Research
My work can be generally divided to three main interlinked research directions
(click for more information):
Archaeology
BEFOREtheFLOOD (my current ERC project)
Anthropology of Hunter-Gatherers
Geo-Ethnoarchaeology
One of the defining aspects of humanity is our ability to adapt to new and changing environments through social behaviour, technological innovation and exploitation of natural resources.
I focus on human habitation sites and their immediate surrounding in diverse environments including coastal areas and submerged sites, caves and open-air sites. I apply a micro-geoarchaeological analysis to study soils, sediments, micro-botanical remains and chemical residues. I also perform ethnographic and ethnoarchaeological studies in order to unravel the multiple ways humans perceive, interact and shape their habitual landscape.
I develop new methods to perform spatial analysis - as a proxy to people’s use of space - at a molecular and microscopic scale. I use computerized modelling and social theory to produce new interpretive frameworks that link between the intangible aspects of the human experience and the archaeological data I produced in the laboratory.
High Resolution Approach and why it is important to study site formation processes?
The archaeological method is largely based on the association of archaeological materials recovered through excavation with different stratigraphic layers with each layer representing an episode of material deposition. Such episodes may relate to natural processes of sedimentation and/or to human activity that result in material accumulations. But while human activity is happening in scales of minutes, days or years, archaeological layers identified in Palaeolithic sites and dated by radiometric methods usually represent hundreds if not thousands of years. This means that each archaeological layer is composed of multiple episodes of human action that are rarely distinguishable. In addition, archaeological deposits experience different post-depositional taphonomic processes (e.g., animals and plants activity and changes within chemical environments) that may alter the archaeological record and greatly affect archaeological interpretation. Understanding the entire sequence of archaeological site formation processes from the initial occupation of the site followed by millennia of taphonomic processes is crucial in establishing the integrity of archaeological records before any interpretation. In order to identify episodes that better represent the scale of human behaviour it is essential to increase our resolution of the archaeological record by:
Investigate the less-studied microscopic and chemical scales to detect invisible materials deposited by human behaviour (e.g. ash particles, micro-botanical remains, fragments of bones and lithics, indicative sets of chemicals and the utilisation or modification of sediments, soils, rocks and minerals).
Provide a multi-scalar spatial analysis of the distribution of different evidence for human activity.
Understand post-depositional processes to adequately evaluate the state of preservation and integrity of archaeological context.
It is only by developing a high-resolution approach based on a multi-proxy, multi-scalar analysis of the entire range of archaeological site formation processes, that reliable archaeological interpretations are possible, providing new types of evidence, as well as new opportunities for synthesis and theory.
