News
Marston publishes article on first millennium CE agriculture in Anatolia
Marston, together with co-author Dr. Lorenzo Castellano, have published a comprehensive survey of first millennium agricultural change in Anatolia, modern Turkey, in Vegetation History and Archaeobotany. Read the article here or view it (only) for free here.
Marston, Kováčik, Shin article a finalist for 2022 Don Brothwell Prize
The article authored by Marston, Kováčik, and Shin, along with several other colleagues, titled "Agropastoral Economies and Land Use in Bronze Age Western Anatolia" was published in Environmental Archaeology in 2022. The article was selected as a finalist for the 2022 Don Brothwell Prize by the Association for Environmental Archaeology, given to the best article published in Environmental Archaeology in a given year. Alas, we weren't the winner this time! But you can read the almost-prize-winning article open-access here.
Marston receives grant for botanical research at Athenian Agora
Marston has received a substantial award from the Loeb Classical Library Foundation to fund 2023 fieldwork at the Athenian Agora, where he along with Angela Zhang (CAS '24) and Owen Lannon (CAS '24) will conduct research into the use of plants in the civic heart of ancient Athens. This award will finance travel and research in Athens for the coming field season, the first year of renewed excavations under a new Director of Excavations, Prof. John Papadopoulos of UCLA.
Dorr awarded fellowship at AIAR
Alex Dorr has been awarded a US Department of State Educational and Cultural Affairs Junior Research Fellowship for the 2023-24 academic year at the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research. Alex will spend one semester of next academic year in Jerusalem to continue work on his dissertation project on agricultural systems of the Hellenistic period in the Southern Levant. Congratulations, Alex!
Forste and Marston publish on Islamic agricultural systems at Ashkelon
EAL alumna Kathleen Forste (GRS '20) and John M. Marston are co-authors on a new article, "Urban agricultural economy of the Early Islamic southern Levant: a case study of Ashkelon" just published in Vegetation History and Archaeobotany. This article publishes the full Islamic- and Crusader-period archaeobotanical assemblage from Ashkelon, which provides robust evidence for the complex arboriculture system of the Early Islamic period. The article is available for free online for a limited time at this link; permanent DOI link is here.
Tang and Marston publish earliest dated millet in South China
Lab alumna Yiyi Tang (CAS '21, GRS '21) and Marston are co-authors on a new article, "Early millet cultivation, subsistence diversity, and wild plant use at Neolithic Anle, Lower Yangtze, China," published in The Holocene (access it here). In the article, which is based on Yiyi's MA project, we present evidence for a diversified agricultural system, focused on rice cultivation but incorporating also two types of millet and a variety of potentially cultivated edible wild plants. The millet seeds are directly dated to the early 6th millennium BCE, making these the earliest directly dated millet remains from the Yangtze River basin, and thus the earliest firm evidence for millet cultivation in South China. This is Yiyi's first published article — congratulations, Yiyi!
BU Brink covers Marston’s Maya nixtamalization research
Marston's recent article on Maya nixtamalization (and possible toilets) has been covered by BU's research publication, The Brink. Read the article and interview, titled "What Ancient Toilets Can Teach Us about Maya Life—and Tamales," here.
Kathleen Forste (GRS ’21) and Maria Codlin (GRS ’22) hooded
Kathleen Forste (GRS '21) and Maria Codlin (GRS '22) both were recognized for their doctoral degrees at Boston University's annual doctoral hooding ceremony. Here are the two graduates with Marston, their (co-) advisor. Congratulations to Kathleen and Maria!
Marston publishes first archaeological evidence for maize nixtamalization
A new article in the Journal of Archaeological Science, co-authored by Marston, provides the first direct archaeological evidence for maize nixtamalization. Samples from two chultunes, rock-carved pits, from the Classic Maya site of San Bartolo, Guatemala, yielded abundant quantities of starch spherulites, which Marston and EAL alumna Emily Johnson (CAS '17) previously identified as a product of nixtamalization. Even more exciting, Marston and co-authors found parasite eggs in the same deposits, indicating these chultunes were used as latrines, leading to the conclusion that nejayote, the caustic liquid that is a by-product of nixtamalization, may have been used to "flush" these toilets. Read more about it here (free until July 5)!
EAL alumna and affiliate Kathleen Forste receives ASOR fellowship
Kathleen Forste (GRS '21) has earned a P.E. MacAllister Scholarship for Fieldwork Participation from the American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR). This award will support her research in Menorca, Spain this summer. Congratulations Kathleen!