Archaeology Research Program
Archaeology Research Program
As a program, we encourage graduate students to engage in guided individual research projects.
Our approach is to use theory and methods as tools for understanding the past rather than as ends in themselves. Consequently, research design is an integral part of every student’s program.
We generally advocate syntheses of existing data and/or innovative collections analysis, augmented, where appropriate, with field research. Faculty research interests cover a range of societies, including hunter-fisher-gatherers, Neolithic village societies, and pre-industrial states.
We incorporate an array of topical interests, methods, and theoretical orientations in our work. We support graduate student research that incorporates elements of all these interests and approaches.
The primary areas of faculty research expertise are in the areas of Mesoamerica, Andean South America, the Pacific Northwest Coast and the Eastern Mediterranean, but we supervise graduate student research that complements our topical interests in a wide range of geographic locations.
Key Features of the Archaeology Research Program
- Characterization analyses
- Coastal and fisheries studies
- Early hominid studies
- Political and economic organization
- Social identities
- Social interaction
- Social technologies
- Foodways
- Resilience studies
- Socio-environmental history and ethnoecology
- Applied archaeology
- Ceramic technology
- Compositional analysis
- Faunal analysis
- Lithic technology
- Mortuary archaeology
- Paleoethnobotanical analysis
- GIS applications
- Regional and landscape archaeology
- Agency and theories of practice
- Archaeology as history
- Archaeology as political practice
- Cognitive and linguistic approaches
- Multi-scalar analysis and interpretation
- Fisheries Archaeology Research Centre (FARC)
- McMaster Paleoethnobotany Research Facility (MPERF)
- Lab for Interdisciplinary Research on Archaeological Ceramics (LIRAC)
- McMaster Archaeological XRF Lab (MAX Lab)
- Sustainable Archaeology McMaster
- GIS Laboratory available through School of Earth, Environment & Society
Access to
- Soils analysis lab
- Thin-sectioning equipment
- Microscopy and image analysis equipment
- Botanical Reference Collections
Centres, Facilities and Labs
Soils Analysis Lab
Microscopy & Image Analysis Equipment
Faculty
Tristan Carter
PhD
Professor, Anthropology
Undergraduate Chair, Anthropology
Andy Roddick
PhD
Associate Professor, Anthropology
Chair, Anthropology
Adjuct & Associate Faculty
James Conolly
Christopher Ellis Learn More
(Western Ontario) – Associate Professor (PhD Simon Fraser, 1984)
Andrew Martindale Learn More
(U of British Columbia) – Assistant Professor (U of Toronto, 1999)
Robert W. Park Learn More
(Waterloo) – Associate Professor (PhD Alberta, 1989)
Eduard Reinhardt
Michael Spence Learn More
(Western Ontario) – Professor (PhD Illinois, 1971)
Henry Schwarcz
Gary Warrick Learn More
(Wilred Laurier U) – Associate Professor (PhD McGill)
Theses awarded in Archaeology
Favreau, Julien
2024: Sourcing Oldowan and Acheulean Stone Tools at Oldupai Gorge (Tanzania)
Prado, Shalen
2023: Peat, Health, and Cereal: Investigating Contributions of Nonhuman Communities to the Poiesis of Pictland Through Microbotanical and Microalgae Residues
Woolsey, Cora
2018: A Historial Approach to Shifting Technologies of Ceramic Manufacture at Gaspereau Lake, Kings County, Nova Scotia
Dogiama, Triantafyllia
2017: Points of Reference: Projectile Points, Hunting and Identity at the Neolithic Catalhoyuk, Turkey
MacDonald, Brandi Lee
2015: Methodological Developments for the Geochemical Analysis of Ochre from Archaeological Contexts: Case Studies from British Columbia and Ontario, Canada (December 2015)
Freund, Kyle
2014: A Multi-Scalar Analysis of the Politics Of Obsidian Consumption in the West Mediterranean (ca. 6th – 2nd millennia B.C.)
Burchell, Meghan
2013: Shellfish Harvest on the Coast of British Columbia: The Archaeology of Settlement and Subsistence Through High-Resolution Stable Isotope Analysis and Sclerochronology
Patterson, Catherine
2013: The Heritage of Life and Death in Historic Family Cemeteries of Niagara, Ontario
Reimer, Rudy
2011: The Mountains and Rocks are Forever: Lithics and Landscapes of SKWXWÚ7MESH UXWUMIXW
Birch, Jennifer
2010: Coalescent Communities in Iroquoian Ontario
Pugliese, Melanie
2023: Illuminating Maya Foodways and Ethnoecology: Paleoethnobotanical Study of Classic Period Maya Agriculture and Environment at Budsilha
Wai, Stefanie
2022: Revolving Scales: Exploring Locality During the Late Formative Period on the Taraco Peninsula, Bolivia
Watson, Sarah
2022: Maya Food Strategies at Macabilero: A Paleoethnobotanical Study of Ancient Maya Agriculture and Ethnoecology During the Formative and Classic Periods
Viseu, Bianca
2020: The Window on the (South)west: The Southwest Iberian Bronze Age from a Long-Term Perspective (ca. 3500 – 800 BCE)
Tincombe, Eric
2020: Persistent Places in the Late Archaic Landscape
Rennie, Lauren
2019: Running Amuq with Obsidian
Wildenstein, Roxanne
2018: Intensification of a Lapita fishery at the Hopoate site on Tongatapu, Kingdom of Tonga
Reilly, Sophie E.
2017: Meals in Motion: Ceramic and Botanical Investigations of Foodways in the Late Formative and Tiwanaku IV/V, Lake Titicaca Basin, Bolivia
Wallace, Peter
2017: Lime Plaster Use at Late Bronze Age Kalavasos-Ayios Dhimitrios (Cyprus): Evidence for Application-Specfiic Recipes and the Creation of Social Space
Rivas-Tello, Daiana
2017: Putting Pottery in Place: A Social Landscape Perspective on the Late Formative Upper Desaguadero Valley, Bolivia
Berube, Eloi
2017: Mixtec Foodways in Achiutla: Continuity Through Time. A Paleoethnobotanical Study Comparing the Postclassic and Early Colonial Diet
Carter, Kari
2016: Phosphate as an indicator of occupational intensity at shell midden sites on the central coast of British Columbia
Batist, Zachary
2014: Obsidian Circulation Networks in Southwest Asia and Anatolia (12,000 – 5700 B.P.): A Comparative Approach
Zepf, Lena
2014: The Middle and Late Woodland transition in southern Ontario: smoking culture as an index of social change in the context of sedentism
Schumacher, Jennifer S.
2013: Exploring Technological Style and Use in the Ontario Early Late Woodland: The Van Besien Site
Cook, Katherine
2011: Deathscapes: Memory, Heritage and Place in Cemetery History
Densmore, Nadia
2010: An Archaeological Assessment of Fisheries in Vava’u, Tonga