Prof. Lidar Sapir-Hen is Head of the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures. She is also curator of the Zooarchaeological Collections at the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History.
By bringing zooarchaeological evidence into broader archaeological and historical debates, she uses animals as a way of understanding how past societies functioned and how they changed. Her research explores the relationships between people, animals, and society in the past, with a particular focus on the southern Levant. Much of her work examines how the management, consumption, and perception of animals reflect broader social and cultural processes.
Her research on Bronze and Iron Age societies has shown how animal economies were shaped by historical and economic circumstances and how animals could acquire meanings extending far beyond their value as food. Her work on pigs has challenged their straightforward use as markers of ethnic identity and contributed to a reassessment of the development of the biblical pork prohibition.
A second major strand of her research concerns the beginnings of animal domestication. Her work examines changing relationships between humans and animals during the Neolithic, from hunting and the earliest forms of animal management to established herding economies. Current research investigates how different strategies of animal management affected the development and sustainability of early farming communities and the dispersal of domestic animals.
Spanning the Neolithic through the Islamic period, her work offers a long-term perspective on the changing roles of animals and their place in human societies.
More on the Laboratory of Zooarchaeology, research and people: http://zooarchtau.wixsite.com/sapirhenlab
