Main content start

Krish Seetah

Associate Professor of Anthropology
Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment
Department
Ph.D., University of Cambridge (2007)
M.Sc., Bournemouth University (2002)
M.Sc., University of Surrey (1998)
B.Sc., University of Surrey (1996)

I am a zooarchaeologist, whose focus is primarily on colonisation and colonialism. My zooarchaeological research has used butchery analysis (with the benefit of professional and ethnographic actualistic experience) to investigate agency within the human-animal relationship. More recently, I have employed geometric morphometrics (GMM) as a mechanism for identifying and distinguishing animal populations. This approach to studying colonial activity centres on understanding how people manipulate animal bodies, both during life and after death.

Alongside the strictly faunal research is a research interest in technologies associated with animal processing. This has been used to investigate issues of technology, trade and socio-economic attitudes within colonial contexts in the Mediterranean (Venice & Montenegro) and the Baltic (Poland, Latvia & Lithuania).

I am also the Director of the ‘Mauritian Archaeology and Cultural Heritage’ (MACH) project, which studies European Imperialism and colonial activity. This project centres on the movement of peoples and material cultures, specifically within the contexts of slavery and Diaspora. The work of this project has focused on key sites in Mauritius and is based on a systematic programme of excavation and environmental sampling. The underlying aims are to better understand the transition from slavery to indentured labour following abolition, the extent and diversity of trade in the region and the environmental consequences of intense, monoculture, agriculture.

Contact

Fields of Interest

Archaeology of colonialism and colonisation; medieval crusading in Northern Europe; Venetian Republican expansion in the Adriatic; post-medieval globalisation in the IOW; zooarchaeology, food culture