Andrea U. Kay

• PhD: Environmental Science; MSc: GIS and spatial analysis in archaeology; BA: Anthropology
• PostDoc Position at Smithsonian Institution

The aim of this study is to investigate livestock husbandry and its relationship to the mobilization of domestic animals for slaughter at large communal feasting events, in Late Neolithic Makriyalos, northern Greece. A multi-isotope approach is built that integrates analysis of: δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N values of human and animal bone collagen for understandi...

Many societal and environmental changes occurred between the 2nd millennium BC and the middle of the 2nd millennium AD in western Africa. Key amongst these were changes in land use due to the spread and development of agricultural strategies, which may have had widespread consequences for the climate, hydrology, biodiversity, and ecosystem services...

A synthetic history of human land use Humans began to leave lasting impacts on Earth's surface starting 10,000 to 8000 years ago. Through a synthetic collaboration with archaeologists around the globe, Stephens et al. compiled a comprehensive picture of the trajectory of human land use worldwide during the Holocene (see the Perspective by Roberts)....

The Amazon Rainforest Ecotone (the ARF-Ecotone) of the southwestern Amazon Basin is a transitional landscape from tropical evergreen rainforests and seasonally flooded savannahs to savannah woodlands and semi-deciduous dry forests. While fire activity plays an integral role in ARF-Ecotones, recent interactions between human activity and increased t...

The Neolithic of northern Arabia is characterised by monumental stone structures, ephemeral ‘hearth sites’ indicative of a highly mobile lifestyle, and a rich rock art heritage with iconic representations of domesticated livestock. However, the character and timing of occupation prior to the spread of pastoralism (ca. 6000 BCE) remains elusive, wit...

Projecting and managing the feedback between tropical deforestation and global Earth system dynamics, and identifying potential critical thresholds or tipping points, will be key to our species’ future on this planet. By understanding the major historical processes that underpin the origins of this interaction, and bringing natural and social syste...

Land use modelling is increasingly used by archaeologists and palaeoecologists seeking to quantify and compare the changing influence of humans on the environment. In Southeast Asia, the intensification of rice agriculture and the arrival of European colonizers have both been seen as major catalysts for deforestation, soil erosion, and biodiversity...

Archaeologists have long emphasized the importance of large-scale excavations and multi-year or even decades-long projects at a single site or site complex. Here, we highlight archaeological field strategies, termed coring, profiling, and trenching (CPT), that rely on relatively small-scale excavations or the collection of new samples from intact d...

Archaeologists increasingly use large radiocarbon databases to model prehistoric human demography (also termed paleo-demography). Numerous independent projects, funded over the past decade, have assembled such databases from multiple regions of the world. These data provide unprecedented potential for comparative research on human population ecolog...

The period from c. AD 900 to AD 1300 in southern Africa is characterized by transitions from small-scale Iron Age mixed economy communities to the beginnings of more intensive food production and eventually the emergence of complex polities. In Zambia, this coincides with the appearance of larger and more permanent agro-pastoralist villages that be...

In the 12,000 years preceding the Industrial Revolution, human activities led to significant changes in land cover, plant and animal distributions, surface hydrology, and biochemical cycles. Earth system models suggest that this anthropogenic land cover change influenced regional and global climate. However, the representation of past land use in e...

Many societal and environmental changes occurred from the 2nd millennium BC to the middle of the 2nd millennium AD in western Africa. Key amongst these were changes in land use due to the spread and development of agricultural strategies, which may have had widespread consequences for the climate, hydrology, biodiversity, and ecosystem services of...

All plant and bone collagen δ13C and δ15N values obtained in Stage 1. (XLSX)

FTIR spectrum of MKS104. (TIF)

Supplementary materials and methods. Details of instrument measurement and data normalization. (DOCX)

Contextual information of bone collagen and plant samples measured in Stage 1. (XLSX)

Cattle δ13C and δ18O values obtained in Stage 2. (XLSX)

87Sr/86Sr ratios of modern vegetation from coastal northern Pieria. The samples were collected from seven geological zones within 15 km of the archaeological site. The measurements are used to establish the ‘local range’ of 87Sr/86Sr ratios. For descriptions of the zones and location of sampling points, see Fig 6. 2σ uncertainty of the 87Sr/86Sr ra...

FTIR spectrum of MKS015. (TIF)

Matching mandibular collagen δ13C and δ15N values and average intra-tooth enamel δ13C values of individuals analyzed in Stage 2. Standard deviation (SD) of collagen values indicates the instrument error attached to each measurement, while the SD of average enamel values indicates intra-tooth variability. (XLSX)

Sheep δ13C and δ18O values obtained in Stage 2. (XLSX)

The study of Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) in Holocene Africa has been geographically and temporally unbalanced, particularly with regard to the integration of archaeological data into the reconstruction of past land use. Past African dynamics have often worked on a very large scale, and changes in LULC are extremely significant to the study of th...

Workshop report

Published abstract for oral presentation given at The African Quaternary: environments, ecology and humans Inaugural AFQUA conference which was held in Cape Town, South Africa from the 30th of January to the 7th of February, 2015.