Sophia Perdikaris

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Sophia Perdikaris

Director School of Global Integrative Studies University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Contact

Address
OLDH 816A
Lincoln NE 68588-0368
Phone
402-472-2114 On-campus 2-2114
Email
sperdikaris2@unl.edu

I am an environmental archaeologist with a specialty in animal bones from archaeological sites-zooarchaeology. I am interested in people – environment interactions through time and the response of both to big climatic events. Whether in the field or at home at UNL as Director of the newly formed School of Global Integrative Studies, the home of Anthropology, Geography and Global Studies, I like to work in a transdisciplinary approach connecting all sciences, humanities and the arts to address global challenges. I look forward to having our team grow and continue to make meaningful contributions to our community through collaborative science of relevance.

Education

  • Hunter College, CUNY, BA/MA
  • Graduate School and University Center, M.Phil.
  • Graduate School and University Center, Ph.D.

Research Interests

Environmental archaeology, Zooarchaeology

Research and Current Projects

I have worked in Northern Norway and Iceland concentrating on the transition from the Viking Age to medieval times and how the early commercialization of the cod fisheries (AD 1200) affected the people and economy of the area.

The last few years I have been focusing on the island of Barbuda in the Caribbean where I explore how heritage work can inform sustainability questions for the future. Environmental sustainability is a challenge for every community, including communities in Antigua and Barbuda and this was tragically highlighted by the aftermath of hurricane Irma in 2017. Sustainability means understanding human and environmental change over time: what is changing, how it is changing, why it is changing, and what we can do to mitigate change, adapt to change, or both. By using a transdisciplinary approach sustainability projects combining the natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, and the arts in a collaborative research perspective that connects scientists, local communities, and youth can maximize our understanding and response.

Selected Publications

Grouard, Sandrine, S. Perdikaris, N. E. Rodrigues and I. R. Quitmyer
2019 Size estimation of Pre-Columbian Caribbean fish. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 29(3) 452-468. John Wiley & Sons. Ltd.

Boger, R., Sophia Perdikaris and Isabel-Rivera-Collazo.
2019 Cultural Heritage and local ecological knowledge under threat: Two Caribbean examples from Barbuda and Puerto Rico. Journal of Anthropology and Archaeology. December 2019, Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 1-14.

Boger, R. and Sophia Perdikaris
2019 After Irma, Disaster Capitalism Threatens Cultural Heritage in Barbuda. NACLA

Perdikaris, S., A. Bain, S. Grouard, K. Baker, E. Gonzalez, A. R. Hoelzel, H. Miller, R. Persaud, N. Sykes.
2017 From Icon of Empire to National Emblem: The Fallow Deer of Barbuda. Environmental Archaeology: The Journal of Human Palaeoecology (Wallman &. Rivera guest editors).

Perdikaris, S.; A. Bain, R. Boger, S. Grouard, A.M. Faucher, V. Rousseau, R. Persaud, S. Noel, M. Brown, J. Medina-Triana
2017 Cultural heritage under threat: The effects of Climate Change on the small island of Barbuda, Lesser Antilles. Chapter 15, (Tom Dawson ed.) Oxford University Press.

Perdikaris, S. and T. H. McGovern
2008 Viking Age Economics and the Origins of Commercial Cod Fisheries in the North Atlantic. In Consequences of the North Atlantic Fisheries in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period. Interdisciplinary approaches in history, archaeology, and biology L. Sicking (ed.) . Brill Publishers, Holland.

Perdikaris, S.
1999 From chiefly provisioning to commercial fishery: Long term economic change in Arctic Norway. Peter Rowley Conwy (ed). World Archaeology Vol.30(3):388-402.

Perdikaris, S.
1996 Scaly Heads and Tales: Detecting Commercialization in Early Fisheries Archaeofauna. World Ichthyoarchaeology and the Archaeological record. Proceedings of the 8th meeting of the ICAZ Fish Remains Working Group, Madrid, Spain; A Morales (ed.). 5 (1996): 21-33.

Perdikaris, S.
1996 Status and Economy: A Zooarchaeological Perspective from the Iron Age Site of Åker, Norway. Debating Complexity D. A. Meyer, P. C. Dawson and D. T. Hanna (eds), - Proceedings of the 26th Annual Conference of the Archaeological Association of the University of Calgary, Canada.