I am an environmental archaeologist and I study the environmental and social impacts of the spread of agriculture worldwide, but my work focuses primarily on early farming in the Mediterranean and Europe 8000-5000 years ago. I joined the Department of Anthropology at UCSB in 2019. Prior to this I was first an Assistant and then Associate Professor in Anthropology at Penn State and an Assistant Professor at the University of Oregon. I am a Santa Barbara boomerang: I completed my doctoral studies here in 2004 and am excited to be back!

The origins and spread of farming during the Holocene were a turning point for human-environmental interaction, health, nutrition, disease, and increasing social complexity. My research centers on the social and ecological impacts and legacies of early farming populations that have implications for today’s issues of the adaptability and resilience of small-scale farming and biodiversity under shifting environmental, climatic, and demographic conditions. I approach the transition to agriculture comparatively by studying two main areas: the gateway to European agriculture in the eastern Adriatic (Dalmatia, Croatia); and impacts of early farming in the arid western Mediterranean (Valencia, Spain). See below for more info on these projects. In recent years I have also begun to expand this work to historic contexts, particularly in the eastern US with Dr. Martin Welker, and more recently in California.

I am continuing my research on the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic of central Europe, particularly in southwestern Germany. Two new articles are currently in press, one examining the intrasite patterning of four Mesolithic sites in Germany, the other on the late- and postglacial colonization of the Alps, comparing these processes between the north (Germany and Switzerland) and the south (Italy). Another article, currently submitted, investigates how postglacial adaptations in southern Germany and Switzerland led to a feedback loop resulting in niche construction.