Meet a Member: Kaitlyn Stiles

Kaitlyn Stiles is an Associate Member at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. She is working on a dissertation in Anthropology and Archaeology at the University of Tennessee.

Q: What is your particular field of interest?
A: Bioarchaeology, which is the study of human skeletal material in archaeological contexts. I’m most interested in the socio-cultural aspects of how the body interacts with culture, how we can use the body to understand culture, and the dynamic relationship between the two. I’m particularly interested in Mediterranean archaeology because I think there is great opportunity to understand the lives of people beyond traditional archaeology, through the use of archaeological sciences like bioarchaeology.

Q: How did you get interested in this topic?
A: It was a process of getting deeper and deeper into archaeology from being interested in history, to figuring out archeology was a real career and not just something people did in the movies, to studying anthropology in undergrad to working on an excavation in Greece at Mitrou. It was there that I saw the excavation of human skeletal material. I was not allowed to excavate the skeletons as a lowly first year excavator, but I was fascinated with the idea that this human person could be the one who built this building, or made this pottery, or wore this jewelry. I quickly became fascinated with the human body and the human skeleton and how culture affects humans on a very physical level. I went to a mortuary field school in Poland and then studied skeletons in Amarna, Egypt and then applied to grad school at the University of Tennessee, which is known for biological anthropology and has a very active classics department. One of my current advisors, Aleydis van de Moortel, was the director of my first dig, so it’s come full circle, and she’s been instrumental in making sure I can make my way in the world of Greek archaeology and bones here.

Q: So what are you working on now?
A: Right now I am collecting data for my dissertation, which is currently titled “Biosocial Identities in Late Bronze Age Central Greece”. I am studying the manifestation of both biological and social identities in skeletons from a non-palatial site, and how that information can be understood in the social, political, and economic context of Late Bronze Age or Mycenaean culture.

Q: What resources are you using to do your research?
A: I’m looking at bones from a Mycenaean chamber tomb cemetery, Golemi Agios Georgios, in East Lokris consisting of 31 chamber tombs. Sadly only 23 tombs actually have bones that I can study in them. However, that is turning out to be plenty of material. I’m also using information gleaned from excavations of Late Bronze Age settlements and cemeteries to aid me as I interpret the patterns I am seeing.

Q: What questions are you looking to answer in your research?
A: The main questions I am interested in are: What characterizes a rock cut chamber tomb cemetery in terms of the physical people and their lived experiences? How can I relate that to the broader Late Bronze Age context in terms of how this specific community might be interacting with the better known Mycenaean palatial culture? Questions within these include: How do these skeletons relate to each other on a social level? How do the people relate to each other in biological traits? I’m looking at a variety of biological aspects including pathologies, demography, health status, and activity markers. I’m looking at how those aspects might define a particular group of people, especially if they are gathered in the same tomb. Is there a relationship between the people within each tomb? Are a majority of people expressing similar biological traits? How do those traits relate across the cemetery? Are there differences across the cemetery? What might that mean on a cultural level? I think looking at how people died can show a lot about how people lived, and even how these people related to Mycenaean palatial centers.

Q: What is the challenge in your research on this project?
A: Our perennial problem in biological anthropology is sample size. Many of the ways we can look at relatedness of people requires a large sample size. We can try to look at relatedness through something called non-metric traits which are traits in the skeleton which are passed from parent to child but have no effect on function. Because sample size is always a problem, we have to pull in other archaeological evidence and/or look at a collection of other physical traits such as activity markers that might suggest that they were involved in similar lifestyle, indicating that they might be a family or family group.

Q: What brought you to the ASCSA?
A: The Wiener Laboratory primarily. The facilities that the ASCSA and Wiener Lab has to offer an archaeological scientist such as myself doing research in Greece are unparalleled.

Q: What is your favorite restaurant in Athens?
A: I really like the Black Sheep in Pangrati, it’s probably one of the first ones I will take my parents to when they come visit.

Q: If you were a Greek god or goddess which one would you be?
A: When I was a lowly first year grad student I named my project Artemis. I love the idea of an independent women who can hunt things and succeed on her own.

Q: Where else in Greece would you like to visit?
A: I’ve already gotten to go so many places with the American School because of the amazing trips offered. However, I would like to see more of the Cycladic islands as well as places like Lesvos and Cyprus--they have such an interesting modern history that is forensically interesting, but tragic.

Q: What do you get from your experience at the ASCSA?
A: Being in the Wiener Lab and working at the school gives me opportunities to meet a wide variety of scholars with a wide variety of interests. I’m very interested in interdisciplinary collaborations because I want my work to be accessible to someone who isn’t an osteologist or a bioarchaeologist in a way they can understand and utilize it. I’ve also been building relationships with the Greek archaeological community. I’ve been able to forge a really beneficial relationship with one of the archaeologists who works in the Ephoria that excavated my material.
In the course of the last two years, I have made friends that I will hopefully have forever. It’s nice to meet young scholars you know will be there for the rest of your career. You’ve come from the same place and struggled in the same ways. They understand you in a way other people can not.