Western Eurassian Steppe
Kumsay
Interrogating Pastoral Lifeways in the Early Bronze Age - Est. 2025
I am the co-founder and senior investigator of the UMich Kumsay Excavation Project, which investigates Early Bronze Age pastoral foodways along the Eurasian Steppe in western Kazakhstan. Our current fieldwork site focuses on the excavation of multiple kurgan burials in collaboration with local archaeologists. Future research will include a systematic pedestrian survey to identify the associated domestic settlement, shedding light on everyday life in this pastoral landscape. As the project's faunal analyst, I lead the study of animal remains using both zooarchaeological and isotopic methods to reconstruct dietary practices, herd management strategies, and environmental interactions. This research contributes to larger conversations on mobility, food production, and emerging social complexity in Central Asia during the Early Bronze Age.
Dzhankent
Faunal and Isotope Study of Medieval Dzhankent - Est. 2023
I am the co-lead investigator of a stable isotopic study investigating urban foodways at the medieval city of Dzhankent in Kazakhstan. This project adapts the urban production and provisioning framework developed in my dissertation on Early Bronze Age urbanism to a new temporal and cultural context, offering a unique opportunity to explore how a medieval city sustained its population through local and regional resource networks. By applying this comparative model, I aim to generate nuanced insights into provisioning strategies, herd management, and the ecological footprint of urban life in Central Asia. In 2024, I served as assistant faunal analyst under Dr. Ashleigh Haruda, contributing to the identification and interpretation of the Dzhankent assemblage. This collaboration launched a focused investigation into medieval butchery practices, expanding on the methodological approaches I refined during my dissertation research. Together, these efforts are laying the groundwork for a multi-scalar, interdisciplinary understanding of food production and consumption in medieval urban environments.
Isotope and ZooMS Study of Medieval Barda - Est. 2023
I am a co-lead investigator for stable isotope research and the lead ZooMS specialist at the medieval city of Barda, Azerbaijan. Building on the urban production and provisioning model developed in my dissertation, I am exploring how this regional center sustained its population through livestock management and provisioning strategies. The isotopic component investigates dietary patterns and animal mobility, offering insight into food system organization in a medieval urban context. As lead ZooMS analyst, I am evaluating the reliability of traditional morphological identifications of sheep versus goat by testing participant identifications against biomolecular results. This work not only refines faunal identifications at Barda but also contributes to broader discussions on methodological accuracy in archaeological science.
