🚨 New paper! 🦪 Is our archaeological data skewed by taphonomic process? 🦪 How do we move towards more nuanced approaches to morphometric studies? 🦪How can archaeologists make our studies relevant to modern socioecological research? Have a read! 🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

✅ Accepted! Coming soon to an issue of Scientific Reports, stay tuned! #archaeology #ecology 🦪 📏 w/ @isazooarch.bsky.social

Our SAHND Lab PI got to chat on Science Friday this week!

Science Friday@scifri.bsky.social · 3mo ago

How do we know which ancient societies were democracies? A new study is using architecture to find out. In our #PictureOfTheWeek, anthropologist Jacob Holland-Lulewicz photographs a 2,000-year-old trash pit on the Eastern Mongolian Steppe. Images Credit: Jacob Holland-Lulewicz

Listen to me yap about how archaeologists use architecture and urban design to think about governance, how we might interpret our own federal architecture, some findings about democracy’s origins, and a few hopeful thoughts about democracies around the world! www.sciencefriday.com/segments/wha...

What urban design tells us about democracy

Archaeologists can use the design of ancient temples, plazas, and cities to piece together the story of how a place was governed.

sciencefriday.com

🐠 🌱 🦪 ⛈️ 🌡️ The other half of our lab w/ @isazooarch.bsky.social! #archaeology #ecology #sustainability #climate

One half of the SAHND and SHEL Lab!

Jake Holland-Lulewicz@archaeojake.bsky.social · 4mo ago

🔬🏺We have an Anthropology Day alumni event coming up, and our development team made these great templates for us to showcase our labs. Had a lot of fun distilling the key contributions of the SAHND Lab here at Penn State! #archaeology #ecology #history

Huge thanks to @amphilsociety.bsky.social and their absolutely critical support for early career researchers!

SAHND and SHEL Archaeology and Ecology Labs@sahndshel.bsky.social · 4mo ago

🚨 Christina (@cmcarolus.bsky.social) was awarded a grant from the Am. Phil. Soc. for her collaborative project: “Vertical Archipelagos of Prehistoric Highland Inner Asia: Exploring Integrative Agropastoral Landscapes and Long Term Socioecological Dynamics at Kyzyl Unkur-1, Kyrgyzstan”! #archaeology

🚨 Christina (@cmcarolus.bsky.social) was awarded a grant from the Am. Phil. Soc. for her collaborative project: “Vertical Archipelagos of Prehistoric Highland Inner Asia: Exploring Integrative Agropastoral Landscapes and Long Term Socioecological Dynamics at Kyzyl Unkur-1, Kyrgyzstan”! #archaeology

🚨 Asa Cameron (post-doc) was awarded a grant from the Am. Phil. Soc. for his collaborative project: “Growth at the Margins: Feeding Empire on the Mongolian Steppe”! #archaeology

🚨 Asa Cameron (post-doc) was awarded a grant from the Am. Phil. Soc. for his collaborative project: “Growth at the Margins: Feeding Empire on the Mongolian Steppe”! #archaeology

🚨 Christina (@cmcarolus.bsky.social) was awarded a grant from the Am. Phil. Soc. for her collaborative project: “Vertical Archipelagos of Prehistoric Highland Inner Asia: Exploring Integrative Agropastoral Landscapes and Long Term Socioecological Dynamics at Kyzyl Unkur-1, Kyrgyzstan”! #archaeology

Cotton seeds from Kyrgyzstan in the lab today! #archaeology #history #ecology #plants #pbot

Christina M. Carolus, PhD@cmcarolus.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Today’s @sahndshel.bsky.social Central Asia/SE North America cash crop crossover: ancient cotton seeds from Kyzyl Unkur-1, our highland Kyrgyz cave site! ☁️🌱

Today’s @sahndshel.bsky.social Central Asia/SE North America cash crop crossover: ancient cotton seeds from Kyzyl Unkur-1, our highland Kyrgyz cave site! ☁️🌱

This bluff on Ossabaw Island (Georgia) gets cut back up to 70cm a year from erosion due to more extreme tides, more frequent storms, and increased boat traffic. The erosion continually exposes archaeological features. Each year we assess and salvage what we can #archaeology #climatechange #heritage

This bluff on Ossabaw Island (Georgia) gets cut back up to 70cm a year from erosion due to more extreme tides, more frequent storms, and increased boat traffic. The erosion continually exposes archaeological features. Each year we assess and salvage what we can #archaeology #climatechange #heritage

This is a landmark paper in Science: archaeology informing current political science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

The distribution of power and inclusiveness across deep time

Democratic practice in the premodern world was not the exclusive domain of Greece and Rome.

science.org

“History rhymes, it doesn’t repeat. And in those rhymes there are things that we need to pay attention to.” Our paper covered by NPR’s All Things Considered via a short interview with our lead, @gfeinman.bsky.social! Give it a listen! #archaeology #history #democracy www.npr.org/2026/03/19/n...

Researchers find evidence of ancient democracies from the Americas to Europe and Asia

NPR's Ailsa Chang speaks with archaeologist Gary Feinman about new findings that show democracy existed throughout the ancient world and was not exclusive to Mediterranean Europe.

npr.org

Democracy isn't a modern luxury—it's a political strategy with deep roots. In our new study for Science Advances, we analyse 40 different societies and develop a framework for measuring human governance along a collective-autocratic axis. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

The distribution of power and inclusiveness across deep time

Democratic practice in the premodern world was not the exclusive domain of Greece and Rome.

science.org

Press release for our new paper! “…people across the world created inclusive political systems, even under difficult conditions…An understanding of the hallmarks of autocracy and democracy can help identify threats and pump the brakes on burgeoning totalitarian regimes.” phys.org/news/2026-03...

New study shows democracy has deep global roots—not just Greece and Rome

A new study on ancient societies from around the world is rewriting what we thought we knew about democracy. A team of researchers analyzed archaeological and historical evidence from 31 ancient socie...

phys.org

🚨Out today in Science Advances! It is more important than ever to understand the roots and historical breadth of the core features of democratic institutions and autocratic alternatives, what these practices are associated with, and their effects and consequences. 🔗 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Psyched to visit Michigan State next month! #archaeology #history #NAIS

When you're excavating all these little crown conchs like the one on the top that people ate and discarded about a thousand years ago, and then can walk 20 meters to the shore and pick up a live one. From southwestern Florida a few years ago! #archaeology #ecology

When you're excavating all these little crown conchs like the one on the top that people ate and discarded about a thousand years ago, and then can walk 20 meters to the shore and pick up a live one. From southwestern Florida a few years ago! #archaeology #ecology

9 years ago. Excavating shell midden at Pineland along the Gulf Coast of southwestern Florida #archaeology #ecology

200 year old fish scale from a plantation-era trash pit. We’re finding hundreds of fish scales (in both historic and earlier Indigenous contexts). Matthew and Christina are going to explore micro approaches to species identification! #archaeology #ecology #fish #fisheries #history

200 year old fish scale from a plantation-era trash pit. We’re finding hundreds of fish scales (in both historic and earlier Indigenous contexts). Matthew and Christina are going to explore micro approaches to species identification! #archaeology #ecology #fish #fisheries #history

Whats up in the lab today? About to run 47 dates from a 2,000yr-old settlement of the Xiongnu Empire in Mongolia and 23 dates from a rock shelter in Kyrgyzstan that was once along the Silk Road! Asa and Christina (@cmcarolus.bsky.social) are doing the COOLEST work! #archaeology #history #radiocarbon

New dates back today from a 4,000yr old shell midden on the Georgia Coast! A perfectly accumulated context! c. 2 meters of regular midden accumulation in less than 100yrs 😍 #archaeology #ecology #radiocarbon

New dates back today from a 4,000yr old shell midden on the Georgia Coast! A perfectly accumulated context! c. 2 meters of regular midden accumulation in less than 100yrs 😍 #archaeology #ecology #radiocarbon

Whats up in the lab today? About to run 47 dates from a 2,000yr-old settlement of the Xiongnu Empire in Mongolia and 23 dates from a rock shelter in Kyrgyzstan that was once along the Silk Road! Asa and Christina (@cmcarolus.bsky.social) are doing the COOLEST work! #archaeology #history #radiocarbon