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Alan F. Greene (Stanford Archaeology Center & Dept. of Anthropology)

I specialize in the sociobiography of material objects as well as compositional and structural methods of materials analysis, tracing artifacts through habitual production regimes, spheres of exchange, and consumption trends in ancient societies. I am co-director of the Making of Ancient Eurasia Project (MAE), an analytical collaboration between anthropologists and material scientists at Argonne National Laboratory (http://mae.uchicago.edu). The methods utilized by MAE focus on minimally-destructive X-ray analyses of archaeological materials, including digital radiography, X-ray computed tomography, portable X-ray Fluorescence, and synchrotron-based small- and wide-angle X-ray scattering. I earned my Ph.D. in anthropological archaeology at the University of Chicago, Department of Anthropology in 2013.  My dissertation "The Social Lives of Pottery on the Plain of Flowers" draws out the relationship between mundane aspects of the material economy like ceramic containers, and the macro-scale political-economies of emergent complex polities in the Late Bronze Age South Caucasus. At the Stanford Archaeology Center, I plan to offer classes in pottery analysis, archaeological science, data management, and the political and economic aspects of craftmaking.

Contact: afgreene@stanford.edu

Reecie Levin (Stanford Archaeology Center)

I am an archaeologist and paleoethnobotanist with interests in prehistoric and historic food production systems, historical ecology, and social change. My research methods focus on phytolith and plant macroremain analysis, especially concerning the application of phytoliths to interpretation of the archaeological record. I completed my PhD in Anthropology at the University of Oregon in 2015. In my dissertation, entitled “Food Production, Environment, and Culture in the Tropical Pacific: Evidence for Prehistoric and Historic Plant Cultivation in Pohnpei, Federated States of Micronesia,” I use archaeological landscape survey, along with ancient and modern botanical data, to examine managed agroforests in the Pacific. At the Stanford Archaeology Center, I will be switching my geographical focus to China, while continuing to use phytolith analysis to study ancient plant cultivation systems.

Contact:

mjlevin@stanford.edu

Gertjan Plets (Stanford Archaeology Center)

I am a postdoctoral researcher with a PhD in archaeology from Ghent University (Belgium). During the first part of 2014 I was a visiting researcher at the Archaeology Center and from January 2015 onwards I will continue my research at the Center as a postdoc.  My interests lay in heritage ethics, cultural landscapes, memory politics, 3D modeling and GIS. My postdoc at Stanford will focus on the heritage and identity politics of newly developing economies and the evolution of archaeological practice and ethics in those countries. Drawing on continuing anthropological fieldwork in Siberia (Altai Republic) and completed research in Xinjiang (northwest China) I will specifically focus on the use of the past in the present in the (former) Soviet/socialist world. Issues as difficult heritage, world heritage activism, cultural diplomacy, indigenous rights, post-Soviet theory and representational practices are some of the cornerstones of my research. This year I will also teach a post-Soviet heritage class, which from an anthropological perspective will explore memory practices in the (former) Soviet world. Besides providing a basic introduction in Soviet/Russian anthropology this class also attempts to contextualize current geopolitical issues (Ukraine and EU activism) using heritage as an analytical tool.

Contact:gplets@stanford.edu