About me

I am a zooarchaeologist interested in how humans and animals have shaped one another’s histories, and how the study of animal remains can illuminate broader questions about subsistence, mobility, domestication, social complexity, and the development of early human societies. My research brings together traditional zooarchaeology and biomolecular approaches to investigate human–animal relationships across different environments, archaeological contexts, and historical periods, with a particular focus on Mongolia and West Africa.

My interest in zooarchaeology

My interest in zooarchaeology began in 2019, when I volunteered on an archaeological expedition at Bara, a royal suburb and necropolis associated with the Oyo Empire in southwestern Nigeria. Through conversations with the project’s principal investigator, I became increasingly aware of significant gaps in the archaeology of Nigeria and West Africa, particularly the limited use of faunal evidence to investigate the relationships between people and animals in the past. Working on the project throughout the remainder of my undergraduate studies gave me firsthand experience of these gaps and helped shape my interest in developing zooarchaeological approaches suited to the archaeological questions and material histories of the region.

At first, I was particularly interested in the role of horses in the Oyo Empire and their significance in the emergence, expansion, and organization of complex societies in West Africa. Horses offer a particularly compelling avenue for investigating the relationships between animals, political authority, warfare, trade, and social identity. Over time, however, my interests expanded beyond a single species or historical context. I became increasingly interested in the comparative study of human–animal relationships and in understanding how animals contributed to the development of complex societies in different parts of the world.

From traditional zooarchaeology to biomolecular archaeology

During my undergraduate studies, I developed a strong interest in the scientific analysis of archaeological animal remains. Alongside my independent training in faunal identification, I became particularly interested in stable isotope analysis and Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS), techniques that can reveal aspects of animal life and human–animal interactions that are not always accessible through conventional archaeological methods alone.

In the final two years of my undergraduate degree, I pursued self-directed training in zooarchaeological identification through extensive study and practical work with comparative skeletal collections in zoological museums and veterinary departments at the University of Ibadan and the University of Ilorin, Nigeria. This experience strengthened my interest in the anatomy, identification, and interpretation of animal remains as archaeological evidence.

In 2021, I completed my undergraduate thesis, a preliminary faunal analysis of archaeological material from Ikija, Nigeria. I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Archaeology with First-Class Honours and subsequently began a direct-entry PhD in Anthropology at the University of Toronto.

My research has since developed around a central question: How can animal remains, when studied through archaeological, ecological, and biomolecular approaches, help us reconstruct the changing relationships between humans, animals, and their environments?