Michelle Alexander is a bioarchaeologist with an interest in multi-faith societies and is Senior Lecturer in Bioarchaeology at the University of York. [1]
Alexander specialises in the study of medieval diet through stable isotope analysis. She was part of the research team for the European Research Council funded project The Archaeology of Regime Change: Sicily in Transition, which explored the changes in population in medieval Sicily. [2] She is part of the research team for the Urban Ecology Zanzibar project. [3] She is project lead for the Faith in Food, Food in Faith Network funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council. [4] She is part of the research team for ArchSci2020, which explores new scientific techniques to understand the circumpolar world. [5] She is Co-Investigator on Landscapes of (Re)Conquest, which seeks to understand relationships between people, castles and landscapes in medieval Iberia. [6] Alexander has published or co-authored work on millet in diets in early medieval Italy, [7] medieval diet in Leopoli-Cencelle, [8] medieval diet in agrarian Apulia, [9]
Additionally Alexander has worked within teams to apply her research across a range of species, including:
As well as across time periods:
In 2011, Alexander was appointed as a Research Fellow in the Department of Archaeology at Aberdeen University. [1] In 2011, she returned to Durham University as a Visiting Research Fellow, as well as holding a post at Cornell University, USA in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. [1] In 2012, Alexander was appointed Lecturer in Bioarchaeology at the University of York, which was followed by a Senior Lectureship in 2018. [1]
Alexander graduated with BSc (Hons) in Archaeology from Durham University in 2005. [1] She studied for an MSc in Bioarchaeology supported by Manchester and Sheffield Universities in 2006. [1] Alexander graduated with a PhD from Durham University in 2010, which was funded by a Durham Doctoral Fellowship. [1] Her doctoral thesis was entitled: Exploring Diet and Society in Medieval Spain: New Approaches Using Stable Isotope Analysis. [20]
In archaeology, a denticulate tool is a stone tool containing one or more edges that are worked into multiple notched shapes, much like the toothed edge of a saw. Such tools have been used as saws for woodworking, processing meat and hides, craft activities and for agricultural purposes. Denticulate tools were used by many different groups worldwide and have been found at a number of notable archaeological sites. They can be made from a number of different lithic materials, but a large number of denticulate tools are made from flint.
Laddu or laddoo is a spherical sweet originating from India and spread through the Indian subcontinent and the Malay world. Laddus are primarily made from flour, fat (ghee/butter/oil) and sugar or jaggery. Laddus are often made of gram flour but can also be made with semolina. Sometimes ingredients such as chopped nuts and/or dried raisins can also be added. The type of ingredients used vary by recipe.
The term bioarchaeology has been attributed to British archaeologist Grahame Clark who, in 1972, defined it as the study of animal and human bones from archaeological sites. Redefined in 1977 by Jane Buikstra, bioarchaeology in the United States now refers to the scientific study of human remains from archaeological sites, a discipline known in other countries as osteoarchaeology, osteology or palaeo-osteology. Compared to bioarchaeology, osteoarchaeology is the scientific study that solely focus on the human skeleton. The human skeleton is used to tell us about health, lifestyle, diet, mortality and physique of the past. Furthermore, palaeo-osteology is simple the study of ancient bones.
The Schöningen spears are a set of ten wooden weapons from the Palaeolithic Age that were excavated between 1994 and 1999 from the 'Spear Horizon' in the open-cast lignite mine in Schöningen, Helmstedt district, Germany. The spears are the oldest hunting weapons discovered and were found together with animal bones and stone and bone tools, being used by the oldest known group of hunters, providing never before uncovered proof, that early human ancestors were much closer to modern humans in both complex social structure and technical ability then thought before. The excavations took place under the management of Hartmut Thieme of the Lower Saxony State Service for Cultural Heritage (NLD).
Domuztepe was a large, Late Neolithic settlement in south east Turkey, occupied at least as early as c.6,200BC and abandoned c.5,450BC. The site is located to the south of Kahramanmaraş. Covering 20 hectares, it is primarily a Halaf site of the 6th millennium BC and is the largest known settlement of that date.
Blick Mead is a chalkland spring in Wiltshire, England, separated by the River Avon from the northwest edge of the town of Amesbury. It is close to an Iron Age hillfort known as Vespasian's Camp and about a mile east of the Stonehenge ancient monument. Evidence from archaeology excavation at the site since 2005, indicates that there was continuous human habitation from 10,000 BP to 6,000 BP.
Medieval Bioarchaeology is the study of human remains recovered from medieval archaeological sites. Bioarchaeology aims to understand populations through the analysis of human skeletal remains and this application of bioarchaeology specifically aims to understand medieval populations. There is an interest in the Medieval Period when it comes to bioarchaeology, because of how differently people lived back then as opposed to now, in regards to not only their everyday life, but during times of war and famine as well. The biology and behavior of those that lived in the Medieval Period can be analyzed by understanding their health and lifestyle choices.
Julia Anne Lee-Thorp, is a South African archaeologist and academic. She is Head of the Stable Light Isotope Laboratory and Professor of Archaeological Science and Bioarchaeology at the University of Oxford. Lee-Thorp is most well known for her work on dietary ecology and human origins, using stable isotope chemistry to study fossil bones and teeth.
Kristina Killgrove is an American bioarchaeologist, science communicator, and author who primarily covers anthropology and archaeology news and engages in research on ancient Roman skeletons. She is a regular contributor to Live Science and previously to Mental Floss,Science Uncovered, and Forbes. From 2012 to 2018, she was faculty in anthropology at the University of West Florida and she has maintained an affiliation as a research scholar at the Ronin Institute since 2011. She is currently affiliated with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Darian Dam was constructed on the Sirwan River between 2009 and 2015. The Dam is located in the Hawrāmān region of Kurdistan and Kermanshah. The Darian Dam Archeological Salvage Program (DDASP) was planned by Iranian Center for Archaeological Research before flooding the reservoir.
Janet Montgomery is a British archaeological scientist and academic. Having studied at the University of Bradford, she is now Professor of Bioarchaeology at Durham University. She specialises in the study of diet and migration via tooth enamel biomineralization and isotope analysis.
Sofia Voutsaki is Professor of Greek Archaeology at the University of Groningen and a specialist in the archaeology of the Bronze Age Aegean and classical Greece. She has directed excavations and surveys in the Argolid and at the Mycenaean site of Ayios Vasileios near Sparta, and has also published works on social change, mortuary archaeology, archaeological science, and the history of 19th- and 20th-century Greek archaeology.
Margaret J. Schoeninger is an American anthropologist. She is Professor Emerita of Anthropology at The University of California San Diego, and until recently she was a Co-Director for the Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropology, or CARTA. Her research is primarily focused on the evolution of the human diet and what this information can tell us about other aspects of human evolution.
Tamsin O'Connell is an archaeological scientist based at the University of Cambridge. Her work has pioneered the use of isotope analysis in archaeology, specifically diet and climate in human and animal tissues.
Michael Phillip Richards is an archaeological scientist, researcher and an academic. He is an archaeology Professor at Simon Fraser University and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Archaeological Science, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (London) and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Richards has published more than 300 research articles. His research focuses on studying the diets diet evolution and migrations of past humans and animals using various techniques such as isotope analysis and radiocarbon dating. His work is highly cited and has gathered media coverage.
Near Eastern bioarchaeology covers the study of human skeletal remains from archaeological sites in Cyprus, Egypt, Levantine coast, Jordan, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Yemen.
Dental microwear analysis is a method to infer diet and behavior in extinct animals, especially in fossil specimens. Typically, the patterns of pits and scratches on the occlusal or buccal surface of the enamel are compared with patterns observed in extant species to infer ecological information. Hard foods in particular can lead to distinctive patterns. Microwear can also be used for inferring behavior, especially those related to the non-masticatory use of teeth as 'tools'. Other uses include investigating weaning in past populations. Methods used to collect data initially involved a microscope and manually collecting information on individual microwear features, but software to automatically collect data have improved markedly in recent years.
Boncuklu Höyük is a Neolithic archaeological site in Central Anatolia, Turkey, situated 9 km from the more famous Çatalhöyük site. The tell is made up of the remains of one of the world's oldest villages, occupied between around 8300 to 7800 BCE. The buildings are small and oval shaped with walls constructed of mudbricks. The remains of burials of human bodies were found below the floors of the buildings. The earliest known ceramics of Anatolia have been discovered there.
Mochena Borago is a rockshelter and archaeological site situated on the western slope of Mount Damota, nearest to the town of Wolaita Sodo in Ethiopia, located in the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region. The site is well-dated, with 59 radiocarbon dates, which gives it one of the most secure chronologies among Late Pleistocene sites in the Horn of Africa and Eastern Africa. It is one of only a few African sites found with intact deposits dating to Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3 outside of South Africa, and was potentially a refugium for hunter-gatherering peoples during the cold and arid period of MIS 4. This makes it an important research site for testing the "refugium theory," which states that over the past 70,000 years, during cold, arid conditions, like those of the Last Glacial Maximum and MIS 4, humans sought refuge in the mountains of the southwest Ethiopian Highlands, which received higher rainfall, making them more habitable than the surrounding areas. Research at Mochena Borago is helping to reconstruct human behavior during the Late Pleistocene, and the paleoenvironment that Homosapiens would have inhabited at this time in the Horn of Africa.
Ronika K. Power is an Australian archaeologist who is a Professor of Bioarchaeology in the Department of History and Archaeology and Director of the Centre for Ancient Cultural Heritage and Environment at Macquarie University. Power is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and the Royal Society of New South Wales.