Biological Anthropology Graduate Students

Name: Robin Quataert 

Email: robinqua@buffalo.edu

Program: Biological Anthropology

Advisor: Dr. Joyce Sirianni

Academic Interest: My interests lie in reconstructing the health and diet of past populations and how these are constructed by identity. My dissertation project focuses on how early medieval identity was formed and manifested in a population from Romania. The cemetery comes from an area that was occupied and ruled by various ethnic groups throughout the medieval ages. Traces of identity can be found not only in the burial practices but also embodied in the skeletal remains. My master’s thesis entitled Steele: Analysis of an Early Archaic Cremation Site from Southern Indiana analyzed burned bones from an Early Archaic indigenous population in Indiana. This research has connected me to a side project in Romania at a Late Bronze Age burial mound.


Key Words: bioarchaeology, health, diet, Romania, Medieval, cremation, Early Archaic