Christina M. Carolus

Christina Carolus is an anthropological archaeologist with interests in human-environmental interaction, paleoecology, paleoethnobotanical and zooarchaeological methods, foodways, identity, and cultural heritage issues. Christina’s field and laboratory work has been oriented primarily toward questions of human-environmental interaction. Her previous research employed multiscalar analysis of plant remains to investigate dimensions of local environmental change, social and economic relationships, and landscape management at the Classic period Maya regional center of La Milpa, Belize.

Most recently she has excavated and employed paleoethnobotanical regimes at the Classic period Maya site of Piedras Negras (Guatemala), several sites in the Northern Maya Lowlands of Yucatán (Mexico), and at early and mid-Holocene cave sites in the Southern Andes (Argentina). On another recent project in association with a team from Southern Methodist University, University of Hawaii, and the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, she employed paleoethnobotanical field methods in an effort to re-date one of Polynesia’s largest pre-contact agricultural systems.

On a broader level, she is interested in the combined power of interdisciplinary collaboration and a four-field anthropological approach as a means to explore alternative histories, forge new perspectives, and provide unique and essential insights into the challenges that face humanity. She is also interested in the continued development and integration of multidisciplinary scientific methods and multi-proxy approaches within archaeological study.