Dr Michelle Feider
Postdoctoral Researcher in Zooarchaeology

Profile

Biography

Michelle is a zooarchaeologist specialising in small mammals and herpetofauna.  She is particularly interested in how microfaunal remains can inform on the activities of people, such as by acting as indicators of sedentism, their use in exploring human-mediated dispersal, their potential use in diet, and how they are linked with disease epidemics.

Despite doing a BSc in Marine Biology (2004), Michelle decided to go in a different direction with her postgraduate study and completed an MSc in Osteoarchaeology at Bournemouth University in 2007.  After several years of working in commercial archaeology, and some unrelated fields, Michelle returned to Bournemouth University to complete her PhD in zooarchaeology, looking at Epipalaeolithic and early Neolithic microfauna in Anatolia.

Michelle joined the Department of Archaeology in January 2023 as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Zooarchaeology on the UKRI-funded RATTUS Project, led by Dr David Orton.

Career

2023 to present PDRA in Zooarchaeology

Michelle is currently working on the RATTUS Project, a UKRI-funded project led by David Orton, looking at the archaeology of rats, urbanism, and disease in past European societies.

This multi-disciplinary project combines traditional zooarchaeological analysis with Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS), ancient DNA, stable isotope analysis, and radiocarbon dating to explore the intertwined history of rats and humans over the past c.2500 years.

https://sites.google.com/york.ac.uk/rattus/home

2017 – 2022 PhD in Zooarchaeology

Michelle’s PhD research, undertaken at Bournemouth University (BU) explored the uses of microfauna in palaeoenvironmental reconstruction as well as how they could be used to inform the archaeology of sites and human lifeways, through their uses in diet, and as indicators of sedentism etc. This work utilised assemblages from important sites in Anatolia, including Çatalhöyük, Boncuklu Höyük, and Pınarbaşı and was supervised by Dr Emma Jenkins (BU), Professor Mark Maltby (BU), and Dr Peter Andrews.

Departmental roles

PalaeoHub Postdoc rep

Research

Overview

Michelle’s research interests focus on what the bones of small, often incidental animals, such as mice, voles, shrews, and frogs etc., can tell us about how human lived in the past, and the impact people had on both the environment around them as well as changing behaviours in other animal species.  Michelle is also interested in using small mammals as bioproxies for global human movement including understanding the extent of trade networks, as well as the perceptions of commensal small mammals over time.

Projects

RATTUS: Rats and the Archaeology of Trade, Urbanism, and Disease in Past European Societies 

External activities

Memberships

• International Council for Archaeozoology (ICAZ)
• Association for Environmental Archaeology (AEA)
• British Association of Near Eastern Archaeology (BANEA)