I am an anthropological archaeologist trained with in social theory and rigorous methodology. My research has focused in a wide range of times and places, but currently includes the Late Formative (200 BC-600 AD) and Middle Horizon (600-1000 AD) in the South-Central Andes of South America and the Late Woodland period (ca. 900--1650 CE.) and Neutral/ Attawandaron (17th century) in the Great Lakes region of Ontario. I am currently involved in four projects, which engage my interests in ceramic technologies & crafting traditions, learning & apprenticeship, foodways, and archaeologies of (urban) landscapes.
The first project began with my doctoral research and has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Grant. This work involves the analysis of Late Formative (200 BC - 400 AD) and Tiwanaku (AD 400-1000) period ceramic collections, in order to explore changes in "communities of practice" across space and time. This long-term research investigates community organization during the periods prior to the appearance of Tiwanaku, one of the earliest urban centers in highland South America. I have led excavations, conducted geological surveys, and conducted fine-grained ceramic analysis across the southern Lake Titicaca basin. Much of this work has been geared around exploring the dynamics of craft production during periods of social and political turbulence. While this project is currently on pause, there are several possibilities for graduate work both in the field and in my Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Research of Archaeological Ceramics (https://lirac.mcmaster.ca/).
My second project, which has received funding from McMaster's Arts Research Board (ARB) and the Wenner-Gren Foundation, involves close collaboration with modern potting communities in the Lake Titicaca Basin. Our team, which consists of a team of archaeologists, ethnographers, and historians is exploring the social contexts of learning, embodied techniques, and crafting traditions using a range of methods, including interviews, video recording, archival research, and fine-grained ceramic analysis. This work has been published in the Journal of Contemporary Archaeology and Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, and a volume (https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/knowledge-in-motion) I co-edited with Dr. Ann Stahl (https://www.uvic.ca/socialsciences/anthropology/people/faculty/stahlann.php).
The third project, funded by the Wenner-Gren foundation (https://wennergren.org/grantee/andrew-roddick/), is titled "Unflattening Formative Period Formative". This project is using visualization techniques to produce new knowledge about the earliest occupations at the Bolivian World Heritage Site of Tiwanaku. We are working with an extensive (unpublished) archaeological archive, which includes field notes, sketches, and photography, to clarify the initial founding and construction of Tiwanaku and answer questions about Late Formative time, materiality, and alterity. This potentially transformative dataset will help "unflatten" the emergent urban center and present information in a layered and multi-modal fashion. Team members will explore early occupation through a variety of visualization techniques, while also exploring ambiguity and uncertainty in archaeological interpretation. The project will produce new Andean archaeological data, contribute to research of emergent urban centers, and explore new possibilities in visual anthropology.
My fourth project "Collaborative Archaeologies, Decolonized Foodways” uses cutting edge analytical techniques to explore ancient foodways associated with ceramics housed at Sustainable Archaeology, but also trying to develop a properly collaborative approach in the region. We have assembled a broad, interdisciplinary team to explore ancestral Haudenosaunee foodways, with colleagues in Indigenous Studies (Dr. Adrianne Xavier Lickers), Sustainable Archaeology (Dr. Scott Martin), and the Archaeology division of the Six Nations of the Grand River (Tanya Hill Montour). We are using biomolecular techniques to engage Indigenous communities in archaeological investigations while modelling new ways to pursue Indigenous-Settler archaeology collaborations. We are focusing in particular on ceramics from the early 1600s, a time of sociopolitical 'turbulence' in southern Ontario. The project is also engaged with contemporary efforts towards Haudenosaunee food sovereignty, and we hope to increase community interest in archaeology, heritage projects, and ancient foodways.
My teaching and supervisory interests include social archaeology, ceramic analyses, archaeometry/compositional geochemistry, ethnoarchaeology, anthropologies of space and place, and South/Central/North American prehistory. I have worked with a wonderful group of graduate students, including Duygu Ertemin (Haudenaushanee ceramic technologies), Kayla Golay Lausanne (emergent urbanism on the Peruvian north coast), Daniel Ionico (Neutral Period ceramic technologies in Southern Ontario), Sally Lynch (Peruvian north coast ceramics), Sophie Reilly (Andean foodways and starch grain analysis), Daiana Rivas-Tello (Titicaca basin ceramic technologies and Formative period taskscapes), Selby Westbrook (ceramic ecology of the greater Hamilton area). I encourage any interested students to get in contact *well in advance* of the department application deadline to discuss any possible graduate projects. I am also happy to supervise postdoctoral fellows. Current postdoctoral fellows include Céline Gillot (Mesoamerican architecture/building), Jonah Augustine (Andean ceramics and compositional analysis), and Lindi Masur (Indigenous foodways / PEB of the Great Lakes region) are all working with me.
