Archaeology

Courtney Besaw

Courtney Besaw is a historical archaeologist who focuses on Latin American archaeology.

She primarily works on the coast of Belize studying the colonial period. She is interested in studying ethnogenesis (the continuation or emergence of new identities) and assimilation of immigrant peoples to northern Belize following the Caste War of Yucatan. Her interests also include “illegal” settlements, household archaeology, and identity.

 

Degrees and Education

BS in Anthropology, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona
BS in Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona

Awards

2017-2018 Graduate Fellowship in Latin American Archaeology
2019-2020 Graduate Fellowship in Latin American Archaeology

Jennifer Farquhar

Jennifer Farquhar studies the evolution of pastoralism in the desert-steppe region of Mongolia. Specifically, her research focuses on changing mobility patterns among foragers and early herders during the Neolithic-Bronze Age Transition (ca. 4500 years ago) to understand the development of social complexity and inequality among later nomadic pastoralists. Her research draws from on-going archaeological and geoarchaeological work carried out at the Ikh Nart Nature Reserve, where she has worked since 2013. Her dissertation research represents the culmination of over 25 years of academic interest and technical experience in prehistoric human-environment interactions, land-use strategies, and technology. Since 1990, she has worked as an archaeologist designing and directing studies for cultural resource management projects throughout California and the Great Basin. During her tenure in resource management, she taught classes in prehistoric lithic technology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and served on the Executive Board of the Society for California Archaeology as Northern Vice President (2008-2010) and President (2010-2013). She is an owner and Principal Archaeologist at Albion Environmental. Inc. in Santa Cruz, California.  She also serves as a researcher for NOMAD Science Mongolia, an international interdisciplinary research organization founded by fellow Pitt graduate student, Dr. Julia Clark.

Publications

Rosen, A, T. Hart, J. Farquhar, J. Schneider, and T. Yadmaa. 2019. Holocene Vegetation Cycles, Land-use, and Human Adaptations to Desertification in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany (2019) https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-018-0710-y.  

Hildebrandt, W., J.M. Farquhar, and M. Hylkema. 2009. Archaeology and History in Año Nuevo State Park. California Department of Parks and Recreation Publications in Cultural Heritage, No. 26. 

Jurich, D.M., J.M. Farquhar, and M.E. Basgall. 2000. Excavations at CA-MNO-680: A Western Stemmed Deposit in the Eastern Sierra. Current Research in the Pleistocene Vol. 17 (2000).

Degrees and Education

MA - Anthropology - California State University, Sacramento (2003)
BA - Anthropology - University of California, Santa Cruz (1989)

Awards

2020 - University of Pittsburgh Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences- Social Science Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship
2019 - National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Grant
2019 - American Center for Mongolian Studies Research Scholarship
2019 - Rust Family Foundation Archaeology Grant Program
2016 - Melikian Advisory Board Fellowship
2016 - Critical Language Institute Friends Scholarship
2016, 2017, 2018 - University Center for International Studies Travel Grant
2016, 2017 - Predissertation Small Grant Program- Dept. of Anthropology University of Pittsburgh
2015-2019 - National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship
2015 - Fulbright Specialist Program (Grantee)
2015 (declined) - University of Pittsburgh Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences- Arts and Sciences Fellowship
2013-2017 - Fulbright Specialist Program (Listed Scholar)

Ryan Smith

Ryan is interested in studying the organization and management of large-scale social and economic interaction networks in non-state societies and how these networks relate to social identity, conflict, subsistence, and shifts in political centralization. His dissertation research will explore a complex system of resource exchange and ritual interaction which connected highlands and lower-lying eastern valleys in the central Andes during late prehispanic periods (AD 1000-1530). One of the major goals of this research is to understand the development of these interaction networks in the Late Intermediate Period, a time marked by political segmentation and internecine conflict ushered by the fall of the Wari and Tiwanaku states around AD 1000 and lasting until the expansion of the Inca empire in the fifteenth century.

Patrick Mullins

Patrick Mullins is interested in prehistoric frontiers, coastal-highland interaction, warfare, and fortifications in the Andes. During the Late Intermediate Period (1000-1470 AD), the Chimú Empire had a heavily fortified hinterland that spread from their capital at Chan Chan, on Peru's Pacific coast, to perhaps the upper tributaries of the Moche River. Patrick's research aims at understanding the extent and nature of the fortified Chimú hinterland and the interactions that created the shared frontier between the coastal Chimú, middle/upper valley, and highland settlements. He spent part of summer 2013 surveying Neolithic - Iron Ages sites in Serbia.