Professor, Department of Anthropology
Research Fellow, Trent University Archaeological Research Centre
Education:
Ph.D. Prehistory, University College London (University of London), 1996
M.A. Anthropology, Trent University, 1992
B.A. Honours (First Class) Archaeology, Anthropology minor, Simon Fraser University, 1990
Faculty Profile
2021 Curriculum Vitae
Websites: https://irawbagan.wordpress.com/collaborators/ & https://irawbagan.wordpress.com/dr-iannone/
Research Interests: Early State Formations and Urbanism (especially in the tropics); Settlement Archaeology; Resilience Theory; The Archaeology of Climate Change, Natural Disasters, Human Impact on Ancient Environments, and Collapse; Mesoamerica (especially Maya); South and Southeast Asia (especially Myanmar and Vietnam).
Current Research Projects: Accepting graduate students for 2025-26. Professor Iannone is looking for students interested in the archaeology of early state formations, with a focus on: settlement patterns and urbanization, climate change, human impacts on ancient environments, societal collapse, water management, and agroecosystems.
His three current projects include:
- The IRAW@HOA LU: This project aims to generate an integrated socio-ecological history for residential patterning, agricultural practices, and water management at the early Vietnamese
(Đại Cồ Việt) capital of Hoa Lu (968-1010 CE). This objective will be achieved through a settlement archaeology study within the suburban (outer city) and peri-urban (urban fringe and periphery) settlement zones immediately surrounding Hoa Lu’s inner city (i.e., “royal citadel”). The roughly 3.0 km 2 inner city zone encompasses the eastern (Thanh Ngoai) and western (Thanh Noi) enclosures, the boundaries of which are still partially defined by remnants of the embankment walls that were used to span the gaps between the surrounding karst hills to create a defensible capital. Our research activities will be carried out in a study zone extending outwards to the north, east, and south of the embankment walls and adjacent hills, to an arbitrary boundary located roughly 5 km away from the inner city zone. In topographical terms, this area would have been much more suitable for the establishment of sizable suburban and peri-urban “neighborhoods” when compared to the more rugged terrain to the west of the royal citadel. Over the first three years of the project (2022-2025) we will focus our efforts on finding likely locations for such communities, and subsequently examining the most promising locales via test excavations to confirm the presence of occupation levels suitable for more detailed investigation. Our hope is to expose portions of living floors and associated on-floor artifact assemblages and feature inventories (e.g., post-holes) that are indicative of Hoa Lu’s general populace (e.g., the remains of residential house lot spaces, vernacular houses, kitchens, and cow sheds). The limited excavations that have been carried out beyond the confines of Hoa Lu’s inner city enclosures by Vietnamese archaeologists have consistently uncovered evidence for habitation sites, which bodes well for the success of the proposed research program. The residential patterning subproject will be augmented by collateral geo-spatial investigations into the economic base of Hoa Lu’s support population, with particular attention given to water management (e.g., canals, reservoirs) and agricultural (e.g., relic field systems) features. - Socio-Ecological Entanglement in Tropical Societies (SETS) Project (ongoing): This project is aimed at mobilizing knowledge concerning socio-ecological issues in the world’s tropical zones, past and present. Such issues include, but are not limited to: population growth, increasing disease rates (e.g., malaria and dengue), growing poverty, deforestation, expansion of agricultural production and monocropping, diminishing biodiversity, food and water security, and the effects of climate change. Archaeologists have a significant role to play in this important research endeavour because the many issues that are impacting contemporary tropical societies are historically contingent. Some of them may have even emerged with the earliest examples of state formation. We therefore require a comprehensive understanding of their root causes if effective mitigation strategies are to be developed. https://www.facebook.com/setsproject/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
- Ongoing Analysis of Data from the Ancient Maya Kingdom of Minanha, Belize (ongoing)
Selected Peer-reviewed Publications
Iannone, Gyles, Raiza S. Rivera, Saw Tun Lin, and Nyein Chan Soe
2024 Water, Ideology, and Kingship at the Ancient Burmese Capital of Bagan, Myanmar: An Iconographic Analysis of the Nat Yekan Sacred Water Tank. Religions 15:166. https://doi.org/10.3390/ rel15020166
Iannone, Gyles
2023 Searching for Bagan’s Suburban Neighbourhoods: Some Initial Results. Asian Archaeology 7:81-103.
Macrae, Scott, Gyles Iannone, Saw Tun Lin, and Nyein Chan Soe
2022 Ancient Inscriptions and Climate Change: A Study of Water Management at the Ancient Capital of Bagan, Myanmar. Asian Archaeology 6:201-212.
Longstaffe, Matthew S., and Gyles Iannone
2022 Integration and Disintegration at Minanha, a Petty Maya Kingdom in the North Vaca Plateau, Belize. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 68:101453 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2022.101453
Iannone, Gyles, Scott Macrae, Talis Talving-Loza, Raiza S. Rivera, and Pyiet Phyo Kyaw
2021 Finding the Remains of Classical Bagan’s Peri-urban Support Population: Using Ethnoarchaeological Data to Enhance Archaeological Excavation and Interpretation. World Archaeology 53(4):579-598.
Iannone, Gyles, and Michael Aung-Thwin
2021 Merit Making at Ancient Bagan, Myanmar: A Consideration of Socio-Spiritual Entanglements and the Rise and Fall of a Classical Southeast Asian State. In Ritual during Periods of Decline, Collapse, and Regeneration in Archaic States, edited by Joanne M. A. Murphy, pp. 185-203. Routledge, Abingdon.
Iannone, Gyles
2020 Entanglement and Disentanglement at the Medieval Capital of Bagan, Myanmar. In Detaching from Place: A World Archaeology Perspective to Settlement Abandonment, edited by Maxime Lamoureux-St-Hilaire and Scott A. Macrae, pp. 164-177. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.
Iannone, Gyles, Pyiet Phyo Kyaw, Scott Macrae, Nyein Chan Soe, Saw Tun Lin, and Kong F. Cheong
2019 Water, Ritual, and Prosperity at the Classical Capital of Bagan, Myanmar (11th to 14th Centuries CE): Archaeological Exploration of the Tuyin-Thetso “Water Mountain” and the Nat Yekan Sacred Water Tank. SPAFA Journal 3:1-35. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26721/spafajournal.v3i0.600
Iannone, Gyles, Brett Houk, and Sonja Schwake (editors)
2016 Ritual, Violence, and the Fall of the Classic Maya Kings. University of Florida Press, Gainesville.
Iannone, Gyles
2016 Release and Reorganization in the Tropics: A Comparative Perspective. In Beyond Collapse: Archaeological Perspectives in Resilience, Revitalization, and Transformation in Complex Societies, edited by Ronald K. Faulseit, pp. 179-212. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Occasional Paper No. 42. Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.
Akers, Pete D., George A Brook, L. Bruce Railsback, Fuyuan Liang, Gyles Iannone, James W. Webster, Philip P Reeder, Hai Cheng, and R. Lawrence Edwards
2016 An Extended and Higher-Resolution Record of Climate and Land Use from Stalagmite Mc01 from Macal Chasm, Belize, Revealing Connections Between Major Dry Events, Overall Climate Variability, And Maya Sociopolitical Changes. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 459:268-288.