Hailing from Calabria in Southern Italy, Mattia D’Acri joined A&A this semester as a post-doctoral researcher, having completed his Ph.D. in classical archaeology at the University of Missouri, Columbia with a dissertation titled “Pottery production and social complexity in Archaic Rome and Latium.”  His research primarily focuses on the archaeology of pre-Roman Italy, with a particular interest in pottery analysis and production. He has been involved in several archaeological projects, including the Torre Mordillo Archaeological Project (TMAP), where he serves as Co-director, and the Caesar’s Forum Project, the Gabii Project, the Quirinal Project, and the Venus Pompeiana Project.

Q&A with Mattia D’Acri

What brought you to A&A? 

Until now I only worked—and am still working— in Italy, especially Central and Southern Italy. I specialize in pre-Roman archaeology of these two parts of Italy and broadly speaking, from the 8th to the 6th century B.C.E.  I mainly work on pottery production of these areas. Here at Princeton, I'm working with Nathan Arrington for his project in Thrace, so it's a completely different area and it's a site that spans over different centuries that goes beyond my specialties and my specializations. So it's quite challenging, but it's very exciting, too, and I think it's the best fit for my career at this point.  

I applied for this job because I wanted to have a broader perspective, because especially now, when you are hyperspecialized in something, you are missing something else. Research becomes stale at some point.  We have to not just look at new technologies but new areas and new approaches and new methodologies and new perspectives so I'm very open to that.  

Being actively involved in a research project in Greece that has some overlap with some of my research in Italy is just amazing. When you can look at different areas, so you see things in a different way. 

Can you describe your current work with Professor Arrington?

I am working on materials from the Molyvoti, Thrace, Archaeological Project (MTAP). The project adopts a tailored database called “WebDig” originating from iDig which was launched earlier this month. My role is to manage the database, double-checking that everything is in order and fixing any mistakes, but also to study the archaic pottery that comes from the excavation—that's the research part of the position. At the end of an excavation, you have thousands and thousands of pieces of data, objects, layers, and you have to manage them, but also the correlation with each other. If you find an object—a pot, for example— it belongs to a certain layer. So, you have to see if in the database all these connections are made properly and test whether it is easy to navigate for a public audience. 

This is one of the best projects that I've worked on because the lab and the storage room in Greece are very well organized. Everything is labeled, so I just have to double check that everything is recorded properly in the database and has been photographed. I went there already in September, and I'm going again in December. So far, I'm impressed by this project that is making my life very easy. 

Who is the target user for the database?

You as a scholar, as just a person that you are interested in this site, you can browse it and look at the findings, the layers, and see whatever we discover. It's an impressive amount of data that we are publishing and providing to the public. It seems also very user-friendly. For instance, you can see all the jewelry that was discovered in Molyvoti. Or, if you want to look at pottery, we have plenty of pottery, but you can put certain criteria, like “show me all the attic pottery.”  So it's very easy to browse it and to work with. 

How does this position relate to your area of interest?

The Molyvoti project is fascinating because it explores the relationship between the Greeks and the Thracians. My new project in Calabria has a similar scenario investigating cultural interchange. Torre Mordillo is an indigenous site very close to Sybaris, the Greek colony, and one of our research questions is to figure out the relationship between these two groups. We're currently discussing the Thracian world and the Southern Italian world—essentially comparing how intercultural interactions played out in different regions. Which imprints were left by each culture? What was the nature of the relationship between the Greeks and the indigenous populations, whether Thracians in Thrace or Oenotrians in Southern Italy? It’s intriguing to see how these dynamics play out depending on the geographical context.

We’re even considering writing a paper comparing these two areas because they belong to the same period—when the Greeks were establishing colonies throughout the Mediterranean. Scholars have long debated the impact of this colonization: was it a violent process of conquest, or was there mutual collaboration with local populations? For Molyvoti, the picture is less clear since we lack many archaic features from the area and rely mainly on pottery. But there are scholars working on it, so we’re starting to piece things together.

In Italy, the situation is better understood. There are other key sites near Torre Mordillo, like Francavilla Marittima, which is incredibly significant. It’s completely reshaping our perspective on Greek colonization because it clearly shows that Greeks and indigenous communities lived together and cooperated. We have solid archaeological evidence for this collaboration, which is a stark contrast to the traditional narrative of violent colonization.

With which other archaeological projects are you involved?

Every summer, I work on three different projects.  I'm part of the Gabii project with the University of Michigan. It's 18 kilometers east of Rome and it's a long-running, huge excavation led by the University of Michigan. I’ve been involved eight years now. I study all the archaic pottery that they have as the pottery specialist for the Iron Age and Archaic material. Another one is the Venus Pompeiana Project led by the University of Missouri and Mount Allison University. There I mostly troubleshoot problems, because I can excavate, I can analyze pottery, whatever is needed. 2021 was the last year of the excavation, now we are doing some study seasons to prepare for publication. I'm also a consultant for other projects, like the Forum of Caesar, with the Danish Institute in Rome. And I collaborate with the American Academy of Rome as well—always in terms of pottery. Recently I also began working on the Quirinal project, focused on a hilltop in Rome. It's a new project with NYU and the University of Michigan. It's a legacy data project, so we're not currently excavating, but we have permission to study previously excavated material. 

What sparked your interest in archaeology?

My interest in archaeology began during my first year as an undergrad in 2008, when I joined my first archaeological project. I fell in love with it right away, and from that point on, I was determined—every summer, I participated in excavations. In 2009, I started working in Rome and was offered the chance to study archaic pottery from the Sant’Omobono temple for my thesis. That same topic carried over into my master’s thesis, and by 2011, I had become a trench supervisor at the site.

Sant’Omobono is an incredible place. It’s an archaic temple in Rome, situated near the river by an ancient harbor, one of the most important sites in archaic Rome and beyond. It was a hub where pilgrims and traders from across the Mediterranean arrived, and I studied the material culture associated with the temple. This experience sparked my fascination with the Archaic period and the connectivity of the Mediterranean world.

The project was a collaboration between the University of Calabria and the University of Michigan, which is how I began building connections with American institutions. That connection led me to other projects run by Michigan, and from there, I started to shape my career in the U.S. I realized archaeology wasn’t just my passion—it was my future. 

Along the way, I was fortunate to meet people who supported me and involved me in various projects. It was incredibly rewarding to see that every time I worked on a new project, it led to new connections and opportunities! Support from those project directors reinforced my decision to pursue a career in archaeology and follow the American academic path to make it happen.

What do you enjoy most about working as an archaeologist? 

Honestly, everything about archaeology excites me. It’s more than a job. I’m involved in several projects, and I genuinely enjoy every aspect of them because the work is so rewarding—digging, analyzing pottery through both traditional and scientific techniques (whether drawing sherds or bombarding them with x-rays). Archaeology isn’t just about finding objects; it’s about reading the layers of soil and reconstructing the past through careful analysis of what we uncover.

One of the most fulfilling parts of my work is teaching students in the field. That’s probably my favorite aspect because it’s incredibly rewarding to see their growth. Even years later, many of them reach out to express their gratitude for what I taught them and the positive impact I had on their lives. Moments like that make all the hard work worthwhile.

Do you utilize a lot of new technology? 

For my new project that I'm co-directing with Ilaria Battiloro of Mount Allison University in Calabria called Torre Mordillo Archaeological Project, we started with some preliminary non-invasive techniques like geo-radar and magnetometry. They suggest where to dig— where you have some anomalies on the surface, they can help you figure out what are the best points or areas to investigate. But the excavation per se is very traditional. You still have the pickaxe and your trowel. But you can take a sample of soils to analyze the organic remains or other remains with the lab can tell you more information about this. 

And what draws you more, the pickaxe or the new technology? 

The pickaxe. It's necessary. The other technological investigations are something extra that you can learn about the excavation. But the part that you discovered, it's about the troweling and the pickaxing and the troweling…. 

What has been your impression of studying and working in the U.S.?

The U.S. has played a significant role in shaping my career. Grad school was one of the best periods for me because I gained so much from the experience. American universities are quite different from Italian ones, and adapting to that environment taught me a lot. It was also an incredibly productive time—during my six years in grad school, I published extensively and had many research opportunities.

One of the highlights was learning about archaeometry, or archaeological science, at the University of Missouri Research Reactor (MURR). That experience significantly enhanced my dissertation work, as I learned advanced techniques like Neutron Activation Analysis and X-Ray Diffraction. These tools allowed me to approach my research from a more scientific and interdisciplinary perspective, which was invaluable.