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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

Faculty

Tristan  Carter headshot image

Tristan Carter

PhD

Professor, Anthropology

Undergraduate Chair, Anthropology

Andy  Roddick headshot image

Andy Roddick

PhD

Associate Professor, Anthropology

Chair, Anthropology

Shanti  Morell-Hart headshot image

Shanti Morell-Hart

PhD

Adjunct & Associate Member, 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