We are pleased to announce the recent appointment of Dr. Lynn Welton (effective September 1, 2021) as an Assistant Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology (CLTA) in the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations (University of Toronto).
Dr. Welton received her PhD in Near Eastern Archaeology from the University of Toronto, and has twenty years of field experience, having worked in Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, Iran and Ethiopia. Geographically, she focuses primarily on the Levant and Anatolia, especially on the Late Chalcolithic, Early Bronze Age and Early Iron Age, having published extensively on materials from the Amuq Plain in southern Turkey as part of her long-term involvement with the Tayinat Archaeological Project.
Lynn’s recent work as part of the CRANE Project reconstructs human-environment interaction using a combination of climate modelling and agent-based modelling to evaluate agricultural strategies and decision-making as responses to climate change, in addition to ongoing research into agricultural productivity and land use in the ancient Near East. During her recently completed Marie Curie fellowship at Durham University, she used isotopic analysis of animal skeletal remains to investigate the role of pastoral mobility in the rise of complex societies in the Jordan Valley and western Syria during the 5th-3rd millennia BCE. In the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations (NMC), she will teach courses in Near Eastern archaeology.