Written by 2021 REU Fellow Urvi Kaul With the start of the pandemic, all my future research projects were halted. Now, a whole year and a half later, including six months since I graduated from undergrad, the prospect of starting a NSF-REU was daunting. My skills as an academic and a researcher felt “dusty” at best. An intensive research summer with the NSF, in a … Continue reading Dusting Off Old Skeletons
The final week of the REU is upon us! Our 8 REU fellows have been working hard on completing their research projects. They are going to be presenting their projects for two audiences: A professional audience — The fellows are creating posters to present at the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists (to be held in Los Angeles in April 2020). The … Continue reading A Sneak Peek at Our Results from Summer 2019
With data collection ending, the most exciting part of research begins: obtaining the results! In last week’s blog post by Quentin Burke and Victoria Calvin, you heard about the various challenges faced by groups during data collection. Each group managed to find solutions to the challenges their projects posed and move on through data collection. A couple of weeks ago, my (Alyssa McGrath) partner Rachel … Continue reading Ulna One More Week: Wrapping Up Data Collection and Beginning to See Results
We are off to the finish line as we have created hypotheses, methodologies, and begun our data collection. You were informed by Jeremy Simmons and Rachel Heil in last week’s blog of two group projects and how each will apply their methodology and hypotheses to their research. This past week all research groups have overcome several obstacles when it comes to inconveniences in our projects. … Continue reading It’s Going Tibia Okay: Overcoming Challenges in Research
In the past week, all the groups established their hypotheses and methodologies, and we have initiated data collection for our partnered research projects. Last week, you were informed by Chaylee Arellano and Charlie Downey of the context of the Unar 1 and Unar 2 tombs within the Umm an-Nar period in southeastern Arabia, along with a discussion of two of the four research projects. This … Continue reading Working Our Fingers to the Bone: The Beginning of Data Collection
The REU program is making some headway! We ended Week 3 with being assigned research partners and getting the main idea behind each of our respective projects. The area that the bones come from that we are studying is today the United Arab Emirates. These bones were excavated from two tombs in the Emirate of Ras al-Khaimah: Unar 1 (2400-2200 BCE) and Unar 2 (2300-2100 BCE). … Continue reading A Journey of a Thousand Fragments Begins with a Hypothesis
By: Cháylee Arellano and Quentin Burke Starting research in an unfamiliar field can be a daunting task, especially when that research has implications both foreign and domestic. Our NSF-REU program is underway this summer and is gearing up to be full of interesting new discoveries and experiences for us as budding bioarchaeological researchers. To begin studying the skeletal remains of past civilizations, we require some … Continue reading What We’ve Learned from REU Guest Speakers!
By: Victoria Calvin and Charles Downey Osteology is not for everyone. It can be very challenging learning and identifying hundreds of bones, their features, and how they articulate with one another in a semester, let alone two weeks. That is the ship we currently sit in collectively. However, it has been incredibly helpful that we both have had past osteological experiences. I, Victoria, took forensic … Continue reading Having an Osteoblast
By: Silvio Ernesto Mirabal Torres and Jeremy Simmons In discussing ethical standards for the discipline of bioarchaeology, Dr. Susan Guise Sheridan of the University of Notre Dame questioned the REU fellows: is it ethical to study human bones? Dr. Sheridan is a bioarchaeologist that has done tremendous work in the Near East on commingled assemblages. Given her past work, including running a successful NSF-REU program … Continue reading Is It Ethical to Study Human Bones?
By: Rachel Heil and Alyssa McGrath On the 31st of May, after a long and bumpy drive from University of South Alabama in Mobile to lunch in Tuscaloosa and a tour of the Anthropology Department at the University of Alabama, the students of the REU were on their way to Moundville Archaeological Park, the second largest Native American site in the United States to see … Continue reading Standing Where They Once Stood: Visiting Moundville
NSF REU Site: Bioarchaeology of Bronze Age Social Systems 