Campus
- Downtown Toronto (St. George)
Fields of Study
- Near Eastern Archaeology
Areas of Interest
- Bronze and Iron Age Levant
- Small-scale complex societies and early urbanism
- Archaeological method and theory
- Ceramic analysis
Biography
Professor Harrison has conducted over thirty-five years of archaeological field research in the Middle East, primarily around the Eastern Mediterranean littoral (the Levant), in the countries of Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey. He has directed excavations at the Bronze and Iron Age site of Tall Madaba, in Jordan, and he is currently directing the Tayinat Archaeological Project on the Plain of Antioch in southeastern Turkey. These projects form part of a regional research effort that seeks to shed light on the rise of early complex societies in the Eastern Mediterranean. In 2012, he launched the CRANE Project, an international consortium of researchers and projects conducting research in the Orontes Watershed and Eastern Mediterranean. Professor Harrison has published extensively on the Bronze and Iron Age cultures of the Levant, including four monographs and more than 140 articles and papers. He served as President of the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR), the leading international professional association dedicated to the study of the cultures and history of the Middle East, between 2008 and 2013, and he served as Chair of the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto for two terms (2011-2022), and as Co-Chair of the Humanities Chairs Group (2014-2016) in the Faculty of Arts and Science.
Education
Publications
- Tell Tayinat Archaeological Project (TAP): Seasons 2017–2019 (The Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies Journal : 2022)
- The Madaba Settlement Cluster and the Nature of Early Bronze Age Urbanism in the Central Highlands of Jordan (Equinox, Sheffield : 2021)
- Beyond megadrought and collapse in the Northern Levant: the chronology of Tell Tayinat and two historical inflection episodes, around 4.2ka BP, and following 3.2ka BP (Public Library of Science, San Francisco : 2020)
- Beyond megadrought and collapse in the Northern Levant: the chronology of Tell Tayinat and two historical inflection episodes, around 4.2ka BP and following 3.2ka BP (PLoS ONE 15(10): e0240799 : 2020)
- Urban Built Environments of the Early First Millennium BCE: Results of the Tayinat Archaeological Project, 2004-2012 (The University of Chicago Press : 2019)
- Shifting Networks and Community Identity at Tell Tayinat in the Iron I (ca. 12th to mid-10th Cent. BCE) ( : 2019)
- Urban Built Environments in Early 1st Millennium B.C.E. Syro-Anatolia: Results of the Tayinat Archaeological Project, 2004-2016 (The University of Chicago Press, Chicago : 2019)
- Shifting Networks and Community Identity at Tell Tayinat in the Iron I (ca. 12th-mid 10th Cent. B.C.E.) (Archaeological Institute of America : 2019)
- Computational Research on the Ancient Near East (CRANE): Large-Scale Data Integration and Analysis in Near Eastern Archaeology (Routledge, Taylor & Francis Online : 2018)
- The Neo-Hittite Citadel Gate at Tayinat (Ancient Kunulua) (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle : 2017)
- Royal self-depiction and legitimation of authority in the Levantine monarchies of the Iron Age in light of newly excavated royal sculptures at Tell Tayinat (Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen : 2017)
- The Metals Trade and Early Bronze Age Craft Production at Tell Tayinat (Brill, Leiden : 2016)
- The Neo-Assyrian Provincial Administration at Tayinat (Ancient Kunalia) (McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge : 2016)
- Recent Discoveries at Tayinat (Ancient Kunulua/Calno) and Their Biblical Implications (Brill, Leiden : 2014)
- Tayinat in the Late Third Millennium: Recent Investigations of the Tayinat Archaeological Project, 2008-2010 (Peeters Online Journals : 2011)
- Cyprus, The Sea Peoples and the Eastern Mediterranean: Regional Perspectives of Change and Continuity (York University, Toronto : 2008)
- The Ta‘yinat Survey, 1999-2002 (Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Chicago : 2005)
- Megiddo 3: Final Report of the Stratum VI Excavations (Oriental Institute Publications, No. 127. , University of Chicago, Chicago : 2004)