Please join us for the first event of this year's Digital Futures Discovery Series, a year-long program led by Harvard's Digital Futures Consortium</a> that explores the ongoing transformation of scholarship through innovative technology.
Excavating in Italy, Spain, and Israel showed Henry Gruber how archaeological evidence could enhance our understanding of the world elucidated by our written sources. His current research focuses on the social and economic history of the later Roman Empire, bringing together texts and material culture to determine what we really mean when we talk about "the fall of Rome."
Henry, a graduate student in the Department of History at Harvard University, will be talking about his current research, which involves dating the abandonment of Roman villas in the south of Spain around the fall of the Roman Empire. The relational database he's developed to keep track of Roman sites, dateable materials, and functions of the villas that he's studying will be the basis of his talk, engaging the audience with questions of data organization in order to illustrate how decisions made early in a project inform what can be studied later.
Special Introduction
A Brief Overview of the Digital (or will it be Quantum?) Futures Consortium
Marty Schreiner, Harvard Library and Co-Chair of the Digital Futures Consortium
Following the presentation, please join us in sharing your ideas and questions. We look forward to meeting you.
Henry Gruber was born and raised in sunny Santa Monica, CA, and his love of Mediterranean climates led him to the study of the ancient Mediterranean world. Summers excavating in Italy, Spain, and Israel showed him how archaeological evidence could enhance our understanding of the world elucidated by our written sources. His current research focuses on the social and economic history of the later Roman Empire and brings together texts with material culture to determine what we really mean when we talk about 'the fall of Rome.'