Archaeological Research Facility

The multi-year project of the Nemea Center for Classical Archaeology (DAGRS), the Excavation and Conservation of the Early Christian Basilica, at the Sanctuary of Zeus in Ancient Nemea, Greece, began in 2022. The west end of the 5thc. CE building was investigated including the narthex and two rooms added later to the building on the north and south sides. We cleared areas that had been excavated in the 1920s, 1960s, and 1980 to reveal the building’s foundation walls, floor surfaces, and other architectural features, including previously unrecorded interior walls of the 4thc. BCE Xenon building from the pagan panhellenic sanctuary. Overlooked small finds, like coins and painted terracottas, were recovered and we began the full study of pottery and related finds from the previous excavations which remain unpublished.

The ancient foundations of the Basilica, now accessible in the west part of the building, will be conserved this fall by consolidating the original crumbling mortar and masonry using a special binding agent. The remainder of the building will be reinvestigated and the masonry conserved in the coming seasons.

The Pompeii Artifact Life History Project completed its eighth field season at the site of Pompeii (Italy) during the period July 3 - July 30, 2022. The project team completed the description of the artifact assemblage from the Casa della Venere in Bikini (I.11.6.7) and completed rapid architectural surveys of this residence and the Casa di Saturninus (I.11.16).

The crossing of the United States/Mexico border is a dangerous one, so there must be a “push and pull” factor leading many of these individuals to make the journey. This research has based its framework on forensic anthropology work addressing these questions in the past, however, it became clear that identifying and examining those that died crossing the border does not necessarily address the issues or questions in regard to the emotional, social, and political reasons for leaving their country. During the span of this research 30 individuals who have crossed the border within the last 20 years were interviewed. This was done in order to gain an understanding of why they decided to cross. These in person interviews lasted an hour and asked approximately 13 questions. Individuals were asked questions regarding where they were from, their life before crossing, during crossing, and now living in the United States. Individuals were able to pinpoint specific details that led to their decision to cross. While the experiences did vary among individuals there were various social and economic commonalities that linked many of these individuals together in their reasoning to make this journey in the first place. 

The 2022 field season of "City Life at Classic Maya Palenque, Mexico" involved excavations in a densely built up neighborhood in the urban core of this site, most well known for the palaces, temples, and historical monuments of its ruling family, which reached an apogee ca. 600-800 AD. The 2022 excavations are the first season of a multi-season effort to explore a stratified random sample of presumed residential compounds of varied sizes and configurations, identified in our previous analyses as possibly representing different social strata. The first selected compound produced an assemblage from middens adjacent to two structures that reflects everyday life, and includes evidence of wealth in the form of imported obsidian and pieces of discarded white stone luxury objects. Like other known residential compounds of the ruling family and nobles who produced written monuments, the residents of this compound undertook ritual practices, but these appear to be distinct from what has previously been observed, with no evidence of burial in the compound, and possible evidence of feasting not seen in these other locations. This first season of excavation also included recovery through fine-grained excavation methods of soil chemistry samples, samples for micromorphology, and microbotanical samples, still under analysis. It provides a baseline for future excavations that will sample possible residences of less wealth and/or shorter histories of occupation.

In 1855, Puerto Rico was struck by the cholera epidemic, killing 20,000 to 50,000 individuals – 4-10% of the total population at the time. Due to the high volume of corpses piling up and fear of the disease’s further spreading, a cemetery outside of the walls of El Morro was established. This cemetery remained untouched for over a century, due to fears that the disease might resurface. Today, however, this cemetery is in danger of being destroyed, as tourists in Old San Juan have been recently granted access to this section of the fort, uncovering human remains as they walk in the trail. My research is a rescue bioarchaeological investigation of the site, with the main objectives of collecting, analyzing, preserving, and repatriating the human remains buried here before erosion and intrusion destroy or further compromises the site and its contents. Furthermore, I plan to study the social determinants that affect predisposition and mortality of infectious disease, particularly with regards to social identity, structural violence, and inequality. Here, I will present preliminary data of the initial surveys of the site. Specifically, I present data of the magnetometer and Ground Penetrating Radar conducted this past summer, as well as the surface collection of skeletal material. Our survey confirmed the extreme erosion of the site, as evidenced by the hundreds of human bone fragments found on the surface.

The 2019 season was the second of the second phase of the project, projected as a series of five study seasons (to be carried out 2018-2022) in which the team will focus on the documentation of the sets of artifacts recovered in the excavation of eight houses of small to medium size that occupy one specific block in the city of Pompeii - Regio I, Insula 11 (I.11) - with a view to elucidating patterns of household consumption in the middle and lower ranges of the socio-economic scale in the final period of the town’s occupation. (figs. 2-3) This block was excavated in its entirety under Vittorio Spinazzola during the period 1912-1913 and Amedeo Maiuri during the years 1952-1962, with most of the artifacts recovered in this work remaining unstudied and unpublished.

Between July and September of 2019, I conducted dissertation research supported by a grant from the Stahl Endowment of the Archaeological Research Facility investigating how the inhabitants of 1st-century CE Pompeii (Italy) prepared their daily meals and what factors influenced their choice of cooking techniques. Through an examination of the frequencies of particular types of vessels (bronze and ceramic) and utensils used for food and drink preparation recovered in the course of earlier excavations from a series of properties in Pompeii, my research reconsiders what constituted the standard batterie de cuisine within the Pompeian kitchen and how this could be modified according to the needs and preferences of the one stocking the shelves. I also attempt to reconstruct the various cooking methods employed and preferences exhibited by the cooks who used these cookwares through an analysis of use alterations (e.g. sooting/fire blackening, scratching, denting, etc.) exhibited by these objects. My research in 2019 was principally devoted to documenting such signs of use. The properties selected for my study represent a range of property types – modest and grand houses, commercial food establishments, and suburban villas – allowing us to better appreciate how food preparation strategies differed between households, as well as residential and more commercial properties. These differences can be seen as indicators of the socioeconomic priorities and individual tastes of those who prepared and consumed the meals within these different contexts.

My research investigates the human-environmental interactions of Prehispanic peoples in the Arenal region of Costa Rica. This area is an ideal location to look at resilient practices in the past, since domestic settlements in Arenal persevered through powerful volcanic eruptions that impacted the landscape every few centuries. As a paleoethnobotanist, I collected soil samples that will help reconstruct the past foodways and environmental management strategies of these past peoples over time through the study of archaeological plant remains preserved within an ancient domestic structure (La Chiripa) that was situated near the Arenal Volcano. At this site, distinct ash deposits distinguish between periods of human occupation, with abandonments, ecological recovery, and then re-occupations after each volcanic eruption, spanning from 1450 BCE to 1530 CE. In 2018, supported by Stahl funds, I constructed a flotation machine and processed the soil samples collected from this ancient household structure in order to recover any plant remains that were preserved below the ground surface. With a theoretical framework of practice theory, historical ecology, and household archaeology, my archaeobotanical research will examine the dynamics of residential groups procurement, production, redistribution, and transmission of goods and cultural practices to subsequent generations over thousands of years of archaeological representation in this volcanic setting. This dissertation research will provide invaluable information regarding ancient household practices, long-term residence stability, and environmental resilience in Pre-Columbian Central America.