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Morell-Hart Shanti, Associate Professor

photo of Shanti Morell-Hart

Shanti Morell-Hart

Associate Professor

Faculty
Department of Anthropology


McMaster Paleoethnobotanical Research Facility (MPERF)

Area(s) of Interest:

Biography

My research centers on gastronomic heritage, the origins and impacts of agriculture in the development of societies, contributions of plants to ritualized activity, the range and diversity of botanical practices, and transformations in human-environment dynamics. I pursue multidisciplinary approaches to human problems, both past and present, and the dynamic role of ethnobotanical and spatial research in this endeavor. Methodologically, I employ paleoethnobotany, archival research, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) modeling. I also incorporate linguistic approaches to practice and foodways, charting the dynamic language of ethnobotanical activity in production, reproduction, and transformation. I particularly focus on narratives of "collapse" and resilience as related to human negotiations of ecological variability.

Currently, I am engaged in SSHRC-funded research in Mexico (Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Quintana Roo), as well as projects in Honduras and Guatemala. I am also completing a book titled Gastronomic Heritage: Stakes in Antiquity (McGill-Queen's University Press) that investigates the role of archaeogastronomy in narratives of food security, revitalization, and resilience. I explore the ways that gastronomic heritage is established through ties to ancient foodways and contextualized through modern conceptions of health, sustainability, and identity.

Methodologically, my work employs a multi-pronged approach to human-plant practice. I extract botanical residues from diverse loci including ceramic vessels, stone implements, and sediments, to analyze macroremains and microremains (seeds, phytoliths, and starch grains). I compare these results with historic and ethnographic narratives, and modeled geographic patterns. The use of GIS allows me to explore the spatial dimension of ethnobotanical practice, in the way that the use of paleoethnobotany allows me to explore the botanical dimension of placemaking.

I am also the director of the McMaster Paleoethnobotanical Research Facility (MPERF), a state-of-the-art laboratory made possible through the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI) funding.  These facilities are available for extractions, identifications, and analyses of botanical residues from Mesoamerica and Ontario.

I will be accepting MA and PhD students applying this year for the 2021 fall cohort. My teaching and supervisory interests include: foodways, ethnoecology, paleoethnobotanical analyses, landscape approaches, Mesoamerican studies, and gastronomic heritage.

Teaching

Search course offerings in Anthropology

 

Courses (2022-2023)

Fall

  • ANTHROP 4AA3 - Materiality, Matter and Social Lives
  • ANTHROP 714 - Readings in Archaeology
  • ANTHROP 749 - Gastronomic Heritage

Winter

  • ANTHROP 2BB3 - Ancient Mesoamerica: Aztecs to Zapotecs
  • ANTHROP 3K03 - Archaeological Interpretation

Courses (2021-2022)

Fall

  • On Research Leave

Winter

  • ANTHROP 4CC3 - Archaeology of Foodways
  • ANTHROP 714 - Readings in Archaeology

Research

Select Publications

*** - undergraduate when submitted; ** - graduate when submitted; * - alum when submitted

 

Morell-Hart, Shanti 2021 Everyday Knowledge and Apothecary Craft: Pharmacopoeias of Ancient Northwestern Honduras. Cambridge Archaeological Journal:1-21. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774321000421.

Morell-Hart, Shanti, Melanie Pugliese, Cameron McNeil, and Edy Barrios 2021 Cuisine at the Crossroads. Latin American Antiquity:1-16. https://doi.org/10.1017/laq.2021.34.

Golden, Charles, Andrew K. Scherer, Whittaker Schroder, Timothy Murtha, Shanti Morell-Hart, Juan Carlos Fernandez-Diaz, Socorro del Pilar Jiménez Álvarez, Omar Alcover Firpi, Mark Agostini, Alexandra Bazarsky, Morgan Clark, G. Van Kollias III, Mallory Matsumoto, Alejandra Roche Recinos, Joshua Schnell, Bethany Whitlock 2021 Airborne Lidar Survey, Density-Based Clustering, and Ancient Maya Settlement in the Upper Usumacinta River Region of Mexico and Guatemala. Remote Sensing 3(2021):4109. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13204109.

Morell-Hart, Shanti
2020    Plant Foodstuffs of the Ancient Maya: Agents and Matter, Medium and Message. In Her Cup for Sweet Cacao: Food in Ancient Maya Society, edited by T. Ardren, pp. 124-160. University of Texas Press, Austin, TX. https://books.google.com/books?id=OTgBEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT104.

Morell-Hart, Shanti
2020    The Dish of Theseus. Semiotic Review No.4: Im/materialities (Oct. 2020). https://www.semioticreview.com/ojs/index.php/sr/article/view/60

Schroder, Whittaker, Timothy Murtha, Charles Golden, Armando Anaya Hernández, Andrew Scherer, Shanti Morell-Hart, Angélica Almeyda Zambrano, Eben Broadbent and Madeline Brown
2020    The Lowland Maya Settlement Landscape: Environmental LiDAR and Ecology. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 33:102543. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2020.102543

**Bérubé, Éloi, Guy Hepp, and Shanti Morell-Hart
2020     Paleoethnobotanical Evidence of Early Formative Period Diet in Coastal Oaxaca, Mexico.  Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 29(February 2020).   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2019.102047

Golden, Charles, Andrew Scherer, Stephen Houston, Whittaker Schroder, Shanti Morell-Hart, Socorro del Pilar Jiménez Álvarez, George Van Kollias, Moises Yerath Ramiro Talavera, Jeffrey Dobereiner, and Omar Alcover Firpi
2020     Centering the Classic Maya Kingdom of Sak Tz’i’.  Journal of Field Archaeology 45(2):67-85. https://doi.org/10.1080/00934690.2019.1684748

Morell-Hart, Shanti, Rosemary A. Joyce, John S. Henderson, and Rachel Cane
2019  Ethnoecology in Pre-Hispanic Central America: Foodways and Human-Plant Interfaces. Ancient Mesoamerica. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0956536119000014

Morell-Hart, Shanti
2019   Techniques for Integrating Data from Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Residues.  Journal of Field Archaeology 44(4). https://doi.org/10.1080/00934690.2019.1591917

Farahani, Alan, Katherine L. Chiou, Rob Q. Cuthrell, Anna Harkey, Shanti Morell-Hart, Christine A. Hastorf, and Payson D. Sheets
2017   Exploring Culinary Practices through GIS Modeling at Joya de Cerén, El Salvador. In Social Perspectives from Environmental Archaeology Data: Food, Place, and People.  Maria Bruno and Matthew Sayre, editors.  Springer.

Luna Erreguerena, Pilar, James C. Chatters, Dominique Rissolo, Joaquin Arroyo-Cabrales, Deborah Bolnick, Shanti Morell-Hart, Patricia A. Beddows, Eduard Reinhardt, Alberto Nava-Blank, Alejandro Alvarez, Franco Attolini,  and Roberto Chávez-Arce
2017  Hoyo Negro: Un Sitio Prehistórico en Quintana Roo.  In Investigación, Conservación, y Manejo del Patrimonio Cultural Sumergido en México.  Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH).  Distrito Federal, México.

Chatters, James C., Dominique Rissolo, Joaquin Arroyo-Cabrales, Thomas W. Stafford, Jr., Brian M. Kemp, Alejandro Alvarez, Alberto Nava-Blank, Franco Attolini, Patricia A. Beddows, Eduard Reinhardt, Shawn Kovacs, Shawn Collins, Shanti Morell-Hart, Roberto Chávez-Arce, Susan Bird, and Pilar Luna Erreguerena
2017    Hoyo Negro: Tapping the Paleoanthropological and Paleoecological Potential of a Deeply Submerged, Underground Chamber on the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. In The Archaeology of Underwater Caves.  Peter Campbell, Editor.  Oxbow Books.

Herlich, Jessica and Shanti Morell-Hart
2015   Visualization and Collaborative Practice in Paleoethnobotany.  The SAA Archaeological Record 15(4):24-30.

Morell-Hart, Shanti
2015   The Scene of Disciplined Seeing.  Then Dig.  http://arf.berkeley.edu/then-dig/2015/06/the-scene-of-disciplined-seeing/

Morell-Hart, Shanti
2015     Paleoethnobotanical Analysis, Post-Processing.  Method and Theory in Paleoethnobotany.  Jade D'Alpoim Guedes, John Marston, and Christina Warinner, editors. University Press of Colorado. 

Chatters, James C., Douglas J. Kennett, Yemane Asmerom, Brian M. Kemp, Victor Polyak, Alberto Nava Blank, Patricia Beddows, Eduard Reinhart, Joaquin Arroyo-Cabrales, Deborah A. Bolnik, Ripan S. Malhi, Brendan Culleton, Pilar Luna Erreguerena, Shanti Morell-Hart, Dominique Rissolo, and Thomas W. Stafford
2014    Late Pleistocene Human Skeleton and mtDNA Links Paleoamericans and Modern Native Americans.  Science 344(6185), 16 May 2014.

Morell-Hart, Shanti, Rosemary A. Joyce and John S. Henderson
2014     Multi-proxy Analysis of Plant Use at Formative Period Los Naranjos, Honduras.  Latin American Antiquity 25(1). 

Morehart, Christopher and Shanti Morell-Hart
2013    Beyond the Ecofact: Toward a Social Paleoethnobotany in Mesoamerica. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory20(3).

Morell-Hart, Shanti
2012     Foodways and Resilience under Apocalyptic Conditions.  Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment (CAFE) 34(2).