Course Staff

Dr. Hannah Lau, 2018-2020 ANAMED Environmental Archaeology Project Fellow

Hannah Lau holds a PhD in Archaeology from UCLA (2016). Her research examines how people have coordinated resource exploitation in the past and how such cooperation among ancient people, particularly in agropastoral production, elicited change or was changed by shifts in sociopolitical relationships. Her analyzes of zooarchaeological, including biogeochemical analyses, material from the Halaf period site of Domuztepe (ca. 6000–5450 cal. BCE) in southeastern Türkiye document social and economic cooperation and coordination among participants in both daily subsistence activities and large-scale communal feasting events.

Dr. Müge Ergun, 2018-2020 ANAMED Environmental Archaeology Project Fellow

Müge Ergun is an archaeobotanist who holds a PhD from Istanbul University Prehistory Department and Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University Doctoral School of Archaeology (co-tutelle, 2016), and an MA from Istanbul University Prehistory Department (2009). Since her first encounter with archaeobotany in 2005, she has been investigating people-plant interactions and their effects on the economical and socio-cultural lives of communities with a special interest in the beginnings of agriculture.

Dr. Benjamin Irvine, 2020-2022 DAI-ANAMED Environmental Archaeology Project Fellow

Benjamin Irvine is a bioarchaeologist who specialises in utilizing osteological, archaeological, and stable isotope analyses to examine human-environment interactions, dietary habits, subsistence practices, agricultural strategies, and mobility patterns of populations in ancient Anatolia and neighbouring regions. He is currently also an Honorary Research Fellow of the BIAA.

Ceren Çilingir, 2020-2022 DAI-ANAMED Environmental Archaeology Project Fellow

Ceren Çilingir is an archaeobotanist and a PhD student in the Prehistory Department at Istanbul University. She holds a MSc degree from Middle East Technical University, Settlement Archaeology Program and an undergraduate degree from Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts, Archaeology department. In her dissertation, she aims to understand the food economy through agricultural technologies, traditional farming methods, and the use of plants that are cultivated from Tepecik-Çiftlik (6300–7000 BC). In this direction, she has been conducting ethnoarchaeological field studies since 2010, where she documents the traditional crop processing methods still used in the district of Niğde-Çiftlik and its surrounding villages. Her research interests include ethnoarchaeological interpretations of cultivation and food preparation, plant-based subsistence strategies and human-plant interactions in the prehistoric communities of Near East.