Richard E. Blanton is professor emeritus of anthropology at Purdue University.

Gary M. Feinman is a MacArthur Curator of Anthropology at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois.

Stephen A. Kowalewski is professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Georgia.

Lane F. Fargher-Navarro is the director of research at the Past Foundation, Ohio State University.

Yann Perreau is a writer, educator, contemporary art curator, and writing fellow for the Human Bridges project of the Independent Media Institute. He has published several books on art, climate, anonymity, and more. His articles have appeared in many publications, including Libération, Art Press, and East of Borneo. He has served as a cultural attaché for both the French Embassy in London and the French Consulate in Los Angeles. He holds an MPhil in art history from Paris’s EHESS.

David Graeber was an anthropologist and activist and is a bestselling author.

Nika Dubrovsky is an artist, writer, and founder of the David Graeber Institute and the Museum of Care.

Gary M. Feinman is an archaeologist and the MacArthur curator of anthropology at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.

David M. Carballo is a professor of archaeology, anthropology, and Latin American studies and assistant provost for general education at Boston University.

Brenna R. Hassett, PhD, is a biological anthropologist and archaeologist at the University of Central Lancashire and a scientific associate at the Natural History Museum, London. In addition to researching the effects of changing human lifestyles on the human skeleton and teeth in the past, she writes for a more general audience about evolution and archaeology, including the Times (UK) top 10 science book of 2016 Built on Bones: 15,000 Years of Urban Life and Death, and her most recent book, Growing Up Human: The Evolution of Childhood. She is also a co-founder of TrowelBlazers, an activist archive celebrating the achievements of women in the “digging” sciences.

Irina Matuzava is a contributor to the Human Bridges project.

Dr. Steven Ortiz is a biblical archaeologist with over 30 years of field experience and has traveled extensively throughout the Middle East. He is currently the co-director and principal investigator at Tel Gezer. His expertise is the use of archaeology to reconstruct the history of ancient Israel and the Second Temple Period (New Testament). His research focus is the archaeology of the southern Levant. He is active in professional academic organizations and is a prolific lecturer and author. Dr. Ortiz has contributed to several books and monographs: History of Ancient Israel, Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith?, Critical Issues in Early Israelite History, Buried Hopes or Risen Savior, Archaeological and Historical Studies in honor of Amihai Mazar, and The Future of Biblical Archaeology. He is currently working on the publications of Tel Gezer as well as a book entitled Intersections of Archaeology and Biblical Interpretation.

Dr. Samuel Wolff earned his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 1986, and has been with the Israel Antiquities Authority since 1991. In addition to his current project at Tel Gezer, Dr. Wolff has also directed excavations at Tel Megadim, En Haggit and Tel Hamid. He is the author of numerous scientific articles and reports related to the archaeology of Israel.

Zahi Abass Hawass is an Egyptian archaeologist, Egyptologist, and former Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs, serving twice. He has also worked at archaeological sites in the Nile Delta, the Western Desert, and the Upper Nile Valley.

Alessandro Berio is a researcher who specializes in skyscape archaeology, which combines his interests in ancient history and the stars. He has a master of arts in Cultural Astronomy from the University of Wales Trinity St. David and has completed continuing education on Minoan and Mycenaean archaeology at Oxford University. He has conducted pioneering field work in Crete on Minoan celestial navigation. 

Dr Abdulrahman Alsuhaibani is the Vice President of Culture at the Royal Commission for AlUla, where he works on executing in-depth archeological studies, unique in both geographic size and scale, and assessing the rich and complex past of the AlUla region of Northwest Saudi Arabia. He is also Associate Professor at King Saud University in the Archeology Department.

Warren Aston is an independent researcher based in Brisbane, Australia. He studied archaeology at the University of Queensland, and has been involved in archaeological projects in Mexico and Oman over several decades. He can be reached at: astonwarren@hotmail.com.

Bruce Bachand is a Research Affiliate with the New World Archaeological Foundation of Brigham Young University and Director of the Chiapa de Corzo Archaeological Project since 2008. A recent Fulbright fellow, Bruce has received grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Geographic Society for his research on early Mesoamerican societies. He holds degrees in Anthropology from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth (B.A. 1993), Brigham Young University (M.A. 1997), and the University of Arizona (Ph.D. 2006). Prior to his Chiapas investigations, Bruce supervised fieldwork in the Petén rainforest of Guatemala at the Maya sites of Nakbe, Aguateca, and Punta de Chimino. He describes himself as “an anthropologist who happens to dig in the dirt” and a student of cultural history. His scholarly interests range widely from anthropological theory to pottery analysis and Bayesian radiocarbon dating–subjects that articulate well in archaeological storytelling. He has authored a variety of essays and articles, but his most prized effort remains a dissertation chapter summarizing ten years of research on Preclassic Lowland Maya civilization. He is currently working on an essay that clarifies the material practices of Zoque culture through time. Bruce’s fascination with the symbolic dimensions of human life, both modern and ancient, has led him to spend prolonged periods of time in Japan, Europe, the American West, Mexico, and Central America. He vividly recalls starting his archaeological endeavors by promptly impaling his finger with a trowel while digging a Jōmon pit house alongside three well-trained and obliging elderly Japanese women. His most wretched archaeological memory is the excavation of a prehistoric lithic scatter underneath a partly decomposed, stinking sheep carcass ridden with rat feces outside a southern Utah rock shelter. As an anthropologist he has been influenced greatest by the writings of Marshall Sahlins, Michael Jackson, and Antonio Gramsci. In archaeology, he finds a certain affinity with the writings of Richard Bradley, Ian Hodder, and Julian Thomas. In Mesoamerican archaeology, Gordon Willey, Gareth Lowe, Michael and William Coe, and Kent Flannery have left indelible impressions. Raised in southeastern Massachusetts, he is married with two children and resides in the Salt Lake City area.

Stephanie Baker is a researcher at the Palaeo-Research Institute at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, and director of excavations and research at Drimolen.

Marion Bamford was born and educated in Zimbabwe before enrolling at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, for a BSc degree majoring in Botany and Microbiology. She completed her BSc Honours degree in Plant Systematics and then went on to do her Masters and Doctoral research in Palaeobotany, all at the University of the Witwatersrand. After working at the Geological Survey in Pretoria, she returned to do post doctoral research at Wits on fossil woods for a diamond mining company. She lectures in Palaeobotany to Biology and Geology undergraduate students and supervises post graduate student research. Her main research interest is in fossil woods of all ages, but she is involved in a variety of plant aspects for numerous research projects in Africa. For example, she studies the fossil woods, leaves and seeds from Laetoli in Tanzania, Koobi Fora and Lukeino in Kenya, wood from Sterkfontein in South Africa, woods from southern Africa as well as charcoal and phytoliths. Marion is one of very few palaeobotanists in Africa and is at the Bernard Price Institute, the only African Palaeontology research institute. She has published over 70 articles in peer-reviewed journals, presented papers at numerous international conferences and is the editor of the scientific journal Palaeontologia africana. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa and is the chief coordinator of the Scientific Advisory Committee for PAST (Palaeontological Scientific Trust, a non-governmental funding body for the palaeosciences in Africa).

Deborah Barsky is a writing fellow for the Human Bridges, a researcher at the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution, and an associate professor at the Rovira i Virgili University in Tarragona, Spain, with the Open University of Catalonia (UOC). She is the author of Human Prehistory: Exploring the Past to Understand the Future (Cambridge University Press, 2022).

John Vincent Bellezza is an archaeologist and cultural historian specializing in the pre-Buddhist heritage of Tibet and the Western Himalaya. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Tibet Center, University of Virginia, and has lived in high Asia for three decades. Since 1994, Bellezza has comprehensively surveyed ancient monuments and rock art on the uppermost reaches of the Tibetan plateau. He has also extensively studied archaic rituals, myths and narratives in Bon and Old Tibetan literature. In addition to nine books, Bellezza has written numerous academic and popular articles on topics pertaining to early Tibet. He is the first non-Tibetan to have explored both the geographic and ritual sources of each of the four great rivers that emerge from the Mount Kailas region. He has visited most major islands and headlands in the great lakes of Upper Tibet.

Kathleen Bickford Berzock is associate director of curatorial affairs at the Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University. She is the author of For Hearth and Altar: African Ceramics from the Keith Achepohl Collection and the coeditor of Representing Africa in American Art Museums: A Century of Collecting and Display.

Carolyn E. Boyd is the Executive Director and co-founder of SHUMLA, an archeological research and educational nonprofit corporation. She serves as Adjunct Professor at Texas State University and as a Research Fellow at the Center for Arts and Symbolism of the Ancient Americas in San Marcos, Texas and the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory in Austin. Boyd received her doctorate in archeology from Texas A&M University based on her analysis of the 4,000 year-old rock art of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of southwest Texas and northern Mexico. Her expanded dissertation, Rock Art of the Lower Pecos, was published in 2003 by Texas A&M University Press and is considered an important contribution on rock art analysis and interpretation. She has been published in Antiquity, Latin American Antiquity, Revista Iberoamericana de Lingüística, and has contributed chapters in several edited volumes. Boyd teaches Field Methods in Rock Art, a three-week field school offered each May through Texas State University, gives numerous lectures around the country and abroad, serves on graduate committees, and is the Principal Investigator for the Lower Pecos Border Canyonlands Archeological Project.

Heval Bozbay, a graduate of İstanbul University, currently works in the Archaeology Department of Dokuz Eylül University in İzmir. He has been a member of the Aşıklı Höyük research team since 2009.

Rebecca read BA Ancient History and Classical Archaeology at the University of Warwick, writing her first-class thesis on the relationship between the Greek city- states and Achaemenid Persia in the sixth century B.C. She then went on to complete her MPhil in Egyptology at the University of Cambridge, specialising in the commission, design and production of religious art in Egyptian Nubia (modern Sudan). 

From 2010-13 Rebecca lived and worked as an archaeologist in the Sudan, Egypt, Bulgaria and the UK for institutions such as the British Museum, the University of Cambridge, the University of Durham and the Austrian Archaeological Institute. She also undertook work for the National Trust, the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and the British Museum. 

In early 2012 Rebecca began working with the University of Cambridge in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, and has been back several times subsequently to explore the region and conduct research in Sulimaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan’s liberal second city. Since 2013 Rebecca has also been the Tour Lecturer for The Traveller tours to Iraqi Kurdistan. As an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) doctoral scholar, Rebecca is now conducting her PhD research into the multi-faceted social role of archaeology in shaping Middle Eastern communities and conflicts. Rebecca currently lives in Cairo.

Author Photo: Examining the bridge at Kifri, Iraq. Photo by Sebastian Meyer.

Shmuel Browns is a licensed tour guide and photographer who lives in Jerusalem. Passionate about Israel, Shmuel takes people throughout the country exposing them to its history, nature and culture. Shmuel blogs about some of his experiences 

at http://israel-tourguide.info.

Leyland Cecco is a Canadian freelance journalist, as well as a history and politics teacher. He has been based in Cairo, Egypt since 2011. His work deals primarily with social issues and the non-political effects of the Egyptian Revolution. Leyland was also the 2009/10 Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar to Turkey, where he focused on the Kurdish conflict in the southeast of Turkey. He has reported from Uganda, Ethiopia, and Israel/Palestine. His work can be seen at www.leylandcecco.com

Claire Collins has worked with Caherconnell Stone Fort for over five years. Caherconnell Stone Fort is a medieval, extraordinarily well-preserved stone ringfort in The Burren of County Clare, Ireland. At Caherconnell, there is an archaeology and a geology field school where one can delve into the Irish prehistoric world. Caherconnell is also home to Ireland’s leading sheepdog demonstrations, which attract thousands of tourists each year. 

Michael Eisenberg is Director of the Hippos-Sussita Excavations Project, Director of the Tel Shikmona Archaeological Project, and a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Archaeology, University of Haifa. His main fields of research include military architecture during the Hellenistic and Roman Periods; the art of siege warfare in the Graeco-Roman World, and; the Decapolis. He is co-author of the Hippos-Sussita monograph series 2003-2010, and co-author of the 2012 publication, Hippos (Sussita) of the Decapolis: The First Twelve Seasons of Excavations (2000-2011), published by the Zinman Institute of Archaeology, University of Haifa, Haifa.

Brian Fagan is Distinguished Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Trained in archaeology at Cambridge University, he spent his early career in Central and East Africa, where he worked on ancient African farming villages and multidisciplinary African history. Since moving to the United States in 1966, he has focused his career on communicating archaeological research to the general public. He has written numerous books on the past, especially climate change, as well as seven undergraduate textbooks. His latest book (with Nadia Durrani) is Climate Chaos: Lessons of Survival from our Ancestors (New York: Public Affairs, 2021). He also lectures widely about archaeology to both college and general audiences.

Avraham Faust is chairman of the Martin Szusz Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology at Bar-Ilan University. He has been the director of the Tel Eton excavations since 2006.

Freelance writer, researcher and photographer, Georges Fery (georgefery.com) addresses topics from history, culture, and beliefs to daily living of ancient and today’s indigenous societies of Mesoamerica and South America. His articles are published online at travelthruhistory.com, ancient-origins.net and popular-archaeology.com, and in the quarterly magazine Ancient American (ancientamerican.com). In the U.K. his articles are found in mexicolore.co.uk.

The author is a fellow of the Institute of Maya Studies instituteofmayastudies.org, Miami, FL and The Royal Geographical Society, London, U.K. (rgs.org). He is a member in good standing with the Maya Exploration Center, Austin, TX (mayaexploration.org) the Archaeological Institute of America, Boston, MA (archaeological.org), NFAA-Non Fiction Authors Association (nonfictionauthrosassociation.com) and the National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, DC. (americanindian.si.edu).

Rabbi Steven Fisdel is the founder of the Center for Jewish Mystical Studies in Albany, California. Rabbi Fisdel has firsthand experience with both the esoteric and practical sides of Kabbalah, studying the original texts, clarifying the ideas and subsequently teaching the traditional doctrines to people of all spiritual backgrounds. Rabbi Fisdel served for 12 years in the congregational rabbinate in California. He served as a core faculty member of Chochmat HaLev, a center for Jewish meditation and spirituality, from its inception and was for many years a visiting scholar at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur. He is the author of two books, “The Practice of Kabbalah” and “The Dead Sea Scrolls: Understanding Their Spiritual Message.” He has written and produced two CD sets, Meditations on the Tree of Life and The Katriel Deck: The Original Kabbalist Tarot. His current work in progress is an in-depth explanation of the fundamental principles of Kabbalist thought and practice.

Rabbi Fisdel received his BA at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and both his BHL and MA at Spertus College of Judaica in Chicago. He was trained and received rabbinic ordination from Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, the founder of the Jewish Renewal movement.

Anabel Ford is dedicated to decoding the ancient Maya landscape. While living in Guatemala in 1978, she learned from local people that the Maya forest was an edible garden when she mapped a 30-km transect between the Petén sites of Tikal and Yaxhá. In 1983, she discovered and later mapped the Maya city El Pilar. In 1993, after settlement survey and excavations, she launched a multidisciplinary program to understand the culture and nature of El Pilar. Ford’s publications are cited nationally and internationally as part of the foundation of Maya settlement pattern studies. Her archaeological themes are diverse, appearing in geological, ethnobiological, geographical, and botanical arenas and locally in Belize, Guatemala, and Mexico. Her concern for management of cultural monuments, in-situ conservation, and tourism appear in Getty publications.

Anabel Ford is dedicated to decoding the ancient Maya landscape. While living in Guatemala in 1978, she learned from local people that the Maya forest was an edible garden when she mapped a 30-km transect between the Petén sites of Tikal and Yaxhá. In 1983, she discovered and later mapped the Maya city El Pilar. In 1993, after settlement survey and excavations, she launched a multidisciplinary program to understand the culture and nature of El Pilar. Ford’s publications are cited nationally and internationally as part of the foundation of Maya settlement pattern studies. Her archaeological themes are diverse, appearing in geological, ethnobiological, geographical, and botanical arenas and locally in Belize, Guatemala, and Mexico. Her concern for management of cultural monuments, in-situ conservation, and tourism appear in Getty publications.

Maggie Knapp is an Art History and Global Studies double major studying at UC Santa Barbara, currently working for the nonprofit ESP~Maya under the direction of Dr. Anabel Ford. Knapp plans to work with cultural patrimony and social development serving indigenous areas of the world such as that of the Maya. Knapp has authored articles in the areas of both art criticism and anthropology, researched aesthetic and social theory, and will be pursuing graduate work in art as a tool of cultural and economic development.

Yosef Garfinkel is Yigael Yadin Chair in Archaeology of Eretz Yisrael and Professor of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of numerous books, articles and papers and is a holder of the Polonsky Book Prize. He is currently excavating at Tel Lachish in Israel.

Santiago Giraldo is currently Director of the Colombia Heritage Program with the Global Heritage Fund. He has an MA in Social Sciences and a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Chicago. He has worked for the Instituto Colombiano de Antropología e Historia (ICANH) as a research archaeologist, Coordinator for Archaeology, and Director-in-Charge of the Teyuna-Ciudad Perdida Archaeological Park, and has conducted extensive research and preservation at the archaeological sites of Pueblito and Teyuna-Ciudad Perdida over the past ten years. Today he is considered one of the world’s foremost authorities on the ancient Tairona people.

Pieta Greaves is the Staffordshire Hoard Conservation Project Manager at the Birmingham Museums Trust. Her conservation specialisation is in archaeological materials. This has led her to work on some of the most important archaeological assemblages excavated in the last few years. For these projects it was important to liaise with a range of professionals including curators, archaeologists, conservators and other experts, to ensure the objects reached their archaeological potential.

Pieta has also worked on an extensive range of other object types, including social history, arms and armour, statues and sculpture, also carrying out preventive and remedial conservation for exhibition, loans, storage and research. Prior to training as a conservator at Cardiff University, she worked as an archaeologist in New Zealand and Australia, having graduated from Auckland University in 2001. She has also worked on overseas excavations in Egypt and during the summer of 2014 will be spending 4 weeks conserving an important wall painting in Belize as part of the Maya Research Program field school. 

Dr. Thomas Guderjan is the President of MRP and Director of the Blue Creek project and a faculty member at the University of Texas at Tyler. His book, The Nature of an Ancient Maya City: Resources, Interaction and Power at Blue Creek, Belize. University of Alabama Press (2007), summarizes much of the work done at Blue Creek.

Colleen Hanratty is a doctoral candidate at Southern Methodist University. She has worked with the non-profit organization, the Maya Research Program, for the past 16 years. She has conducted archaeological research in the southeastern and southwestern USA, Mexico, Peru and Belize. Her doctoral research is on the collapse and abandonment of Blue Creek, Belize.

Patrick D Hahn is an Affiliate Professor of Biology at Loyola University Maryland and a free-lance writer. His writing has also appeared in Biology-Online, Loyola Magazine, Natural News, the Canada Free Press, and the Baltimore Sun.

Mark Hallum is a staff writer for Popular Archaeology Magazine.

Marjorie Hecht is a longtime magazine editor and writer with a specialty in science topics. She is a freelance writer and community activist living on Cape Cod.

Donald Henson is a British archaeologist. He is honorary lecturer at University College London, was head of education for seventeen years at the Council for British Archaeology, and holds seasonal academic posts at Bristol, York and Newcastle. He is the author of numerous books, including Doing Archaeology, and his latest, Archaeology Hotspot Great Britain: Unearthing the Past for Armchair Archaeologists.

Professor Frank Holt (MA and PhD, University of Virginia) teaches at the University of Houston and specializes in ancient Greek history. He has published seven books on Alexander the Great and his legacy. He has also published more than 50 articles and essays. He has been awarded several research prizes in the US and abroad, a national writing prize, and seven major teaching honors, including the inaugural Distinguished Leadership in Teaching Excellence Award (2011). He is currently working on several books, including a study of Alexander’s wealth to be published by Oxford University Press in conjunction with his appointment as an Onassis Senior Visiting Scholar.

Jesse Holth is a freelance writer and editor with a background in archaeology, history, and science. She has previously worked with the Royal BC Museum, the University of Victoria, and World Elephant Day. Jesse has degrees in English and Anthropology, specializing in Archaeology. She is passionate about history, education, and conservation.

Marek Titien Olszewski is Associate Professor, PhD from the Sorbonne, lecturer at the Institute of Archaeology, University of Warsaw, specialist in Roman archaeology and iconography, and an expert on ancient mosaics, Roman archaeology and Syria (UNESCO). He sits on the board of the AIEMA (Association Internationale pour l’Etude de la Mosaïque Antiqua).

Houmam Saad has a PhD in archaeology and is on the staff of the Directorate General of Antiquities and Museums of Syria (DGAMS). He is also an associate of the French Academy of Sciences (CNRS) and a specialist in the archaeology of Syria.

Michael Hudson is an American economist, a professor of economics at the University of Missouri–Kansas City, and a researcher at the Levy Economics Institute at Bard College. He is a former Wall Street analyst, political consultant, commentator, and journalist. You can read more of Hudson’s economic history on the Observatory.

Claire Johnson is a freelance writer and former artist. Other than her career, she maintains a special interest in ancient history and archaeology and spends her free time visiting places of interest with her family, so that they can understand their mother is not the only one with old bones!

Emma Johnston is currently studying for a PhD in Volcanology in the Department of Earth Sciences at Bristol University (U.K). With a background in Archaeology and an interest in the natural world and its interaction with human populations, she has been able to join her passion for the two subjects focusing her research on large-scale eruptions and their effects on ancient civilisations. Emma has worked on excavations in the U.K, Greece and Indonesia, including the 2011 Tambora excavations.  

Richard C. Kern is an independent filmmaker and lecturer. He has worked with the National Audubon Society, Handley Management, Franklin Film Artists, National Geographic Society and Encounters in Excellence. Voted best presenter of the year for the National Geographic Film Lecture Series in 1985, he has produced numerous film scripts and award-winning films and supplied footage for nationally-broadcast TV specials. 

Patrick Vinton Kirch is Class of 1954 Professor of Anthropology and Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and author of On the Road of the Winds, How Chiefs Became Kings, and the award-winning book, A Shark Going Inland Is My Chief, among other books. Photo by Therese Babineau

Professor Frank J. Korn has retired from his teaching position on the Classical Studies faculty at Seton Hall University.  He is a Fulbright Scholar at the American Academy in Rome and the author of nine books on various aspects of the Eternal City.  He is listed in Marquis Who’s Who as “a notable classical educator and writer.”  Recipient of the Princeton Prize for Distinguished Teaching, he resides with his wife Camille in Scotch Plains, N.J.  The couple’s three sons –  Frank, Ronald, and John and their families live nearby.  His latest book  –  Below Rome, the Story of the Catacombs  –  which he co-authored with his wife, is available on Amazon or from the publisher, St. Johann Press, Haworth, N.J.

Briana Pobiner, the Science Outreach & Education Program Specialist for the Smithsonian’s Human Origins Program, has a BA in Evolutionary Studies from Bryn Mawr College, where she created her own major, and an MA and PhD in Anthropology from Rutgers University. Her research centers on the evolution of human diet (with a focus on meat-eating), but has included topics as diverse as cannibalism in the Cook Islands and chimpanzee carnivory. She has done fieldwork in Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, and Indonesia and has been supported in her research by the Fulbright-Hays program, the Leakey Foundation, the National Geographic Society, the National Science Foundation, Rutgers University, the Society for American Archaeology, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Wenner-Gren Foundation. Her favorite field moments include falling asleep in a tent in the Serengeti in Tanzania while listening to the distant whoops of hyenas, watching a pride of lions eat a zebra carcass on the Kenyan equator, and discovering fossil bones that were last touched, butchered and eaten by one of her 1.5 million year old ancestors. She came to the Smithsonian in 2005 to help work on the upcoming Hall of Human Origins, got bitten by the “public understanding of science” bug and hasn’t looked back, continuing to do her research while leading the Human Origins Program’s education and outreach efforts. She currently manages the Human Origins Program’s public programs, website content, social media, and volunteer content training.

Kris “Fire” Kovarovic, PhD, is Lecturer in Human Evolution at Durham University, UK. Originally from Connecticut, Kris moved to Montréal, Canada where she attended McGill University to complete a BA in Anthropology and Religious Studies, followed by an MSc in Archaeology and a PhD in Anthropology from University College London, UK (UCL). Kris subsequently spent time as a postdoctoral researcher in the Human Origins Program at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History and then returned to UCL to take up a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship prior to moving to Durham. Her broad research interests include palaeoenvironmental reconstruction and faunal analysis, particularly at Plio-Pleistocene hominin sites in East Africa. Her current research programme continues to explore the ways in which mammalian communities are shaped by their environments and how this can inform our understanding of the past distribution of mammals and habitats, as well as investigating the differences in habitat signals provided by fossil bovid dentition and skeletal remains. She is most excited and inspired by her role as co-director of BONES with good friend and co-conspirator, Briana Pobiner.

Kate is an archaeologist and adventurer who is passionate about sharing her love of archaeology with the world. Her doctoral research focused on the Irish Late Bronze Age but her fieldwork has no borders! Over her career Kate has surveyed, excavated, and worked in museum collections on four continents. In 2016 she set off on a self-directed project, Global Archaeology, where she participated in 12 projects in 12 countries in 12 months.  While lending an experienced helping hand to exciting archaeological projects she explored the world and documented the journey through social media (www.globalarchaeology.ca). For Kate, archaeology is fascinating because it reveals stories of our shared global past, but equally as important is the way these stories can connect people in the present. Now Kate has settled back in her home country of Canada where she is continuing to do archaeological writing while spending her days exploring the Rocky Mountains.

Christofilis Maggidis is currently Director of Glas, Assistant to the Director of Mycenae, and President of the Mycenaean Foundation with nearly three decades of field experience at major archaeological sites, including Mycenae, Glas, Crete (Archanes, Idaion Cave), and Akrotiri (Thera). Since receiving his post-doctorate from Brown University and a research fellowship from Harvard, his research and teaching interests focus primarily on Minoan and Mycenaean art and archaeology, but they also include topics in Greek sculpture and architecture. Maggidis is the author of many articles, international conference papers, and three forthcoming books.

Jodi Magness is the Kenan Distinguished Professor for Teaching Excellence in Early Judaism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She previously taught at Tufts University. Professor Magness has more than 20 years of excavation experience, including the co-direction of excavations of the Masada Roman siege works and the Roman fort at Yotvata. She has authored numerous works, including Masada: From Jewish Revolt to Modern Myth, The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, and The Archaeology of the Early Islamic Settlement in Palestine.

Julie Masis is a freelance journalist based in Cambodia.  Her stories have appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, the Guardian, the Boston Globe, Science magazine and in other publications.

Kimberly Munro is an Andean archaeologist with over a decade of experience working in Peru. She is the director of the Cosma Archaeological Project, a long-term research project involving excavation and survey in the Andean central highlands, specifically in the Caceres District of Ancash, Peru.

Kimberly earned a dual B.A. degree in Anthropology and Religious Studies in 2007 from Florida State University and also holds a M.S. in Geography (Geographic Information Sciences) from FSU. She received her PhD in Anthropology from Louisiana State University in 2018. Kimberly currently lives in Colorado, where she teaches Anthropology and Archaeology classes, and runs a summer field camp in the canyonlands of Southeast, Colorado through Otero College.

Matthew Notarian is Visiting Assistant Professor of Classics at Hiram College and a Trench Supervisor with the Upper Sabina Tiberina Project. He received his Ph.D. and M.A. in Classics from the University at Buffalo, specializing in Roman archaeology. He also holds a B.A. from the University of Delaware. He has been a fellow of the American Academy in Rome and an exchange fellow of the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. Previously, he taught at Tulane University and Johns Hopkins University, and has participated in fieldwork at several sites in Italy and Greece.

Brandon Olson is pursuing his Ph.D. in the department of archaeology at Boston University and has earned a bachelor’s degree in anthropology (Fort Lewis College) and graduate degrees in archaeology (Sheffield University), ancient history (University of North Dakota), and classics (Pennsylvania State University). His research interests include the archaeology and history of the Hellenistic and Roman east with particular focus on ancient warfare, epigraphy, ceramics, settlement, GIS applications to archaeology, and social history. He is currently involved with ongoing archaeological projects in the Eastern Mediterranean including the Pyla-Koutsopetria Archaeological Project in southern Cyprus, the Mopsos Survey in southern Turkey, the Tel Akko excavations in northern Israel, the Polis Chrysochous excavations in southern Cyprus, and the excavations at Mendes in northern Egypt.

Dr. Alexander Parmington is an Archaeologist at the Wurundjeri Tribe and Land Council and a Research Associate (Hon.) in the Archaeology Program at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. He has worked extensively in south-eastern Australia, in Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras and has contributed articles to several journals and organizations, including Mexicon, the Minesterio de Cultura y Deportes de Guatemala, the Instituto de Antropología e Historia de Guatemala, and the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies. Alex has also recently authored a book entitled Space and Sculpture in the Classic Maya City (2011), published by Cambridge University Press.

Simmi Patel is currently a medical student, but the paper published here was originally prepared as her senior thesis while she was a student at Muhlenberg College, from which she graduated Cum Laude as a Biology and Anthropology major. She has completed field work throughout the continent of Africa, in Costa Rica, India and other places. 

 Travis Rayne Pickering is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and also directs the Swartkrans Paleoanthropology Research Project. Since 1989, he has conducted fieldwork at various paleoanthropological sites in Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia and South Africa, as well as laboratory, zoo and field research on chimpanzee dietary behaviors and material culture. 

 ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Jason L. Heaton is an Assistant Professor of Biology at Birmingham-Southern College (Alabama, USA). He is a broadly trained paleoanthropologist with interests in anatomy, taxonomy and behavior of primates and fossil hominins. His projects have included studies of chimpanzee culture, technical skill in flintknapping and primate (and hominin) anatomy. Jason’s research has focused on sites within the ‘Cradle of Humankind’, near Johannesburg, South Africa, including Drimolen and Sterkfontein. Since 2005, he has served as the primate paleontologist for the Swartkrans Paleoanthropological Research Project. Photo Credit: Christina Rose

Meredith Poole has been a Staff Archaeologist with the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation for 26 years.  In addition to field work, her responsibilities include outreach and archaeology education.  Meredith received her MA in Anthropology from the College of William and Mary, and her BA from Hamilton College. 

Professor Donald Redford is professor of classics and ancient Mediterranean Studies at the Pennsylvania State University and the director of the Mendes expedition.  He is a noted expert in the field of Egyptology and Biblical Studies and is the author of numerous books and articles, including The History of Ancient Egypt: Egyptian Civilization in Context, (Dubuque, 2005), and City of the Ram-man, the Story of Ancient Mendes,(Princeton, 2010).  Prof. Redford has been featured in numerous series and documentaries on A&E and the History Channel.

Dr. Susan Redford is faculty lecturer in the Dept. of Classics & Ancient Mediterranean Studies at the Pennsylvania State University and the director of the Theban Tomb Survey. Dr. Redford is the author of numerous articles and The Harem Conspiracy: The Murder of Ramesses III (Northern Illinois University Press, 2002). She has been featured in documentaries by National Geographic and the Discovery Channel.

Matthew Reeves is the Director of Archaeology at James Madison’s Montpelier in Orange, Virginia.  His specialty is sites of the African Diaspora including plantation and freedman period sites, and Civil War sites.  In his work over the past two decades, Reeves has maintained a focus with public archaeology, most especially involving descendent groups and involving the public with experiential learning.

Dr. Nicolae Roddy, Associate Professor of Older Testament at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, has co-directed the Bethsaida Excavations Project since 1997, and the Virtual World Project (www.virtualworldproject.org) since 2006.  Roddy holds an M.A. in Theology from St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. in the area of Judaism and Christianity in the Greco-Roman World from the University of Iowa. Roddy was appointed as a Fulbright scholar to Romania (1994-95), which resulted in his first book, The Romanian Version of the Testament of Abraham: Text, Translation, and Cultural Context (Society of Biblical Literature, 2001). He is also the author of several book chapters and journal articles on topics related to the Bible and archaeology. Nicolae Roddy is married to Alexandra, who along with his daughter Aurelia, assists in supervising the dig at Bethsaida. Aurelia has three younger siblings destined to dig.

Dr. Mirjana Roksandic is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Winnepeg. She conducts pioneering research in two distinct areas: the study of hominid fossils in Europe, and mortuary archaeology, with current fieldwork focusing on sites in Serbia, Portugal and Cuba. 

Joanne Rowland graduated from the Institute of Archaeology at UCL with her PhD in Egyptian Archaeology in 2004, having also studied for her BA and MA at UCL.  Having began fieldwork in the Nile Delta in 1998, working with Fekri Hassan and G. J. Tassie at Kafr Hassan Dawood (Eastern Delta), she spent a season with the German Archaeological Institute mission to Buto/Tell el-Fara’in, before joining Penny Wilson (University of Durham) and her team to work at Sais, during which time she participated on the Northwest Delta Survey.  Following on from this experience and from the results of her PhD research – which indicated our sparse knowledge of the central Nile Delta – Joanne started a regional survey in Minufiyeh Province in 2005 under the auspices of the EES, where she works to this day. Joanne has also worked briefly in the south Sinai and also at Elkab, north of Edfu. Her particular interests lie, clearly, in the archaeology of the Nile Delta, and also in the prehistoric and early historic periods of Egypt. She is also very interested in early mortuary practices, which she began researching during her MA year, and in the chronology of ancient Egypt; she was the Research Fellow in Egyptology for a Leverhulme Trust funded project at the University of Oxford (2006-2009) which focussed on synchronisms between the Egyptian chronology and scientific dating methods. After Oxford, Joanne joined the team of the Belgian Archaeological Mission to Elkab and was based in Brussels at the Royal Museums of Art and History from 2009-2010. Since then she has held a position as Junior Professor in the Egyptology Seminar of the Freie University of Berlin.

This is Marilyn Sams’ fourth, originally-researched article dealing with the general topics of Jerusalem archaeology and, in particular, the Haram es Sharif, popularly known as the Temple Mount. 

In her full-length book entitled The Jerusalem Temple Mount Myth, Ms. Sams weaves together a narrative of over 200 ancient and seldom-cited literary sources that challenge the traditional model that places the Solomonic and Herodian temples over the Dome of the Rock.

You can read a synopsis of her evidence and learn more details at her website: http://jerusalemtemplemountmyth.com.  

Laura Scandiffio is the author of books written especially for young people, though they can be enjoyed by people of all ages. Among her books are The Martial Arts Book, Escapes!, People Who Said No, and Outlaws, Spies, and Gangsters. She currently lives in Toronto, Canada with her husband and two children.

Dr. Itzhaq Shai is an assistant professor at Ariel University and the head of the Institute of Archaeology at Ariel Univeirsty. He has served as the director of the project since its beginning (the 2009-2012 seasons as co-director with Dr. Joe Uziel). He has extensive experience in field archaeology of different periods. He worked for more than a decade at the Tell es-safi/Gath project and served as director of a number of other excavations. Dr. Shai finished his PhD at Bar Ilan University (under the advising of Prof. Aren Maeir) and was a post-fellow at the Harvard University and a junior research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University.

His published articles deal with the Early Bronze Age in the southern Levant, Philistine material culture, place names and their importance in ethnic identification, the status of Jerusalem in the Iron Age and the political structure of Philistia, the Late Bronze Age remains at Tell es-Saf/Gath, and various publications on the results of the Tel Burna Archaeological Project.

Cameron M. Smith completed his undergraduate studies at London’s Institute of Archaeology and Durham University, learning paleoanthropology through two field seasons at Koobi Fora, Kenya. He went on to pursue his Ph.D. in archaeology at Simon Fraser University in Canada, specializing in stone tool analysis and continuing to excavate sites worldwide. Dr. Smith is now a faculty member at Portland State University, where he teaches courses in world prehistory and field and laboratory methods. His research interests include evolution, biocultural adaptation, cognitive evolution, and the archaeology of Pacific Northwest Coast. He has published widely in research journals including Antiquity, the American Journal of Physical Anthropology and the Journal of Field Archaeology. The Atlas of Human Prehistory is one of his many books on evolution and the human past.

Dr. Scott Stripling is the Director of Excavations at Shiloh. Previously Stripling directed the excavations at Khirbet el-Maqatir from 2013-2016, served as Field Supervisor of the Tall el-Hammam Excavation Project from 2005 to 2010, and as a supervisor of the Jerusalem Temple Mount Salvage Project in Jerusalem.

Mrs. Suzanne Lattimer serves as Assistant Director at Shiloh. She received her M.A. in Near Eastern Archaeology and Semitic Languages at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS) in Deerfield, Illinois. She has also dug at Tel Dor, Israel in 2004, and in the Great Smoky Mountains with the National Park Service in 2001. She has served as a Field Archaeologist from 2014 through the inaugural season at Shiloh.

William (Bill) Tarant is a sales manager with GE Inspection Technologies.

Yotam Tepper is a researcher and archaeologist with the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), and co-director of excavations at the legionary base at Legio (2013). His PhD dissertation at Tel Aviv University (2015) is devoted to the region of Legio in the Roman Period, with emphasis on the ethno-cultural and religious identities of different groups at the site and the daily lives of both civilians and soldiers. He has directed numerous excavations in Israel, including surveys in the Legio-Megiddo region over the last 15 years. As part of this work, he conducted excavations at Kibbutz Megiddo and the nearby site at Enot [YT19] Nisanit, and his largest such project was a four-year extensive excavation at the Megiddo Prison compound, in which a remarkable Christian Prayer Hall from the 3rd century CE was discovered

Matthew J. Adams is the Dorot Director of the W. F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research and director of the JVRP. Adams received his PhD in History from the Pennsylvania State University in 2007, specializing in Egyptology and Near Eastern Archaeology. He has directed excavations at several sites in Egypt and Israel. His primary research focus is on the development of urban communities in the third millennium in Egypt and Levant. In addition to directing the JVRP, he is a member of the Penn State excavations at Mendes, Egypt and the Tel Aviv University Megiddo Expedition. He is also president of the non-profit organization American Archaeology Abroad.

Jonathan David is professor of Classics at Gettysburg College, assistant director of the JVRP, and co-director of excavations at the legionary base at Legio (2013). He studies the history and archaeology of ancient Greece broadly, but his particular interests involve earliest historiography and the interconnections between the Graeco-Roman world and the Near East. He has been a regular member at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, a Mellon Foundation research fellow, and a founding member of American Archaeology Abroad.

Klaus Wagensonner is a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Yale University.

Samuel C. Walker was born and raised in East Africa and subsequently spent fifteen years in the Middle East including Yemen, Israel/West Bank, Jordan, Sudan, and Egypt. He currently is working in Ethiopia. He holds two Bachelor’s degrees; Religious Studies – Anthropology, and Natural Sciences & History, and two Master’s degrees; History and education (Western Oregon U) and Archaeology & Heritage Mgmt. (University of Leicester). For seven years he lived in the Micronesian Pacific islands conducting research on climate change, ecologies, and conducting research as lead field supervisory archaeologist for US Navy projects for EIS and cultural resource management. Since 2013, Walker has worked in Ethiopia, including establishing a Master’s program in Archaeology for Heritage Management and serving as lead field and supervisory archaeologist. As part of his research dissertation, he is working on creating graduate level field-intensive Cultural Resource Management teams (CRMT) specifically to address the critical needs of archaeological site identification, comprehensive field survey, data recovery and excavation field management skills, laboratory analysis and cultural material conservation, and presentation and display of these rich tangible and intangible heritages.

Brienne Walsh is a writer currently based in Savannah, Georgia. She has contributed to publications including The New York Times, Forbes, Marketwatch, CNN, Artsy and Departures. She is also a part-time professor at the Savannah College of Art and Design, where she teaches a class on art criticism.

Carrie L. Sulosky Weaver is a Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of History of Art and Architecture at the University of Pittsburgh. 

Christopher Wood earned his B.A. in Classics from San Francisco State and his Masters in Anthropology with emphasis in Archaeology from U.C. Santa Barbara. He has worked as an archaeologist at Pompeii and participated in a number of underwater excavations in the Yucatan Basin.  His specializations include funerary archeology of Early Roman and Pre-Roman Italy, especially the use of material culture and epigraphy in constructing identity.  His past research has included landscape archaeology and the use of public space for spectacle, XRF technology, Etruscan archaeometallurgy, and the impact of Roman religion of the Provinces.

He has traveled widely, having attended the Université de Paris, and more recently the American Academy in Rome on a Bernard Goldman scholarship. Chris is currently a Gallery Teacher at the Getty Villa. He speaks five languages (English, French, Italian, and some Spanish and German), and writes in five ancient languages (Ancient Greek, Latin, Middle Egyptian, Luvian and Hittitie).

James Wright is a Senior Archaeologist at the Museum of London Archaeology. He has researched the palace at Kings Clipstone for over twelve years and has recently published a book entitled A Palace For Our Kings on the subject via Triskele Publishing – www.triskelepublishing.com.

Arianna Zakrzewski is an intern and writer for Popular Archaeology. She is also a graduate from Rhode Island College with a Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology. She has had an interest in archaeology since elementary school, specifically Egyptology and the Classics. In recent years, she has also gained an interest in historical archaeology, and has spent time in the field working in St. Mary’s City, Maryland, participating in excavation and archival research. Most recently, she completed her MA in Museum Studies from Johns Hopkins University. She is currently focused on collections management and making archaeological discoveries accessible and exciting to the public.

Eberhard Zangger (born 1958 in Kamen, Germany) is a Swiss geoarchaeologist, corporate communications consultant and publicist. Eberhard Zangger studied geology and paleontology at the University of Kiel and obtained a PhD from Stanford University in 1988. After this he was a senior research associate in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge (1988–91). He is currently president of the board of trustees of the international non-profit foundation Luwian Studies.

In May 2016, Luwian Studies went public with a website in German, English and Turkish. As part of its research, the foundation has systematically catalogued extensive settlement sites of the Middle and Late Bronze Age in Western Asia Minor. These sites are presented in a public database on the website. The foundation provides financial support for archaeological excavations and surveys, as well as for linguistic studies dedicated to the cultures of the Middle and Late Bronze Age in western Asia Minor.