Ph.D. student in archaeology.
I completed a BA in Art History and Archaeology at the University of Hull in 2017 and an MA in Mesolithic Studies at the University of York in 2019. My undergraduate thesis was about the early farming communities in the Marmara region between 6000 and 5400 cal. BC (Fikirtepe, Pendik, Mentese, Aktropraklik and Ilipinar). This was followed by the MA thesis which was based on the Mesolithic watercraft in North-West Europe. Currently, I am employed as a doctoral student at the Umeå University archaeology department and I work on Mesolithic and Neolithic transition in Turkey. My supervisors are Professor Malcolm Lillie, Doctor Chelsea Budd, and Associate Professor Philip Buckland.
My main research interests are archaeological theory, World Prehistory (especially Mesolithic and Neolithic transition in Anatolia), mortuary studies, material culture, human-landscape interactions, early belief systems, isotopes, radiocarbon dating, ancient DNA, cognitive archaeology, wetland, and underwater archaeology.
My Ph.D. research revolves around the origins of agriculture in the Near East and its spread into Europe. It aims to study the nature of the transition to farming lifeways in Anatolia and to place these events in their chronological and social context through a consideration of factors such as climatic events and environment. The socio-cultural characteristics of the Late Mesolithic and Early Neolithic communities that were once living in Anatolia and the Near East will be assessed through detailed analysis of archaeological reports from the region (many of which will need to be translated from Turkish), and the evidence will be considered using the dominant paradigms of modern archaeological thought. This research will include a consideration of elements such as social-economic status, material culture, death and burial practices, environment, subsistence, and chronology. This multi-disciplinary approach will facilitate a holistic and nuanced reading of the evidence, from which a more authorized account of the data can be generated.