Overview
Olivia Graves is a PhD candidate concentrating on the archaeology of the Roman economy. Before starting at Cornell in Fall 2020, Olivia earned a B.A. in English and Classics from UC Berkeley, an MPhil in Archaeology from the University of Oxford, and a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Classics from UCLA. Olivia’s research mobilizes archaeological coin finds towards questions pertaining to the socioeconomic and monetary history of the Roman world. Her dissertation examines coin finds recovered from archaeological sites in Roman Italy to explore the relationship(s) between political and economic change on the macro-scale and changing patterns of coin use on the micro-scale. Olivia has conducted archaeological fieldwork at the Mycenaean cemetery of Aidonia in Greece, the Roman small town of Dorchester-on-Thames in the UK, and most recently the Roman rural minor center of Marzuolo in Tuscany. In Spring 2023, she also curated coins for the exhibition, “Wonder and Wakefulness: The Nature of Pliny the Elder,” held at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art.