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Stephen R. Merritt

Associate Professor stmerr@uab.edu
University Hall (UH) 3129
(205) 934-2742

Research and Teaching Interests: Paleoanthropology, zooarchaeology, taphonomy, actualistic studies, experimental archaeology, paleoecology, hominin carnivory, butchery, human osteology, forensic anthropology, sustainability, foodways

Office Hours: By appointment

Education:

  • BS, Rutgers University, Evolutionary Anthropology
  • MA, Rugers University, Anthropology
  • PhD, Rutgers University, Anthropology

My research explores the paleoecology and evolution of human tool-assisted carnivory. Eating animals and using sharp-edged stone tools to butcher is an important example of the intersection between the human diet and technology. The ecological contexts surrounding foraging behavior and technological adaptations have likely influenced major trends in human evolution like brain size expansion and increasing complexity of food production and consumption. In the contemporary world, diet is an important lens for studying culture and human health. By examining industrialized food production, it is easy to appreciate the technological power that humanity wields as it produces more abundant, nutritious, cost-effective foods. Precisely because of the unprecedented ecological power our technology affords, humanity must act responsibly as we control other species’ genotypes and impact our ecosystems.

The important ways in which diet and technology are intertwined in the modern world brings up questions about their origins. How did we come to be the top consumer in all of the world’s ecosystems? To answer questions about the paleoecology of tool-assisted carnivory, I have conducted fieldwork at Koobi Fora, in northern Kenya, where the deep history of human carnivory is encoded in archaeological assemblages of butchered bone that date to approximately 1-2 million years ago. At this time in human prehistory, Oldowan stone tool technology was involved in a dietary shift toward large mammal carcass consumption, an ecological transition that put our ancestors in direct competition with ancient carnivore guild members. As a zooarchaeologist and paleoanthropologist, I also use information generated in modern-day experimental contexts to reconstruct the role ancient humans and carnivores played in the formation of fragmentary bone assemblages.

As a taphonomist for the Koobi Fora Paleoanthropology Research Project, and I also helped coordinate the Koobi Fora Field School. This six-week summer field course introduces students to fieldwork in East Africa, beginning with modern landscape studies in a savanna mosaic environment on Kenya’s Laikipia Plateau, and applies these ideas to independent field-based research projects at Koobi Fora. Students working with me have conducted archaeological and paleontological surveys to determine which bones and how many animals were present in archaeological sites and on the surface of sedimentary outcrops and described the incidence of hominin butchery marks, carnivore tooth marks, and other taphonomic variables. Other student projects involved experimental studies that examined butchery marks created with replicated Oldowan stone tools.

Recently, I have broadened my scholarly attention and teaching to explore local examples of environmental racism in Birmingham. Here, urban agriculture, science education and other examples reveal injustices and open conversations about how to proceed for a more equitable future.

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