News
Marston publishes open-access article in Antiquity
John M. Marston and Lorenzo Castellano (UCLA) have published a new open-access article in Antiquity, titled "Climate, political economy and agriculture in first and second millennia AD Anatolia". In this article, Marston and Castellano draw on a comprehensive synthesis of published archaeobotanical data from Anatolia (modern Turkey), as well as integrated palynological and zooarchaeological evidence, to reconstruct agricultural strategies between the Roman and Ottoman periods and explore the role of political economy and climate behind observed agricultural changes.
Nicole Hultquist publishes new isotopic research in JAS
Nicole Hultquist is first author on a new article in the Journal of Archaeological Science, titled "Strontium isotopes and the geographic origins of camelids in the Virú Valley, Peru". This paper, based on her MSc research at Trent University, uses strontium isotopes to confirm that camelids (llamas and alpacas) were raised locally in coastal Peru by the Early Intermediate Period, not only imported from the Andean highlands. Other individuals show clear signatures of movement from the highlands, implying sustained trade networks between the coast and highlands. The article is available open access here. Congratulations, Nicole!
Nicole Hulquist second author of biogeoscience article
Nicole Hulquist is the second author on a recently published study that sources atmospheric methane production using "clumped" stable isotopes (molecules containing multiple heavy isotopes). The article appears in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, a publication of the AGU. Read more in the article here. Congratulations, Nicole!
Karen Stewart wins CNEHA student paper competition
EAL lab member Karen Stewart won the student paper competition at the annual meeting of the Council for Northeast Historical Archaeology this past weekend for her paper "Small But Not Forgotten? Plant Remains from CRM Excavations of Historical Sites." Congratulations, Karen!
Owen Lannon (CAS ’24) hired at NOSAMS
Owen Lannon (CAS '24) has started a new position at the National Ocean Sciences Accelerator Mass Spectrometry Facility (NOSAMS) at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Falmouth, MA. Owen's work involves processing organic carbon samples for their radiocarbon AMS. Congratulations, Owen, on the new job!
High school student Claire Mukigi completes GROW internship in EALab
Claire Mukigi, a rising senior at Natick High School, joined the Environmental Archaeology Laboratory as part of the BU Greater Boston Area Research Opportunities For Young Women (GROW) program, an internship that places high school students from the Boston area in BU labs for the summer, sponsored by the CAS Office of STEM Outreach & Diversity. Over the 6-week fellowship, Claire worked with PhD student Nicole Hultquist on NSF-funded research into stable isotopes at the site of Gordion, Turkey. Claire presented her research with a poster and an elevator pitch at the culminating GROW workshop, now displayed on the GROW webpage here. Thank you, Claire, for your contribution to our research, and best of luck with your college applications!
Welcome Anne Johnakin!
A new member of the Environmental Archaeology Laboratory is joining us this fall, Anne Johnakin, a PhD student in Anthropology. Anne comes to BU with an MSc in Archaeological Sciences from the University of Oxford and a BA in Anthropology from Dartmouth. Anne's prior work has included microbotanical and stable isotope analyses, as well as experimental archaeology. Welcome Anne!
Marston publishes new article on “finding fields”
Marston and collaborator Dr. Petra Vaiglova (Australian National University) have authored an article in the latest issue of the Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association. This special issue, titled "Finding Fields: The Archaeology of Agricultural Landscapes", addresses methods for locating fields using archaeological methods. Marston and Vaiglova combine archaeobotanical and stable isotope analyses to illustrate how fields can be located from on-site archaeological remains in their article, "Mapping land use with integrated environmental archaeological datasets". Check out the article here!
Kovacik receives New Mexico research funding
Peter Kovacik received a research grant from the Friends of Coronado & Jemez Historic Sites, located in New Mexico. This award will support additional radiocarbon dating as part of Peter's doctoral research into Spanish colonial land-use strategies in the Albuquerque Basin of New Mexico. Congratulations, Peter!
Hultquist co-author on PNAS article
Nicole Hultquist is a co-author on the recently published article "Tracing sources of atmospheric methane using clumped isotopes" published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (PNAS). In this article, Nicole and her colleagues used novel isotopic methods on rare isotopic forms of methane to understand better the sources of origin of atmospheric methane. Congratulations, Nicole!