News
Marston review article on agriculture in the Near East published open access
Marston's latest review article, "Consequences of Agriculture in Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and the Levant", has just been published online in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Agriculture and the Environment and is available open access here in both html and PDF formats. Take a look!
New article on early Holocene Egyptian woodlands by Marston et al.
A new article by Marston, together with colleagues Willeke Wendrich (UCLA) and Simon Holdaway (U Auckland), entitled "Early and Middle Holocene wood exploitation in the Fayum basin, Egypt" has just been published in The Holocene. This paper explores woodland use by early agropastoral groups prior to the mid-Holocene desertification of the Sahara.
Congratulations to Dr. Anna Goldfield and Emily Johnson, class of 2017!
Two members of the Environmental Archaeology Laboratory are graduating from BU: Dr. Anna Goldfield and Emily Johnson.
Congratulations to Dr. Anna Goldfield, who defended her doctoral dissertation entitled "The Role of Physiology and Behavior in the Replacement of Neanderthals by Anatomically Modern Humans in Europe". Anna will spend the summer of 2017 managing the BU Zooarchaeology Laboratory.
Congratulations to Emily Johnson, who graduated summa cum laude with a BA in Archaeology and as a member of the Kilachand Honor's College. Emily's impressive research earned her the Archaeology Department's Trowel Award and the Michael A. Sassano III and Christopher M. Sassano Award for Writing Excellence in the Social Sciences. Emily will travel to Turkey this summer to manage archaeobotanical recovery at the site of Gordion.
We applaud these scholars and wish them the very best of luck in their future endeavors!
Frontiers in Archaeological Sciences Workshop at Rutgers University this Fall
Rutgers University's Department of Anthropology is offering an exciting, three-day workshop called Frontiers in Archaeological Sciences, highlighting the interdisciplinary research of archaeologists, "hard scientists," and everyone in between. Featuring leading international researchers, this collaborative workshop promises to be an inspiring event. Check out their website for more details!
Johnson and Marston win best poster award
Emily S. Johnson and John M. Marston received the best poster award at the 2017 Annual Conference of the Society of Ethnobiology, for the poster entitled "Elite Feasting and Monumental Dedication at Early Phrygian Gordion, Central Turkey". This was the result of research Emily did as a UROP project with Prof. Marston in Spring 2017. Congratulations Emily!
Maria Codlin and Kathleen Forste recipients of GRAF awards
Maria Codlin and Kathleen Forste have both been awarded Short Term Graduate Research Abroad Fellowships from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at BU! Maria will use it to continue her dissertation research on animal consumption through the analysis of faunal remains from Teotihuacan, Mexico, and Kathleen will use it to continue her dissertation research on agricultural change through the analysis of archaeobotanical remains from sites in Israel. Congratulations to you both, and good luck with the research!
Emily Johnson awarded for writing excellence
Congratulations to our own Emily Johnson for winning an Alumni Award for Writing Excellence in the College of Arts and Sciences! Her exemplary honors thesis explored the effects of nixtamalization of maize starch grains, earning her the Michael A. Sassano III and Christopher M. Sassano Award for Writing Excellence in the Social Sciences. Well done Emily!
Marston and West featured on “Indiana Jones: Myth, Reality and 21st Century Archaeology”
Dr. John Marston and Dr. Catherine West, both of Boston University's Archaeology Department, have been featured on Voice America's latest archaeology podcast "Indiana Jones: Myth, Reality and 21st Century Archaeology". Interviewed by Dr. Schuldenrein, Marston and West discuss how their archaeological research is contributing, not only to questions of the past, but to contemporary and future issues of climate change. Check out the podcast here: Climate Change and Archaeology.
EAL Lab Presents at SAA in Vancouver
Two members of the EALab will be presenting on recent research at the SAA meeting in Vancouver, BC. Anna Goldfield is giving a paper entitled Fat of the Land: An Energetics Approach to Paleolithic Bone Fat Exploitation in the session "Recent Zooarchaeological Research II" on Friday, March 31st, at 4:15 pm. John Marston is a co-organizer of two sessions, "Fryxell" and "E&E", and is a co-author on three papers: Naomi F. Miller and Applied Paleoethnobotany of Southwest Asia and Provisioning and Agricultural Economy at Roman Gordion: Integrating Archaeobotany and Zooarchaeology at the session "2017 Fryxell Awards Symposium: Papers in Honor of Naomi F. Miller" on Thursday, March 30th at 8 am and 10:15 am. He presents Phrygian Cuisine at Kerkenes: A Synthesis of Ceramic and Botanical Evidence for Food Storage and Cooking in the session "Some Like It Hot: Analytical Diversity and Complementarity in the Exploration of Past Cooking and Cuisine" on Thursday, March 30th at 9:30 am.
Spring Break Education Outreach in Marblehead
BU archaeology alumna, Courtney Soule (MA 2016), invited three of our lab's archaeologists to talk to her middle school Latin classes about archaeology, paleoethnobotany, and the difference between studying dinosaurs and studying past humans. On Monday, March 6th, Kathleen Forste, Audrey Tjahjadi, and Kali Wade presented on a range of archaeological topics, fielded questions, and introduced students to hands-on material culture from BU's teaching collections. Thank you to Marblehead Veterans Middle School and the bright young students for giving us such a fun day outside the lab!
