 2020 census.
P ...
(1960–64). He received his
BA in
Classics
Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...
at
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...
in 1967, where he studied with
Herbert Bloch. Oleson received his
MA (1971) and
PhD PHD or PhD may refer to:
* Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification
Entertainment
* '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series
* '' Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic
* Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group
** Ph.D. (Ph.D. al ...
(1973) in
Classical Archaeology at Harvard University, working in particular with
George M.A. Hanfmann and David Mitten.
From 1973–1976 Oleson taught in the Classics Department of
Florida State University
Florida State University (FSU) is a public university, public research university in Tallahassee, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida. Founded in 1851, it is located on the oldest continuous site of higher e ...
,
Tallahassee. Since 1976 he has been a member of the Greek and Roman Studies Department of the
University of Victoria, Canada, where he was appointed Distinguished Professor in 2003. He was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Canada
The Royal Society of Canada (RSC; french: Société royale du Canada, SRC), also known as the Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada (French: ''Académies des arts, des lettres et des sciences du Canada''), is the senior national, bil ...
in 1994. From 1997 to 2001 he was a member of Council of the
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. From 1999–2002 he was a Trustee of the Board of the
Royal British Columbia Museum. He was appointed a
Killam Research Fellow for 2000–2002. Since 1997 he has been a member of the Board of the
American Center of Research in
Amman.
Between 1970 and 1975 Oleson worked with Anna McCann Taggart on the archaeological excavation of the
Etruscan and Roman harbours at
Cosa,
Pyrgi, and
Populonia, and from 1980 to 1985 he was a co-director of the
Caesarea
Caesarea () ( he, קֵיסָרְיָה, ), ''Keysariya'' or ''Qesarya'', often simplified to Keisarya, and Qaysaria, is an affluent town in north-central Israel, which inherits its name and much of its territory from the ancient city of Caesar ...
Ancient Harbour Excavation Project. In 1997, along with McCann Taggart, he was a project archaeologist at the
Skerki Bank Deep Water Shipwreck Survey, directed by
Robert Ballard
Robert Duane Ballard (born June 30, 1942) is an American retired Navy officer and a professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island who is most noted for his work in underwater archaeology: maritime archaeology and archaeolo ...
. From 1986 until 2005 he directed survey and excavation at the site of Hawara (modern Humayma), a
Nabataean, Roman, and
Early Islamic centre in the Hisma Desert of southern
Jordan
Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...
. Since 2001 he has co-directed the Roman Maritime Concrete Study with Christopher J. Brandon and Robert L. Hohlfelder.
Oleson has published ten books and more than 95 articles concerning ancient technology, marine archaeology, the Nabataeans, and the Roman Near East. He has presented more than 150 refereed public papers and invited lectures since 1976. Oleson has also been active as an editor: His ''Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World'' was awarded the
Eugene Ferguson book award by the
Society for the History of Technology in 2009. In 2010 the Royal Society of Canada awarded Oleson the
Pierre Chauveau Medal for "distinguished contribution to knowledge in the humanities."
Royal Society of Canada: Pierre Chauveau Medal
Works
* ''Sources of Innovation in Later Etruscan Tomb Design'', Rome: Giorgio Bretschneider Editore, 1982,
* ''Greek and Roman Mechanical Water-Lifting Devices: The History of a Technology'', Phoenix, supplementary Vol. 16, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984, ISSN
An International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) is an eight-digit serial number used to uniquely identify a serial publication, such as a magazine. The ISSN is especially helpful in distinguishing between serials with the same title. ISSNs a ...
* ''Bronze Age, Greek and Roman Technology: A Select, Annotated Bibliography'', New York: Garland Publishing, 1986,
* ''The Roman Port and Fishery of Cosa'', Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987 (co-author),
* ''The Harbours of Caesarea Maritima. Vol. 1: The Site and the Excavations'', BAR
Bar or BAR may refer to:
Food and drink
* Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages
* Candy bar
* Chocolate bar
Science and technology
* Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment
* Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud
* Bar ( ...
International Series, supplement 491, 1989 (editor and co-author),
* ''The Harbours of Caesarea Maritima. Vol. 2: The Finds and the Ship'', BAR
Bar or BAR may refer to:
Food and drink
* Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages
* Candy bar
* Chocolate bar
Science and technology
* Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment
* Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud
* Bar ( ...
International Series, supplement 594, 1994 (editor and co-author),
* ''Classical Views/Echos du monde classique'', Vols. 30 to 37 (1986 to 1994) (co-editor), ISSN
An International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) is an eight-digit serial number used to uniquely identify a serial publication, such as a magazine. The ISSN is especially helpful in distinguishing between serials with the same title. ISSNs a ...
* ''Greek and Roman Technology: A Sourcebook'', London: Routledge, 1997 (co-author),
* ''Deep-Water Shipwrecks off Skerki Bank: The 1997 Survey'', Journal of Roman Archaeology, supplement 58, 2004 (co-author),
* ''Handbook of Engineering and Technology in the Classical World'', New York: Oxford University Press, 2008 (editor), (corrected, paperbound edition 2010)
* ''Humayma Excavation Project, 1: Resources, History and the Water-Supply System'', ASOR Archaeological Reports, Vol. 15, 2010,
* ''Humayma Excavation Project, 2: Nabatean Campground and Necropolis, Byzantine Churches, and Early Islamic Structures'', ASOR Archaeological Reports, Vol. 18, 2013 (co-author),
* ''Building for Eternity. The History and Technology of Roman Concrete Engineering in the Sea.'', Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2014 (co-author),
See also
*
*
References
External links
Personal website
at University of Victoria
{{DEFAULTSORT:Oleson, John Peter
Canadian archaeologists
20th-century Canadian historians
Canadian male non-fiction writers
Canadian underwater divers
Classical archaeologists
Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada
Harvard University alumni
Historians of antiquity
Writers from Hackensack, New Jersey
Underwater archaeologists
University of Victoria faculty
1946 births
Living people
Loomis Chaffee School alumni
21st-century Canadian historians