I will be joining the 人类学 Department in Fall 2022 as a new faculty member after being an Instructor for the Department since 2016. 我完成了博士学位.D. 在那之前，我在俄勒冈大学获得了硕士学位.A. 2012年在足彩外围网站, where I was a Sally Casanova Scholar (2010-2011) and the Graduate Student of the Year (2011-2012). I am thrilled to join my alma mater and fulfill the goal of the Sally Casanova Scholarship program - to provide opportunities for Cal State students to pursue doctoral degrees and then return to teach and train the next generation of students at Cal State Universities!
我们能从研究成堆的旧贝壳和鱼骨中学到什么?
I am an archaeologist interested in better understanding how people in the past lived in and interacted with coastal and island environments in Alta and 加利福尼亚半岛. My research themes include the historical ecology of coastlines and islands; the nature and role of foodways in human societies; how people harvested and managed nearshore and littoral resources like seaweeds, 海洋哺乳动物, fish and shellfish; and using archaeological datasets to reconstruct nearshore paleoenvironments over the past roughly 11,000年. My research uses several archaeological approaches including zooarchaeology (the study of animal bones and mollusks in archaeological contexts), 民族考古学(通过研究现代文化和实践重建过去的生活方式), 考古和海洋地球化学(一.e., 放射性碳定年和稳定同位素研究), and biological approaches like marine ecology (the study of how marine organisms relate and interact with each other and their environment).
人类已经改变和改造了我们生存的整个环境. 理解选择, 影响, and strategies of people in the past can help us make better choices today as we face numerous ongoing challenges including those of global climate change. My research seeks to assist in this effort by using archaeological data to provide baseline information spanning hundreds or thousands of years for animal populations that have been severely impacted in recent decades.
Fishing is currently a major source of food and primary economic pursuit along the upper Gulf of California, 墨西哥. Modern fisheries of the upper Gulf were severely impacted by sport and commercial fishing during the 20th 世纪，耗尽了曾经丰富的资源，并将许多特有物种推向濒临灭绝. 除了, anthropogenic 影响 in the form of water diversion and damming of the Colorado River have turned the once hyper-productive upper Gulf estuary into a highly saline environment, negatively impacting the spawning cycles of many fish species and further hindering their recovery. 以鱼骨形式出现的考古证据, 耳石, and shellfish show that people have been fishing and collecting shellfish along these coastlines for thousands of years, 为现代渔业提供了丰富的基线数据和重要的历史背景. 例如，我们最近对考古耳石的分析 Totoaba macdonaldii, 目前被列入濒危动物红色名录的动物, reveals that people have been harvesting this huge fish (up to 2 meters in length and 200 pounds) for at least 6,000年. 在研究中, 耳石的形态测量, 放射性碳年代测定法, 稳定同位素分析用于描述收获种群的人口统计特征, 捕鱼的季节性, and reconstruct aspects of the upper Gulf paleoenvironment during the past several thousand years (1).
类似的, we used detailed analyses of small gastropod shells and sea urchin remains from archaeological shell middens on California’s Channel Islands to suggest the harvesting of seaweeds, 海草, and kelps in the past and reconstruct aspects of the vital kelp forest ecosystems that surround these islands and sustained Native Islanders, 包括丘马什岛, Nicoleno, 和Gabrieleño人口几千年(2), 3, 和4).
The study of archaeological mollusks can also be used to demonstrate a deep history of cultural continuity and resilience of cultural practices. 例如, 佩里乌人的民族历史记载, who inhabited the southern part of the 加利福尼亚半岛 peninsula for at least thousands of years, 描述珍珠在各种形式的珠宝和发饰中的使用. Our study of grooved pearls from an archaeological site in the region demonstrated that this practice was far older than at first assumed and extended back to at least 8,500年前, 成为世界上已知最古老的人类对珍珠进行修饰的证据(5).