DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY

Does not accept graduate students

Research Interests: Archaeology, Human-Environment Interactions, Political Ecology, Environmental Justice,
Archaeobotany, Imperialism, Agriculture, Neo-Assyria, Near East

 

AFFILIATIONS

Director of Undergraduate Studies, Program in Environmental Policy and Culture

 

BIOGRAPHY

Melissa Rosenzweig is an anthropological archaeologist specializing in environmental archaeology.  Her past research has incorporated regional specialization in northern Mesopotamia and the Levant, methodological expertise in archaeobotany, and theoretical specialization in human-environment interactions. Her scholarship on the ancient Mesopotamian empire of Neo-Assyria (ca. 900 – 600 BCE), one of the world’s earliest and largest imperial projects, brings a focus on relationships of power and inequality embedded in agrarian lifeways. Political ecology informs her archaeological analysis of the ways in which agricultural practices shape political subjectivities, foment imperial ideologies, underwrite colonial acts, and facilitate subaltern resistance.  

Her current research focuses on archaeologies of environmental justice. HARBoR Evanston: Historical Research for Black Residents of Evanston is a local project in collaboration with the Shorefront Legacy Center and Dr. Mark Hauser (Northwestern) to create a community-led “deep map” of Black Evanston that includes oral histories, archaeological remains, and historical maps and texts to document Black homes, businesses and cultural institutions that have been lost to destruction, development and abandonment.

Dr. Rosenzweig is a 2026 recipient of the Weinberg College Distinguished Teaching Award, a 2026-2027 CNAIR Research Fellow, and a member of the 2026-2027 Black Midwest Initiative’s Environmental Justice Collaboratory Cohort. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the American Research Institute in Turkey, the American Society of Overseas Research, the National Geographic Society, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Northwestern Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies, and the Nova Scotia Museum.

 

COURSES TAUGHT

Introduction to Archaeology

Archaeologies of Sustainability and Collapse

Environmental Anthropology

Political Ecology

Chicago Environmental Justice

 

PUBLICATIONS

(in press) Rosenzweig, Melissa S. The Climate Crisis and Critical Hope: Archaeology as Source Material. In Archaeology to Transform and Disrupt, edited by K. Crouche and H. Cobb. Routledge Press.

(2024) Logan, Amanda L, Gerard L. Chouin, Adisa B. Ogunfolakan, Shannon Lally, Dela Kuma, Eli Kuto, Kristina Bell, Melissa S. Rosenzweig, Alemseged Beldados. Early archaeological evidence of wheat and cotton from medieval Ile-Ife, Nigeria. PNAS 121(37): 1-8.

(2023) Rosenzweig, Melissa S. Archaeologies for Environmental Justice. Special thematic section, “Archaeologies of and for Environmental Justice,” edited by K.C. Grauer and M. Rosenzweig. SAA Archaeological Record 23(2): 13-18.

(2023) Grauer, Kacey C. and Melissa S. Rosenzweig, editors. Special thematic section, “Archaeologies of and for Environmental Justice.” SAA Archaeological Record 23(2): 12-50.

(2023) Rosenzweig, Melissa S. Beating Swords into Plowshares: The Role of Agricultural Colonization in Imperial Histories. In From Households to Empires: Papers in Honor of Bradley J. Parker. Edited by J. Kennedy and P. Mullins. Leiden: Sidestone Press. Pp. 221-232.

(2022) Matney, Timothy, Tina Greenfield, Britt Hartenberger and Melissa S. Rosenzweig. Living at the Gate: Military Barracks at Assyrian Ziyaret Tepe. In No Place Like Home: Ancient Near Eastern Houses and Households. Edited by L. Battini, A. Brody and S. Steadman. Oxford: Archaeopress. Pp. 58-77.

(2020) Rosenzweig, Melissa S. and Anne Grasse. H. Archaeobotanical Remains from the Dinka Settlement Complex, 2015-2018: Preliminary Results. In The Dinka Settlement Complex 2019: Further Archaeological and Geophysical Work on Qalat-I Dinka and in the Lower Town. Volume 5. Edited by K. Radner, F.J. Kreppner and A. Squitieri. Gladbeck: PeWe Verlag. Pp. 164-189.

(2020) Rosenzweig, Melissa S. Confronting the Present: Archaeology in 2019. American Anthropologist 122 (2): 284-305.

(2019) Rosenzweig, Melissa S. Review of Imperial Peripheries in the Neo-Assyrian Period, edited by Craig W. Tyson and Virginia R. Herrmann. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 78(2): 351-356.

(2018) Rosenzweig, Melissa S. and John M. Marston. Archaeologies of Empire and Environment. Special Issue, “Archaeologies of Empire and Environment” edited by John M. Marston and Melissa S. Rosenzweig. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 52: 87-102.

(2018) John M. Marston and Melissa S. Rosenzweig, editors. Special Issue,“Archaeologies of Empire and Environment.” Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 52: 87-203.

(2018) Rosenzweig, Melissa S. Assessing the Politics of Neo-Assyrian Agriculture. Special Issue, “Uneven Terrain: Archaeologies of Political Ecology” edited by John K. Millhauser, Christopher T. Morehart and Santiago Juarez. Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 29(1): 30-50.

(2017) Rosenzweig, Melissa S. The Environmental Overview; Beer for the Troops; Archaeobotany: Farming and Food Production. Contributions in Ziyaret Tepe: Exploring the Anatolian Frontier of the Assyrian Empire. Authored by T. Matney, J. MacGinnis, D. Wicke and K. Köroğlu. Edinburgh: Cornucopia Books. Pp. 21; 127; 173-174.

(2016) Rosenzweig, Melissa S. ‘Ordering the Chaotic Periphery’: The Environmental Impact of the Neo-Assyrian Empire on its Provinces. In The Provincial Archaeology of the Assyrian Empire. Edited by J. MacGinnis, D. Wicke, and T. Greenfield. McDonald Institute Monographs. Oxford: Oxbow Press. Pp. 49-58.

(2016) Greenfield, Tina L. and Melissa S. Rosenzweig. Assyrian Provincial Life: A Comparison of Botanical and Faunal Remains from Tušhan (Ziyaret Tepe), Southeastern Turkey. In Proceedings of the 9th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Volume 2. Edited by R.A. Stucky, O. Kaelin, and H-P. Mathys. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. Pp. 305-321.

(2016) Rosenzweig, Melissa S. Cultivating Subjects in the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Journal of Social Archaeology 16(3): 307-334.

(2015) Matney, Timothy, Tina Greenfield, Kemalettin Köroğlu, John MacGinnis, Lucas Proctor, Melissa S. Rosenzweig, and Dirk Wicke. Excavations at Ziyaret Tepe, Diyarbakır Province, Turkey, 2011-2014 Seasons. Anatolica 41: 125-176.

(2013) Rosenzweig, Melissa S. and Laurent Dissard. Common Ground: Archaeological Practice and Local Communities in Southeastern Turkey. Near Eastern Archaeology 76(3): 150-156.

(2011) Dissard, Laurent, Melissa S. Rosenzweig and Timothy Matney. Beyond Ethics: Considerations in Problematising Community Involvement and Outreach in Archaeological Practice. Archaeological Review from Cambridge 26(2): 59-70.

(2011) Matney, Timothy, Tina Greenfield, Britt Hartenberger, Chelsea Jalbrzikowski, Kemalettin Köroğlu, John MacGinnis, Anke Marsh, M. Willis Monroe, Melissa S. Rosenzweig, Kristina Sauer, and Dirk Wicke. Excavations at Ziyaret Tepe, Diyarbakır Province, Turkey, 2009-2010 Seasons. Anatolica 37: 67-114.