Phenotype and the human-animal relationship

The use of animals as proxies for human autecology (the relationship between a species and its environment) is well recognized as a viable mechanism for understanding our cultural and economic past. This research project harnesses the power of geometric morphometrics (GMM) to study a range of topics that cross regional as well as temporal boundaries, and in particular was concerned with horse domestication in Central Asia and China. GMM uses statistical shape modeling to study populations through morphology, allowing us to visualize change over time, either through environmental factors (i.e. climate), or as a consequence of agency (i.e. domestication). This project uses GMM, corroborated with isotopic, aDNA, AMS and geoarchaeological dataset, to study a range of human-environmental questions i.e. the use of animal proxies to study ecological niches in the Pleistocene, and the importance of the horses to the success of the crusades in northern Europe.