Peter Kováčik | Anthropology

PhD Candidate Archaeological Anthropology

Matriculated September 2018

Research Interests

Environmental archaeology; archaeobotany; dendroanthracology; political ecology; legacy data; Archaeology of the American Southwest and Great Basin; Archaeology of the Eastern Mediterranean; paleoenvironmental reconstruction

Academic Accounts

ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Peter-Kovacik

Academia: https://bu.academia.edu/PeterKov%C3%A1%C4%8Dik

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-kovacik-354178109/

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=EdevMD0AAAAJ&hl=en

Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2185-3590

About

I am interested in studying human-landscape interaction in arid and semi-arid environments, through a variety of means, primarily wood charcoal and macrobotanical analyses. I have been involved in multidisciplinary investigations, analyzing prehistoric human coprolites from Peru and historic privy contexts in California and the North Eastern US, for the reconstruction of diet. I have experience in selecting the most reliable and appropriate specimens for carbon dating in collaborative archaeological and geological projects from across North and South America, the Carribean, and Asia. My previous research largely included analysis of charcoal and other macrofloral remains from North America and Israel.

I am currently conducting anthracological analysis on charcoal from Çamlibel Tarlası, a Chalcolithic metalworking site in highland central Turkey, to reconstruct woodland vegetation and wood selection during the site use.

Awards & Grants

Graduate Writing Fellowship. (AY23-24).
Graduate Research in the United States Fellowship (GRUF). (Summer 2023).
New Mexico Archaeological Council Grants Program. (2022).
Department of Anthropology Summer Research Grant, Boston University. (2022).
Center for Innovation in Social Science Travel Awards, Boston University. (2022).
Awarded “Outstanding Teaching Fellow” by Boston University Department of Archaeology. (2021).
Awarded best “Graduate Student Instructor (Hybrid Modality)” by the Boston University Center for Teaching and Learning. (2021).
Anthropology Summer Research Grant; Boston University. (2020).
Boston University Dean’s Fellowship. (Fall 2018, Spring 2019).

Publications

Marston, John M., Canan Çakırlar, Christina Luke, Peter Kováčik, Francesca G. Slim, Nami Shin, Christopher H. Roosevelt. (2021). “Agropastoral Economies and Land Use in Bronze Age Western Anatolia,” Environmental Archaeology online before print.
Marston, John M., Peter Kováčik, and Ulf-Dietrich Schoop. (2021). “Environmental reconstruction and wood use at Late Chalcolithic Çamlıbel Tarlası, Turkey,” Quaternary International 593-594:178-194.
Dillehay, Tom D., Carlos Ocampo, Jose Saavedra, Mario Pino, Linda Scott-Cummings, Peter Kováčik, Claudia Silva, Rodrigo Alvar. (2019). “New excavations at the late Pleistocene site of Chinchihuapi I, Chile,” Quaternary Research 92(1):70-80.
Kováčik, Peter and Linda Scott Cummings. (2017). Reconstruction of Woodland Vegetation and Firewood Exploitation in Nine Mile Canyon, Utah, Based on Charcoal and Pollen Analysis. Quaternary International 463(B):312-326. Download PDF
Bunch, James, Linda Scott Cummings, Peter Kováčik, and Patricia DeBunch. (2015). The Ash Springs Site 26LN2978: New Data from 14C and Macrofloral Analysis. Nevada Archaeologist 28:1-27.
Scott Cummings, Linda, Barbara L. Voss, Connie Young Tu, Peter Kováčik, Kathryn Puseman, Chad Yost, Ryan Kennedy, and Megan S. Kane. (2014). Fan and Tsai: Intracommunity Variation in Plant-Based Food Consumption at the Market Street Chinatown, San Jose, California. Historical Archaeology 48(2):143-172. Download PDF
Horváth, Pavol and Peter Kováčik. (2007). Jaskynné nálezy zo Slovenského krasu (Cave finds from the Slovak karst). AVANS v r. 2005:84-86.