Katherine Grillo

My research interests center on the materiality of cattle-based pastoralism in eastern Africa, and the ways that ceramic technologies, for example, have been a critical part of mobile pastoralist repertoires through time and space. My doctoral research was an ethnoarchaeological study of material culture in Samburu herding communities in northern Kenya, and I am now focusing attention on expanding our archaeological understanding of the Pastoral Neolithic period in eastern Africa. I currently co-direct two major NSF-funded field projects, one examining the social significance of monumental "pillar sites" built by the region's earliest herders in the Turkana Basin, northwestern Kenya, and one examining the largest Pastoral Neolithic settlement site in eastern Africa farther south at Luxmanda, Tanzania. I also lead interdisciplinary research on pastoralist foodways, past and present: through lipid residue analysis of Pastoral Neolithic ceramics, for example, our team recently published evidence for the earliest dairy processing in eastern Africa and its implications for the origins of lactase persistence. All projects are geared with an eye towards improving our understanding of pastoralist adaptations and resilience in Africa's dryland environments.