News
Kovacik receives NSF DDRIG award
Peter Kovacik received a Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Research Grant from the Archaeology Program of the US National Science Foundation. This award, titled "Effect of Colonial Policy on Land Use", provides funds to permit Peter to engage in archaeobotanical research into Spanish colonial land-use strategies in the Albuquerque Basin of New Mexico, and how land-use practices differed between idealized models put forth by Spanish administrators and on-the-ground implementation by Spanish and Indigenous communities in the region. Congratulations, Peter!
Zhang’s Egyptian charcoal research featured in BU media
The UROP research of Angela Zhang (CAS '24) is featured in an article by BU's research publication, The Brink. Read the article, titled "Secrets of Ancient Egyptian Nile Valley Settlements Found in Forgotten Treasure," here. Congratulations Angela on the exciting research and wonderful article!
EA Lab alumna Forste and Marston publish article
Environmental Archaeology Lab alumna Kathleen M. Forste (GRS '21) and John M. Marston are co-authors on a new article, "Cultivating the Hills and the Sands: A Comparative Archaeobotanical Investigation of Early Islamic Agriculture in Palestine", in Environmental Archaeology. In this article, Forste et al. integrate archaeobotanical assemblages from a range of settlements across Early Islamic (c. 636–1099 CE) Palestine to argue that the production and consumption of plant resources were affected more by a settlement’s socioeconomic function than by its environmental setting. Read the article here.
Owen Lannon (CAS ’24) makes the cover of the ASCSA fall newsletter
Owen Lannon (CAS '24) is featured on the cover of the fall 2023 newsletter of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. The image is of Owen excavating a pit during the summer 2023 excavation at the Ancient Agora of Athens, alongside fellow volunteer Trinity Rosa.
Trevor Lamb research in Alaska highlighted by BU
EAL PhD student Trevor Lamb's research has been highlighted on BU's The Brink research site. Read the article here. This research is funded by his National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant. Congratulations on the media coverage, Trevor!
Angela Zhang presents at anthraco2023 conference
At the anthraco2023 conference in Porto, Portugal, Angela Zhang delivered the paper "Wood use in Predynastic Upper Egypt: results of charcoal analysis from two predynastic settlements in the Nile Valley". This is the result of Angela's 2022-2023 UROP project and includes lab members Peter Kováčik and John Marston as co-authors. Congratulations Angela!
Trevor Lamb interns with National Park Service
This summer Environmental Archaeology Lab member Trevor Lamb is serving as the Archaeology Interpretation Development Intern at Blackstone Valley National Historical Park, which is located in the Blackstone River Valley of south-central Massachusetts and northeast Rhode Island. Earlier this month he led a hands-on paleoethnobotany workshop at the “First Friday” event held at Slater Mill in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Events included face painting, birdwatching, and live Cape Verdean music. One of the performers used a traditional Cape Verdean instrument called the cimboa which is made of a hollowed-out bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria). Trevor used this as a starting point to create a variety of paleoethnobotany-focused activities that allowed visitors to explore the history of the bottle gourd and a suite of other crops that were domesticated by Indigenous people in Eastern North America c. 4000 BP, which archaeologists call the “Eastern Agricultural Complex”. Visitors got to view charred goosefoot (Chenopodium berlandieri) seeds under the microscope, look at maize phytoliths and 3D-printed phytolith models, and color sheets with information about common “weeds”, like goosefoot, that tell exciting stories about people and plants.
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.