Italian Laurea (Sapienza University of Rome), Ph.D. (University L’Orientale of Naples)
Maria completed her undergraduate and graduate education in Archaeology at “Sapienza” University of Rome, where she received a Master degree in 1993 (summa cum laude) with a dissertation on the prehistory of Nubia. In 2001 she received a PhD degree in African Archaeology from the University of Naples “L’Orientale” with a research on ceramic traditions and cultural boundaries in the late prehistory of North-East Africa.
After being awarded her PhD, Maria worked at the British Museum as a research curator for prehistoric pottery collections from the Nile Valley, and in Italy and abroad as a museum educator, lecturer, field archaeologist and ceramic specialist. From 2008 to 2013, she has been at Yale University, holding positions in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations (postdoctoral fellow, associate research scholar and lecturer in Egyptology) as well as in Anthropology (research associate). Sine 2005 she co-directs in Egypt the Aswan-Kom Ombo Archaeological Project, co-sponsored by Yale University and University of Bologna.
Maria research mainly focuses on processes of interregional interaction and cultural contact in the Nile Valley and Central Sahara; social complexity and early state formation; nomadic pastoralism and social complexity in pastoral societies; landscape archaeology; human-environment interaction, and material culture, particularly ceramics and rock art.
Maria joined the School of Archaeology and Ancient History's ERC-funded Trans-Sahara Project in August 2014. Her role is to analyse human mobility and identity through the burial evidence. She also organised a workshop on the Garamantian handmade pottery.
Over the course of the past decade Maria has had the opportunity to teach a variety of courses, in Italy, Egypt and the US to undergraduate and graduate students. She also has experience supervising graduate students on their master’s and doctoral projects. Maria has published widely in the field of Nubian, Egyptian and Saharan prehistory and archaeology, and in addition to extensive fieldwork experience in North Africa, including Libya, Egypt, Sudan and Eritrea, she has a long and continuously evolving record of conference participations.
1. Gatto, M.C. and C.M. Manassa, with contributions by A. Cunningham-Bryant, A. Raath-Antonites, R. Leary and A. Urcia, in progress. Report on the Middle Nubian Sites from Toshka, Publications of the Pennsylvania-Yale Expedition to Egypt.
2.Mattingly, D., Gatto M.C., Ray N. and M. Sterry (eds.), in progress. Burials, Migration and Identity - Trans-Saharans: Human mobility and identity, trade, state formation and mobile technologies across the Sahara (1000 BC – AD 1500) Vol. 1, Cambridge University Press and the Society for Libyan Studies.
3.Gatto, M.C., in progress. Pastoralism, Complexity and Power in Prehistoric Nubia: Beyond the A-Group (contract under discussion with Cambridge University Press).
4. Gatto, M.C., Curci A. and A. Urcia, 2014. Nubian evidence in the Egyptian First Nome: results of the 2013-2014 field seasons of the Aswan-Kom Ombo Archaeological Project (AKAP), Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections 6 (4): 1-4.
5. Gatto, M.C., 2014. “Cultural entanglement at the dawn of the Egyptian history: a view from the Nile First Cataract region”, Origini: Prehistory and Protohistory of Ancient Civilizations XXXVI: 93-123.
6. Gatto, M.C., 2014. “Peripatetic nomads along the Nile: unfolding the Nubian Pan-Grave culture of the Second Intermediate Period”, Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections 6 (1): 11-28.
7. Mori, L., M.C. Gatto and C. Ottomano, 2013. “Excavation and Soundings at Tan Afella”, in L. Mori (ed.) Life and Death of a Rural Village in Garamantian times: The Archaeological Investigation in the Oasis of Fewet (Libyan Sahara). AZA 6, Firenze: 33-70.
8. Gatto, M.C., 2013. “Ceramics from Fewet”, in L. Mori (ed.) Life and Death of a Rural Village in Garamantian times: The Archaeological Investigation in the Oasis of Fewet (Libyan Sahara). AZA 6, Firenze: 79-92.
9. Mori, L. and F. Ricci, with contributions by M.C. Gatto, E. Cancellieri and C. Lemorini, 2013. “Excavation of the Fewet necropolis”, in L. Mori (ed.) Life and Death of a Rural Village in Garamantian times: The Archaeological Investigation in the Oasis of Fewet (Libyan Sahara). AZA 6, Firenze: 253-318.
10. Mori, L., Gatto M.C., Zerboni A. and F. Ricci, 2013. “Life and death at Fewet”, in L. Mori (ed.) Life and Death of a Rural Village in Garamantian times: The Archaeological Investigation in the Oasis of Fewet (Libyan Sahara). AZA 6, Firenze: 375-387.
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