During the Spring 2024 semester, Visual Resources Digital Project Specialist, Leigh Anne Lieberman, co-taught a course with Caroline Cheung (Classics) called The Science of Roman History (CLA 247). “That’s ancient history.” We commonly say that when we think that something is outdated or completely forgotten and no longer relevant, but groundbreaking scientific and technological approaches are bringing to light some of the most fascinating discoveries of the ancient world that reveal the same issues we are concerned with today. Was there climate change in antiquity, and were some factors driven by human activity? What were the living conditions in antiquity? What did people eat? Roman history courses usually cover the grand narratives based on the more traditional, literary evidence. Usually these courses leave no room for discussing how knowledge is created and the new and different methods for studying ancient history. This course instead looked at different questions to shed light in fruitful collaborations between scholars from different fields. In The Science of Roman History, students engaged with STEM and digital humanities methods as they considered these kinds of historical questions. 

Through different case studies and hands-on activities, students learned how different scientific, technological, and computational methods help us employ a multi-disciplinary approach to learning about the ancient past. The first part of the course focused on the ancient environment; the relationship between people and their environment; ancient diet; and the quality of life in antiquity. The second half looked at a variety of components of everyday life in antiquity as well as how scholars today conduct research and assemble and disseminate knowledge. The variety of topics aimed to help students engage in scientific thinking; foster facility in communicating scientific ideas through digital media; recognize and appreciate the role of STEM in society (both ancient and modern); and develop an excited and confident attitude towards scientific and digital methods. STEM concepts this course covers include: geo-coring; DNA studies; botany; biology; chemistry; mass spectrometry; multi- and hyper-spectral imaging; material science; and civil engineering. 

Throughout the semester, students focused their efforts on an object from The Princeton University Art Museum or Firestone Special Collections; their final projects outlined various scientific analyses that one could pursue to learn more about that object (i.e.: XRF, isotope analysis, statistical study, spatial study, etc.). These final projects were transformed, using ESRI’s ArcGIS StoryMaps, into a collaborative, multi-modal publication, giving the students an opportunity to gain some experience writing for public audiences.