09/12/2019

Exciting times! Upenn undergraduates can now chose Environmental Anthropology as their major!

If you are a UPenn undergrad and want some hands on archaeobotany or isotope lab experience, or a project to work on, visit the lab for a chat, we’re always happy to welcome new faces.

https://bit.ly/2m7G6I3

08/09/2019

Dr Ramya Bala Prabhakaren has been over at Drexel University’s Department of Biodiversity, Earth & Environmental Science in Prof. David Velinksy’s lab for the last couple of weeks prepping sediment samples from Hampi area, Kadebakele for carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis.

The samples look great and everyone in the Penn Paleoecology lab is super excited for the results! Watch this space for more updates!

08/06/2019

Dr Bates has a new paper out today in the Journal of Open Archaeology Data:

The Published Archaeobotanical Data from the Indus Civilisation, South Asia, c.3200–1500BC

“The collection of this dataset of published archaeobotanical data from the Indus Civilisation (c.3200–1500BC) was carried out by the author as part of her doctoral work, and has continued up to October 2017. The dataset represents a systematic collation of all primary published macrobotanical data, regardless of their designation as ‘crop’, ‘fully domesticated’ or ‘wild/weedy’ species. The dataset comprises 63 sites and 339 ‘taxa’ (including less confidently identified elements such as ‘charred seed’). Data is presented as presence/absence due to different sampling, quantification and data presentation practices.”

DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/joad.57

The paper accompanies an open access dataset: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/WSHMAD

08/05/2019

First lab meeting today! Ramya presented her project at Mudumalai, looking into historic land-use and land cover changes, and the role of fire in particular. A great first lab meeting for Penn Paleoecology lab.

08/01/2019

Today we were delighted to host Prof. Marie-Claude Boileau and her interns from Penn Museum’s CAAM Lab. Jennifer and Ramya discussed the aims of the lab and their projects, as well as the practical aspects of sediment isotopic analysis, radiocarbon dating, and phytolith analysis. For more info on the CAAM Lab’s check out @CAAMatPenn and CAAM.