RESEARCH INTERESTS AND EXPERIENCE
My interests are in the late Pleistocene-early Holocene prehistory of the western Mediterranean, especially southern Europe and the Maghreb, emphasizing human-environmental relationships and the interdisciplinary analysis of palaeoecological, palaeoeconomic and bioarchaeological data.
Since the 1960s, I have focussed on the relationship between past
human populations and the environment, especially with regard to the
transition from hunting-gathering to food production in the
circum-Mediterranean. As a student I was a member of research teams in
Turkey and Syria (1963-64), Texas (1965-66), Egypt (1966-67). I spent
the summer of 1970 in northern Afghanistan with the American Museum of
Natural History expedition directed by Louis Dupree. From 1972-83 I
directed my own project in Algeria on "Prehistoric Cultural Ecology of
Capsian Escargotières" funded initially by the Wenner-Gren
Foundation for Anthropological Research and
subsequently by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of
Canada.
From 1984-89 I co-directed a project with Mary Jackes
and Christopher Meiklejohn (University of Winnipeg) on "The
Mesolithic-Neolithic Transition in Southern Portugal", also funded by
SSHRC. From 1989-97 I participated with Margherita Mussi
(Università di Roma) and Silvano Agostini in a joint
Canadian-Italian project on "Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene
Subsistence and Settlement in the Fucino Basin, Central Italy" with
funding from both the University of Alberta and the Università
di Roma, "La Sapienza". From 2000-2004, I was co-director with Jackes
and several other colleagues (Fiona Bamforth, Alberta; Henry Schwarcz,
McMaster; Mirjana Roksandic, Toronto; Pablo Arias, Santander; Nicolas
Cauwe, Brussels; Eugénia Cunha, Coimbra; José
Rolão, Lisbon) of a project on "Late Prehistoric Populations of
the Western Mediterranean and the Atlantic façade of Europe".
This involved the extraction and analysis of ancient DNA from human
skeletal remains along with other bone chemistry analyses.
I am presently working on a final monograph on the Algerian research (with Jackes) and an inventory of the Mesolithic and Neolithic human skeletal collections housed at the Serviços Geológicos in Lisbon (with Jackes and Meiklejohn). I am also planning a manuscript on edible land snails in circum-Mediterranean late Pleistocene and early Holocene sites. Jackes and I, in collaboration with Michael Tarabulski, hope eventually to complete a book on the 1930 Logan Museum Expedition to Algeria that will incorporate the diaries of the American students (including Sol Tax and Lauriston Ward) who were part of this first-ever overseas archaeological field school for North American students, and compare the situation then to our own work with students in Algeria in the 1970s, using archival materials including still and motion photography now housed at Beloit College, the Wisconsin State Historical Society, the University of Minnesota, the American Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian Institution.
GRADUATE DEGREES SUPERVISED
Dyck, Ian (Ph.D., 1976) The Harder Site: A Middle Period Bison Hunters' Campsite in the Northern Great Plains.
Syms, Leigh (Ph.D., 1976) Indigenous Ceramics and Ecological Dynamics of Southwestern Manitoba, 500 B.C. - A.D. 1800.
Willoughby, Pamela (M.A., 1976) An Analysis of Early Postglacial European Prehistory.
Losey, Timothy (Ph.D., 1977) Prehistoric Cultural Ecology of the Western Prairie-Forest Transition Zone, Alberta, Canada.
Sheppard, Peter (Ph.D. 1984, University of Toronto) A Study of Technological and Stylistic Variability in Capsian Stone Tool Assemblages (co-supervisor with M. Kleindienst).
Lello, Richard (M.A., 1990) Molluscs and archaeology: settlement and seasonality in the Portuguese Mesolithic.
Duarte, Cidália (M.A. 1992) Analysis of wear patterns and pathological lesions in human teeth from the Neolithic site of Grutas Artificiais do Tojal de Vila Chà (co-supervisor with O. Beattie until 1991).
MacKinnon, Michael (M.A., 1993) Analysis of animal remains from four late Roman middens at San Giovanni di Ruoti (co-supervisor with A. Small, Classics).
Fu, Yong (M.A., 1994) Dental and cranial nonmetric study of the Jiangzhai Neolithic population and its genetic affinity with other East Asians (co-supervisor with M. Jackes).
Haverkort, Caroline (Ph.D. 2001) Enamel Trace Element Composition and Palaeodietary Studies – an Exploratory Model (co-supervisor with M. Jackes).
Fowler, Kent (Ph.D. 2002) Early Iron Age Community Organization in Southern Africa: Social and Symbolic Dimensions of Ceramic Production, Use, and Discard at Ndondondwane (committee member).
Kelecevic, Julija (Ph.D.) Dental morphology of the Iron Gates Gorge Mesolithic and Neolithic populations (co-supervisor with M. Jackes; abandonned).
Musacchio, Alberto (Interdepartmental Ph.D.). Geoarchaeology of the Snake Indian River drainage basin, Jasper National Park (Alberta): a GIS approach (co-supervisor with J. Hodgson, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences; student deceased, never completed).