Amy Margaris ’96

I am an anthropological archaeologist interested in hunter-gatherer ecology, and especially the technological adaptations of foragers living in marine and cold climates.

My most recent research with archaeological collections has taken me to beautiful Kodiak, Alaska , home of Native Alutiiq peoples whose recent ancestors practiced a rich coastal economy. My work on skeletal technologies blends collections analysis with ethnohistory and materials science to better understand the links between technological choices (and change) and raw material properties.

I am also interested in museums and the history of ethnological collecting. Oberlin College houses a unique 19th century ethnological collection that contains roughly 1,600 objects acquired by missionaries and naturalists from a variety of regions, including southern Africa, Micronesia, Thailand, and the North American Arctic.

The following website/database provides background on the collection, images of its contents, and research resources.

At Oberlin, I teach courses on hunter-gatherers, colonialism, introductory archaeology, and human evolution.

I have published on these and related topics in such journals as Museum Anthropology, Ethnoarchaeology, and the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory.