Research Fellow in Archaeological Science, Environmental Organic Geochemistry Group
School of Geography and Earth Sciences, McMaster University
Consulting Scholar, late Prehistory of the Transcaspian Region
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania
I am an anthropological archaeologist with expertise in Eurasian prehistory and stable isotope geochemistry. My research is focused on reconstructing the evolutionary and cultural prehistory of a geographic corridor linking the Middle East, Caucasus and western Central Asia.
I currently hold a postdoctoral award with the School of Geography and Earth Sciences at McMaster University where I am collaborating with Dr. Greg Slater on a pilot study and experimental program to improve the diagnostic capabilities of compound-specific isotopic analysis in identifying organic residues surviving in archaeological pottery. Our primary objective is to establish a baseline of stable carbon isotope values against which prehistoric subsistence practices related to the earliest uses of pottery in the Middle East, Caucasus and western Central Asia can be unambiguously categorized. This fall, I will be obtaining modern plant and animal foods from herders living in a range of ecological niches in Turkey, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Iran to determine the extent to which isotopic values of carcass fats and dairy foods are affected by the isotopic composition of the vegetation that animals are consuming.
I am also a Consulting Scholar on the late prehistory of Transcaspian region at the University of Pennsylvania Museum. I have been examining archaeological and archival materials related to Dr. Carleton Coon’s 1941 and 1951 excavations of Hotu and Belt caves in northern Iran. I am currently conducting chemical analysis of organic residues surviving in fired-clay and pottery fragments from Mesolithic and Neolithic occupation levels of these caves to obtain direct evidence of prehistoric subsistence associated with the earliest uses of pottery in this region of the world.
In the fall of 2012, I plan to undertake an intensive survey of the former late Pleistocene shoreline of the Caspian Sea in western Turkmenistan to locate a pottery-bearing rock shelter suitable for longterm excavation.
Location of selected late Mesolithic and early Neolithic cave sites in western Central Asia
Cheshme Dam Dam rockshelter in the Bolshoi Balkhan region of southern Turkmenistan
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