Aug

16

2023

Dr Katherine (Karen) Wright

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Research Interests

  • Interdisciplinary approaches to archaeology (anthropology, history, materials science)
  • Archaeology of households, villages, cities, states, social inequality, craft specialization
  • Origins of villages
  • Origins of social inequality
  • Origins of craft specialization
  • Evolution and social significance of food preparation and consumption
  • Role of food preparation, diet, nutrition in the evolution of agriculture
  • Technological change and origins of craft specialization
  • Personal ornamentation, social identity, gender
  • Ground stone technologies (milling tools, stone vessels, beads, figurines)
  • Origins of stone bead technologies
  • Near Eastern archaeology; the Levant, Anatolia, Mesopotamia
  • Archaeology of  Jordan, Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq, Iran
  • Comparisons of Old World and New World cultures

Research Projects

  • Origins of social inequality in Neolithic villages of the Near East
  • Commensality, Cooking, Dining and the Politics of Gastronomy in the Near East
  • The Emergence of Craft Specialisation in the Near East
  • Gender and the Emergence of Villages, Cities and States in the Ancient Near East
  • The Ancient Levant
  • Neanderthals and Modern Humans in the Palaeolithic of Europe and Western Asia
  • Personal Ornaments in the Ancient Near East
  • Azraq Project, Jordan
  • Çatalhöyük
  • Qadisha Valley Project, Lebanon
  • Shahrizor, Iraq
Collaborations
  • Çatalhöyük Project (Director, Ian Hodder): University of Cambridge, Stanford University, University of California at Berkeley, Istanbul University, UCL, British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara
  • Qadisha Valley Project (Directors dr katherine white Andrew Garrard, UCL and Corine Yazbeck, Museum of Prehistory, St Joseph University Beirut)
  • Shahrizor Project, Iraq

Teaching summary

Current courses:

Main or Sole Teacher: ARCL0065 Archaeology of the Levant; ARCL0033 Archaeology of the Middle East, Prehistory to 2000 BC; ARCL0151 Material Cultures of the Near East, Part I: Neolithic to Early Bronze Age; ARCL0134 Themes, Thought and Theory in World Archaeology: Current Topics.Contributor: ARCL0002 World Archaeology; ARCLG181 Evolution of Palaeolithic and Neolithic Societies in the Near East; ARCL0101 Lithic Analysis

PhD students:

Primary Supervisor:

  • Tatjana Beuthe (current) Administration in early Egypt and Mesopotamia: a study of cylinder seals
  • Alessandra Salvin (current) House and household in third millennium Mesopotamia
  • Duygu Camurcuoglu (current) The wall paintings of  Çatalhöyük (Turkey): materials, technologies, artists (Funding: Arts and Humanities Research Council) Roseleen Bains (completed 2012) The social significance of Neolithic stone bead technologies at Çatalhöyük
  • Jack Green (completed 2006) Ritual and social structure in the Late Bronze Age to Early Iron Age in the southern Levant: evidence from mortuary contexts at Tell es-Sai’idiyeh, Jordan (Funding: Arts and Humanities Research Council)
  • Carol Bell (completed  2005) The influence of economic factors on settlement continuity across the Late Bronze Age/Iron Age transition on the northern Levant littoral
  • Elizabeth Bettles (completed 2001)  Phoenician amphora production and distribution in the southern Levant. 

Secondary Supervisor:

  • Andrea Squitieri (current) Stone vessels in the Iron Age and Persian Near East
  • Emmy Bocaege (current) Enamel defects as indicators of childhood stress in the Neolithic Near East
  • Beliz Tecirli (current) Recent changes in Turkish regulations and archaeological site management
  • Paolo Guarino (completed 2013) Aspects of complexity at Arslantepe
  • Robert Homsher (completed 2013) Constructing urbanism: architecture and urbanization in the Middle Bronze Age southern Levant
  • Philippa Ryan (completed 2009) Seasonal and environmental patterns of Neolithic landscape use: phytolith perspectives from Çatalhöyük
  • Claudia Glatz (completed 2007) Contact, interaction, control: the archaeology of inter-regional relations in Late Bronze Age Anatolia

Education

Yale University
Doctorate, Doctor of Philosophy | 1992
Yale University
Other higher degree, Master of Arts | 1984
Yale University
First Degree, Bachelor of Arts | 1979

Biography

Born in New Orleans, Louisiana.
BA Near Eastern Languages and Literature (1979), magna cum laude with distinction in the major, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA; major subject Near Eastern history, languages, and literature (Sumerian-Akkadian/ancient Mesopotamia; Arabic).
MA & MPhil Anthropology (1984), Yale University; training in archaeological method and theory; Near Eastern archaeology; social and cultural anthropology; physical anthropology. PhD Anthropology (1992), Yale University; major subject: Near Eastern archaeology; dissertation title: Ground Stone Assemblage Variation and Subsistence Strategies in the Levant, 22,000-5500 bp.

After receiving BA degree, received first archaeological training at University of Arizona Archaeological Field School, Grasshopper Pueblo, White River Apache Reservation, northern Arizona, later serving as an assistant supervisor/teacher there.  Between 1979-1981, worked as contract archaeologist for the Arizona State Museum of the University of Arizona (Tucson), participating in survey and excavation of diverse site types: Archaic lithic scatters; Hohokam pithouse villages; Mogollon and Anasazi pueblos; and historical sites of the American West.  As an undergraduate and postgraduate student at Yale University, participated in archaeological projects in Israel and Syria.  From 1986-1987, worked as an Associate Intern (salaried) in International Corporate Finance at Kidder, Peabody investment firm (Wall Street, New York City).
Received a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation fellowship for PhD research in Jordan (1987-1989). In 1990-91, taught an option course in Near Eastern archaeology at the University of Sheffield and became an Honorary Research Assistant at the Institute of Archaeology, UCL. From 1990-1994, taught extra-mural courses in archaeology at Birkbeck College in London. Appointed in 1994 as Lecturer in Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, UCL, becoming Senior Lecturer in 2008. Since the 1980, participation in diverse archaeology field research projects in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Turkey, including Palaeolithic caves and open sites; Neolithic villages; Bronze and Iron Age cities; regional surveys.
Personal interests/hobbies: squash, tennis, hiking, bicycling, geology, natural history, United States history (especially 19th-20th centuries), films, cooking.