On December 12th, Dr. Laura Strolin delivered a presentation on faunal remains from a Neolithic ritual site in the region of AlUla (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) at the 58th Seminar for Arabian Studies in Abu Dhabi (UAE). Titled "When Animals Became Ritual Objects: Evidence from Neolithic North-West Arabia" (L. Strolin, J. Studer, S. Vanin, W....
Congratulations to recent ASIL post-doc Dr. Angela Trentacoste for receiving an ERC Consolidator Grant for her FEROCI project - Feeding Roman Italy: Continuities and Innovations in animal production from urbanisation to empire. The project will employ cutting-edge analyses of animal bones and teeth to examine agricultural and pastoral production...
In November 2025, Dr. Laura Strolin conducted zooarchaeological analyses on faunal material from a Neolithic ritual site in the region of AlUla at the Conservation Laboratory of the Royal Commission for AlUla (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia). Her research investigates the ritual practices and herding strategies that were in place in the region 7000 years...
Congratulations to ASIL PhD Tumurbaatar Tuvshinjargal and Prof. Cheryl Makarewicz on their new paper: "Cattle traction in the Xiongnu empire: Zooarchaeological evidence from the Mongolian steppe" published in Archaeological Research in Asia.
Congratulations to ASIL postdoctoral researcher Dr. Linda Amos on her new paper: "Seasonal Exploitation of Migratory Waterfowl at Natufian el-Wad Terrace, Mount Carmel, Israel" published in International Journal of Osteoarchaeology.
At this inaugural international conference on small prey, Dr. Linda Amos and Dr. Ma'ayan Lev presented new analyses of avifaunal and squamate assemblages from the southern Levant. Their contributions offered complementary perspectives on small-prey use during the Late Pleistocene–Holocene transition, reflecting the distinct datasets and...
On Wednesday 22/10/25, Dr. Linda Amos held a talk for the Department of Archaeology's seminar at the University of Durham. Her talk "Why Birds? Archaeological Insights from Avifauna" took the audience on a walk through time, following the progression of Linda's own research across six key sites: from her PhD examining Neanderthal contexts across...
On September 26th, postdoctoral researchers Dr. Ma'ayan Lev and Dr. Linda Amos participated in this year's Science Day program. They presented their research on microfauna in archaeology and explained how these tiny animal bones can reveal important information about human history. Visitors could view example bones under a microscope and learn more...
Congratulations to ASIL guest researcher Dr. Harel Shochat, ASIL director Prof. Cheryl Makarewicz, et al. on their new paper: "A thousand years of Nubian supply of sub-Saharan ivory to the Southern Levant, ca. 1600–600 BCE" published in Journal of Archaeological Science.
Prof. Cheryl Makarewicz and ASIL master's candidate Alexander Gorelik struck out across the steppes of northeastern Kazakhstan to establish the distribution of bioavailable strontium isotopes across the region. These strontium isotope data will provide the reference framework used to establish the mobility histories of Eneolithic equids and bovids....