Penn State paleoecologist Sarah Ivory and graduate researcher Katie Horisk explain the hyrax midden paleoecologist research for the STEM Thursdays Eberly College of Science Summer Camp. See them here STEM Thursdays with Eberly College of Science, Week 3 – YouTube
Annalee Sekulic keeps on winning! As the Spring Semester and her Senior Year at OSU draws to a close, Annalee participated in the now highly selective Denman Forum, where she won a Third Place. She successfully defended her undergraduate thesis “Identifying Human and Climatic Influences on Ancient Plant Communities in Dhofar, Oman,” which can be found in the OSU Libraries Knowledge Bank . Annalee also has been selected as the recipient of OSU Department of Anthropology 2
020 “Best Undergraduate” award. Her nomination noted that “she is a student whose achievements showcase the potential of anthropology to transform individuals and society…[one] who has overcome significant challenges, embraced the opportunities afforded her, excelled academically, dedicated herself to service, and achieved every mark of distinction.” Here is Annalee in her “zoom” defense with her thesis committee.
Lawrence Ball generated geospatial data sets that generate layers of fog, elevation and other attributes of the Dhofar mountains. Daniel Peart is building these into a realistic agent-based model for the Dhofar human-ecosystem. The first display of elevation data in Netlogo is impressive!
Joy McCorriston and co-author Julie Field published a new introductory textbook with a new narrative of the evolutionary context of our human historical ecology. The narrative introduces diversity in prehistory, establishes technology as the interface of humans and environments, showcases peopling the world, digging in, extinctions in the past, human behavioral ecology, producing food, humans as agents, feeding cities, building monuments-building society, conspicuous consumption, writing, extractivism, and choice in the Anthropocene future. Survey and excavations that led up to the ASOM Project are in the book.
Abigail Buffington PhD in her new surroundings at College of William and Mary, where she has accepted a position on a National Science Foundation funded project to examine land use histories in Pacific Islands using agent-based modelling (Jennifer Kahn, PI). ASOM wishes her all success and will continue to publish together and collaborate as her career develops.
Welcome back, Kyle Riordan! After completing an MA in Anthropology, Kyle rejoins the team to continue sediment analyses and help out with coordinating termite mound paleoproxy studies and communications among a team spread across Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Nice France and Moscow Russia.
ASOM undergraduates Annalee Sekulič and Drew Arbogast presented their research at the 42nd Annual Society of Ethnobiology Conference, in Vancouver, May 7 – 11, 2019. The pair was amazed by the passion and enthusiasm of their fellow peers and colleagues as they enjoyed talks
and SoEgatherings. Sekulic spent her first day at a Google “My Maps” workshop where she learned new mapping techniques and strategies. Arbogast enjoyed talking to other phytolith enthusiasts about their work during the poster session. They both are very thankful and energized by the journey and ready to get back to the microscopes!
Upon completing his Honors’ Thesis, Drew placed a digital copy in the OSU Libraries Knowledge Bank.
Congratulations, Drew
Graduate student and former hyrax midden hunter Kyle Riordan will rejoin the ASOM Team in August to coordinate laboratory and sedimentological analysis. (Kyle is the one on the left!)
Omani Ministry of Heritage and Culture representative Ali Ahmad Al-Kathiri reports that a French archaeological team has visited the rock art our ASOM team documented in at Mthbon in November 2019. Much in need of dedicated research attention, this rock art stretches along one of the eastern upper tributaries to Wadi Darbat. We hope the French Mission with its expertise in paleography and epigraphy will take on further study!
