Dr Maria Fontanals-Coll
Research Associate

Profile

Biography

Maria is a Biologist and Physical Anthropologist, with a passionate interest in understanding all the processes that influenced the subsistence patterns and the way of life of ancient communities. Especially the dietary revolution occurred with the adoption of farming practices during the Mesolithic – Neolithic transition.

She joined BioArCh as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postodctoral fellow to conduct the project “NEOMEDIS: Neolithic Mediterranean diet through stable isotope analysis”, with Prof Oliver Craig and Dr André Carlo Colonese as supervisors.

Having graduated with a BSc degree in Biology from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in 2009, focusing on Animal Biology, she went on to study for an MSc degree in Human Biology, run jointly between the Universitat de Barcelona and Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. She completed her MSc dissertation on the palaeodietary reconstruction of the Mesolithic groups of the Portuguese Sado Valley through Carbon and Nitrogen stable isotope analysis (δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N), in 2011.

Maria completed a PhD in Biodiversity (specialty in Biological Anthropology) at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in 2015, on the subsistence patterns of the Neolithic communities from the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula, using δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N analysis as the main technique of study. 

Research

Overview

My research interests focus in all the environmental and socio-economic aspects that influenced the subsistence patterns of ancient communities.  Bioarchaeology and the application of some biomolecular techniques are fantastic tools to get information about key aspects of human diet and mobility, social and econòmic evolution, health and the environment.

I have specialized in δ13C and δ15N stable isotope analysis, but I am particularly interested in combine multidisciplinary techniques to study the palaeodietary changes occurred in temporal transitions during the prehistory.

The NEOMEDIS: Neolithic Mediterranean diet through stable isotope analysis project combined a broad range of analytical techniques (δ13C, δ15N and δ34S analysis; CSIA-AA; Bayesian Model FRUITS) in order to shed more light about the effect/impact that the neolithization process had on the human diet. The project involved human, faunal and grain remains samples from different sites from eastern Iberian Peninsula, southern France and western Italy, with a chronology span that comprised the Mesolithic to the Middle Neolithic.

Projects

Previous projects

• Aproximación a las primeras comunidades neolíticas del N-E peninsular a través de sus prácticas funerarias (HAR2011-23149).
• Cambios en la alimentación humana en la transición mesolítico-primeros agricultores del Sur de la Península Ibérica (CGL2008-03368-E/BOS).
• Estudio de las características antropológicas de las poblaciones en transición Mesolítico-Neolítico del nordeste de la Península Ibérica (CGL2009- 07572-E/BOS).
• Estudio de las características antropológicas de las poblaciones en transición Mesolítico - primeros agricultores del sur de la Península Ibérica (PT2009-0018).