Biography

My research focus is animal husbandry and meat consumption from late Prehistory to historical times. I develop an interdisciplinary perspective, including zooarchaeology, stable isotope analysis, taphonomy and paleopathology.

I have also contributed to studies on ancient DNA, dental microwear, geometric morphometrics and biogeography, and I have developed analytical tools for the reconstruction of age-of-death profiles using Bayesian statistics (Valenzuela-Lamas 2008, Valenzuela-Lamas & Pozo 2011), as well as open software for biometric analysis (zoolog - R package; Pozo et al. 2023).

My scientific career includes the Josep Barberà archeology prize (2008), research activity in 5 different countries (Spain, France, Portugal, Tunisia, United Kingdom, with a total of 9 years and 10 months abroad), and the achievement of highly competitive projects (FCT-posdoutoramento bag, Marie Curie IEF, ERC-Starting Grant-ZooMWest).

My experience in the integration of different analytical techniques – in particular zooarchaeology, isotopic analysis and social complexity – has materialized in numerous high-impact publications (https://scholar.google.es/citations?user=EWe_WVAAAAAJ&hl=es).

I advocate for scientific collaboration and transparency, and I am committed to explain research to all publics, including collectives in risk of social exclusion, people with some disability and newcomers, among others.

I am also committed to take archaeology out of the museum, and present archaeological data to help finding answers to present-day challenges.