Research Interests

I am an archaeobotanical scientist specialising in the analysis of charred plant macro-fossils, with a focus on plant food and wood fuel use. I investigate the deep histories of human foodways and management of vegetation resources, looking at plant species targeted by prehistoric foragers during the Middle Palaeolithic, Upper Palaeolithic, and Epipalaeolithic. I work on time periods dating to the demise of the Neanderthals and the proliferation of early modern humans, and the latest hunter-gatherer groups in Southwest Asia and parts of Mediterranean Europe. I also investigate the transition to farming and crop domestication in habitations with some of the earliest evidence for settled life and agricultural practices (Pre-pottery Neolithic and later Neolithic) in Southwest Asia. The time depth of my current research, spanning ~75,000 to 8,000 years ago, captures a series of momentous shifts in human lifeways, including technological changes in food preparation, intensive management of vegetation resources, and the establishment of the earliest farming societies.