Marcello de Vos is a PhD candidate jointly enrolled at Rijksuniversiteit Groningen and Sapienza University of Rome, and an associated researcher at the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome (KNIR). His research focuses on social change and the increasing complexity of societies in Italy during the first millennium BCE, with a particular emphasis on the development of settlements and their interaction with the surrounding landscape. For his doctoral project, Marcello investigates these dynamics in Old Latium, focusing specifically on the formation of nucleated settlements on the transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age.
Within the framework of the KNIR, Marcello has mainly worked on the modern Molise region, where ongoing research aims to reconstruct long-term changes in settlement patterns and the impact of Roman colonization. Since 2021, he has been actively involved in KNIR’s fieldwork in this area, initially as a student and subsequently as a staff member. Currently, he plays a key role in the annual Remote Sensing course, which combines the collection of drone and geophysical data with hands-on teaching of these methodologies to students.
Marcello has also gained extensive fieldwork experience across other parts of Italy, including in Lazio, Veneto, and Calabria. In Calabria, he has led excavations and participated in surveys of the Pollino high mountain massif. Here he developed a keen interest in mountain archaeology that he continues to pursue in the KNIR mountain societies project in Molise.
Marcello was already staying at the KNIR from 7 November 2022 to 27 February 2023 for a KNIR Scholarship for preparing a PhD-project, and from 14 October to 11 November 2024 for a KNIR Scholarship for PhD students.
