Our Members

This page is designed to share information and contact details of our members. While every effort is made to keep the page updated the responsibility for the information provided lies entirely with the members. If you would like to add your details to the AMWG website please fill in the ‘questions’ form and email it to the AMWG content editor.

Where in the World?

Click on the region links to see who is working where!

Asia – Australia – Caribbean – Central America – Eastern Europe – Middle East North America – Northern Africa – Northern Europe – Oceania – South America – Southern Africa – Southern Europe – Western Europe

Bachtsevanidou Strantzali, Ioanna (Northern Ireland). Worked in: Greece, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Belgium, UK, Vietnam. Affiliation: Queen’s University Belfast. Interest: Geology, Palaeontology, Archaeology, Palaeoenvironment. Bio: I hold a BSc. in Geology, and a MSc. in Paleontology. My current research on archaeology and paleoecology for the SUNDASIA project is focusing mainly on radiocarbon dating, modelling expectations and species diversity, within a framework of changing environmental conditions, during the Early Holocene and Late Pleistocene in Tràng An massif in Vietnam part of the World Heritage site and assigned with Unesco. I have worked for the Times magazine as an interviewer, and currently as an assistant editor in the Centre for Global Education, as a guest investigator in the Lab of Archeology and Paleontology, a unit responsible for the paleontological research in Portugal, and also as a teaching assistant in Queen’s University. In my free time I love learning new languages, and speak Greek (native), English, French, Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese and Japanese.

Barbir, Antonela (Croatia). Worked in: Eastern Europe; Croatia; eastern Adriatic. Affiliation: Institute of Archaeology, Zagreb. Interests: archaeomalacology (marine and terrestrial malacofauna), archaeozoology, dietary reconstruction, paleoecology, paleoenvironmental reconstruction, human/environmental interaction. Webpage. Bio: I am PhD student working on dietary change and paleoecology based on analyses of malacofauna and mammals from late Upper Paleolithic to early Mesolithic sites in Dalmatia, Croatia.

Kozuch, Laura (USA). Worked in: North America. Affiliation: University of Illinois. Interests: Beads, shell cups, trade, sourcing (particularly lightning whelks). Webpage. Bio: I study shell artifacts and shark teeth from Mississippian sites in an effort to more fully understand trade and shell-working technology. Currently, I am analyzing lightning whelk cups, shark teeth, and bead crafting from Cahokia and East St. Louis sites, as well as replicating beads from lightning whelk shells.

Nelson-Viljoen, Cindy (UK). Worked in: Southern Africa; UK. Affiliation: Archaeoleg Brython Archaeology. Interests: Archaeomalacology, Zooarchaeology, Coastal archaeology, Palaeoenviromental Reconstruction, Human/environmental interaction & Dietary reconstruction, Outreach. Bio: I hold a MPhil In Archaeology and is currently the Post Excavation Supervisor for Brython Archaeology, and the Newsletter editor and Webmaster for AMWG. My research focused on dietary reconstructions during the South African Iron Age, and investigating seasonal shellfish use during the Later Stone Age via isotope and sclerochronological analysis to better understand the occupational history of past populations, and the possible seasonal nature of their coastal diet.

Saafi, Ismail (France). Worked in: North Africa. Affiliation: Aix Marseille University. Interests: Terrestrial snail consumption, ornaments, seasonality, Holocene, Experimentation, Ethnography. Bio: Thesis under the direction of Robert Chenorkian, University of Aix-Marseille. Subject: The contribution of the continental malacofauna in the subsistence economy of the Caspian and Neolithic populations in Tunisia during the Holocene.

Fa, Darren (Gibraltar) Worked in: UK, Spain (especially southern), North Africa (especially Morocco).. Affiliation: University of Gibraltar. Interests: Palaeoecology and archaeology, primarily related to evidence of marine exploitation by early coastal foragers (Palaeolithic, Neolithic). Bio:

Dr Darren Fa is currently the Director of Academic Programmes and Research at the University of Gibraltar. A qualified educator, after obtaining his PhD in Biological Oceanography from the University of Southampton In 1998, he then moved to the Gibraltar Museum in 1999 as Education and Research Officer, where he also read for a Masters Degree in Museums Studies from the University of Leicester (2004).

He has been principal investigator on a number of EU and EFCHED funded projects and has published over 70 peer-reviewed articles in various international journals and book chapters both on ecological and archaeological subjects. His primary research areas are in Marine Species Ecology and Conservation, Palaeoecology, and Human Evolution and Behaviour, especially the relationship between people and the sea in the past. A qualified Scientific Diver, he regularly carries out marine-related commissioned studies such as archaeological surveys and Environmental Impact Assessments. He is a director of the Gibraltar Museum’s Gibraltar Caves Project as well as member of the UNESCO WHS working group for the Gorham’s Cave Complex.

Darren is a member of the Gibraltar Government’s Nature Conservancy Council, a Registered European Commission Expert on Environment and Higher Education, and an Elected Fellow of the Linnaean Society of London. He is married with three daughters and somehow finds time to dive and play music when he can.

Nisch Terrell, Emily (USA). Worked in: North America; UK. Affiliation: North Carolina Museum of Natural History Bio: I just graduated from the University of the Highlands and Islands in Orkney, Scotland with my MLitt in Archaeological Studies (Distinction). I wrote my master’s thesis on serrated freshwater mussel shell artifacts from a late Woodland period site in North Carolina. I focussed on use-wear analysis methodology to analyse what these shell artefacts may have been used for. I hope to pursue a PhD in archaeology with a focus on shells as tools, especially freshwater mussel shells, and on developing rigorous use-wear analysis methods for shells.

Patton, A. Katherine (Canada). Worked in: North America. Affiliation: University of Toronto Bio: I am an assistant professor (teaching stream) at the University of Toronto. I am interested in understanding Ancestral Wabanaki settlement and shellfish harvesting practices through an examination of the location and character of shell-bearing sites in the Wabanaki homeland (Maine-Maritimes region of Northeastern North America). I also study settlement, foodways, and architecture in shell-bearing sites in the Tsimshian homeland in the northern Northwest Coast of North America.

Williams, Mark R. (USA). Worked in: North America – Pacific Northwest (Puget Sound, Washington and Prince of Wales Island, SE Alaska), American Southwest (New Mexico). Affiliation: University of New Mexico & SWCA Environmental Consultants. Interests: Optimal foraging systems, traditional ecological knowledge, sustainability, clams, chitons, and periwinkles Bio:My research analyzes shellfish harvesting strategies that developed during the middle Holocene on the northern Northwest Coast of North America. I also examine the role that the management of intertidal ecosystems may have played in the emergence of sedentary societies and hereditary chiefdoms.

Young, Holly (Scotland) . Worked in: Mainland Scotland, Orkney, Shetland, Suffolk, Gloucestershire. Affiliation: The University of the Highlands and Islands Interests: Marine Mollusc exploitation in Prehistory (specifically Iron Age Scotland) Bio:I completed my undergraduate degree with UHI in 2016 based in Orkney after which I moved to the south of England, specifically Cirencester in Gloucestershire, where I worked for Cotswold Archaeology for three years as a field archaeologist. In 2019 I returned to Orkney to undertake my MSc in Archaeological practice, which I completed in January of 2021 despite Covids best efforts to get in the way. I am now at the start of my PhD looking at marine mollusc exploitation in the Scottish Iron Age.