Lisa Janz
Adjunct Faculty, Department of Anthropology
B.A. (McGill), M.A. (Arizona), Ph.D. (Arizona)
Life & Health Sciences DNA C225, ext.6369, lisajanz@trentu.ca
Research Interests
Themes: East Asia, human and landscape palaeoecology, diet change, animal domestication/management, spread of pastoralism, Quaternary extinctions and conservation, heritage collaboration, collections-based research,
public archaeology
Methods: Zooarchaeology, lithics, spatial analysis, survey and excavation
Current Projects
Dr. Janz co-directs a Mongolian-Canadian field project, Gobi-Steppe Neolithic, based in far eastern Mongolia and the Gobi Desert. In collaboration with Mongolian colleagues, she is investigating how climate change and resulting societal changes influenced diet, land-use, and the adoption of domesticates. Three ongoing projects include: "Diet Breadth and Landscape Ecology", which investigates shifts in Pleistocene-Holocene ecology and how it influenced diet choice through the Palaeolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Age; "Frontiers in Sedentism and Domestication", focused on excavation of the only known sedentary Neolithic site in Mongolia and using geoarchaeology, aDNA and stable isotopes to explore the possibility of wild cattle management, and "Expanding Frontier and Building the Sphere", studying the role of trade in the rise of Bronze Age pastoralism in East Asia.
Dr. Lisa Janz, received $399,521 over five years for research into how major climate changes following the last Ice Age influenced human adaptation in ways that completely shifted human-environmental relationships. More information on funded Trent research projects.
Graduate student opportunities are available in zooarchaeology, experimental usewear analysis of stone tool assemblages, spatial analysis, digital survey and mapping, palaeobotany, and stable isotope analysis. If you are interested, please contact Dr. Janz directly.