Congratulations to PhD Candidate Sydney Hunter on receiving the prestigious Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant from The National Science Foundation!  

Sydney’s dissertation project examines the relationship between agricultural production systems, the local environment, and socio-political organization in the Bronze/Iron Age of Central Asia. Her project explores how agriculture functioned in dry-summer oases outside of state-organized contexts and the scale at which oasis agriculture can be viewed as sustainable. Sydney uses archaeobotany, the study of ancient plant remains, in comparison to environmental indices and the archaeological record to explore these questions.