Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference
The Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference is an academic organisation and conference for the discussion of archaeological theory in Roman archaeology.
History
The first Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference was organised by Eleanor Scott and was hosted by the Department of Archaeology at the University of Newcastle in March 1991. The conference had been created by Scott to address the shortcomings of traditional Roman archaeology through critical, theory-driven discussions inspired by the Theoretical Archaeology Group conferences. The conference was a success and, due to interest, became an annual conference hosted by different archaeology departments annually across the UK, Europe and North America.Since 1995, the Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference have partnered with the Roman Archaeology Conference, which is organised by the Roman Society. The collaboration began at University of Reading, establishing a biannual arrangement where the RAC played a role in helping to organise TRAC.
TRAC initially concentrated on Romanisation debates, especially in the 1990s. Since the early 2000s, however, discussions have increasingly shifted to post-imperial and post-colonial perspectives of the Roman world. Since the 2010s, TRAC has attempted to expand its outreach and appeal internationally.
Many TRAC participants are early career researchers or postgraduates who present their own original research. Andrew Gardner highlighted a gender imbalance at TRAC in 2005, but Eleanor Scott later noted that TRAC provided equal opportunities to female archaeologists.
TRAC was initially published as conference proceedings but became an online open access journal, the Theoretical Roman Archaeology Journal, under the Open Library of Humanities from 2017 onwards.