Professor Emerita of Archaeology
Research and Fieldwork
My primary interests were palaeoethnobotany, Aegean prehistory, and Eastern Mediterranean prehistory. Within these fields I specialized in the identification and interpretation of macroscopic plant remains from archaeological sites ranging in age from the Palaeolithic through the Bronze Age, principally in Greece and Cyprus. I focused on the origins and development of agriculture in the Eastern Mediterranean and the introduction of agriculture to Europe through Greece and the Balkans. In addition to teaching at Boston University I was the Associate Director of the Center for Materials Research in Archaeology and Ethnography (CMRAE) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Chair, Archaeology Department 1996-2004
Awards
Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship – Cyprus 1984; National Endowment for Humanities University Teacher’s Fellowship – England 1990-91; Near and Middle East Research and Training Fellowship – Jordan – 1996
Representative Publications
The Palaeoethnobotany of Franchthi Cave. Indiana University Press, Bloomington(1991).
Beyond the Site: Palaeoethnobotany in Regional Perspective. In Beyond the Site in the Aegean Area, ed. N. Kardulias, pp. 173-190, University Press of America (1994).
Franchthi Cave and the Beginnings of Agriculture, in the Prehistoric Aegean. In Prehistoire de l’Agriculture: Nouvelles Approaches Experimentales et Ethnographique, ed. P. Anderson, Monographie CRA no. 6, pp. 231-247, CNRS, Paris, (1992).
Palaeoethnobotany in Cyprus: Recent Research. In New Light on Early Farming: Recent Developments in Palaeoethnobotany, ed.J. M. Renfrew, pp. 225-236, University Press, Edinburgh (1991).
Agriculture in the Prehistoric Aegean: Data versus Speculation. American Journal of Archaeology 92:39-52 (1988).