Michael Gregg

Mount Allison University, Anthropology, Faculty Member

University of Pennsylvania, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Consulting Scholar, late prehistory of the Transcaspian region

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My current research projects include: examination of the earliest uses of ceramic technologies in a narrow geographic corridor linking the Caucasus, the Middle East and Central Asia; development of new analytical criteria for the unambiguous identification of organic residues surviving in archaeological pottery; and genetic analyses of human skeletal remains recovered from late Pleistocene and early Holocene occupations of Hotu and Belt caves in northern Iran. My future plans include new excavations at Hotu Cave beginning in the summer of 2015.
Phone: 506.364.2178 or 215.253.8747
Address: Department of Anthropology
Mount Allison University
144 Main Street, Sackville, NB, Canada, E4L 1A7

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Enrico Cirelli

Università di Bologna

Gabriel Gutierrez-Alonso

University of Salamanca

Yannis Hamilakis

Brown University

Andrea Squitieri

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

Amanda Kelly

University College Dublin

Veena Das

Johns Hopkins University

Irina Kolesnik

Moscow State University

Eszter Banffy

Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Eckart Frahm

Yale University

Ian G Baird

University of Wisconsin-Madison

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Papers by Michael Gregg

Excavations at a Late Neolithic site in Wadi Ziqlab, northern Jordan

by Michael Gregg, Edward B Banning, Kevin Gibbs, and Seiji Kadowaki

Antiquity, 2004

In 2002 and 2004, the University of Toronto conducted excavations in Wadi Ziqlab, northern Jordan... more

Gregg, THornton, 2012, A Preliminary Analysis of Prehistoric Pottery from Carleton Coon’s Excavations of Hotu and Belt Caves in Northern Iran: Implications for Future Research into the Emergence of Village Life in Western Central Asia

This paper presents reconstructed excavation plans and stratigraphic profiles of the 1949 and 195... more This paper presents reconstructed excavation plans and stratigraphic profiles of the 1949 and 1951 excavations of Hotu and Belt Caves (Ghar-e Hotu and Ghar-e Kamarband) in northern Iran based on examination of Carleton Coon's unpublished field notes and drawings in the University of Pennsylvania Museum, Harvard University and Smithsonian Institution archives. Recalculated and calibrated radiocarbon dates of early Mesolithic to post-Achaemenid period occupations of these caves are also presented in the context of cultural horizons or stratigraphic units from which assays were supposedly obtained. However, inconsistencies in the methods used in the recovery and recording of discoveries at both Hotu and Belt Caves (combined with the wide range of statistical variability associated with early 'conventional' radiocarbon dating techniques) prevent a high-resolution occupational sequence from being developed, and inferences on trajectories of cultural influence from being conclusively drawn. These uncertainties underline the pressing need for further fieldwork aimed at uncovering the natural and cultural processes giving rise to the emergence of village life in western Central Asia following the last Ice Age.

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Gregg, M.W., Slater, G.F., 2010, A new method for the extraction, isolation and transesterification of free fatty acids in archaeological pottery, Archaeometry 52/5:833-854.

This paper presents evidence for increased recovery of organic residues from archaeological potte... more This paper presents evidence for increased recovery of organic residues from archaeological pottery through use of a microwave-assisted liquid chromatography protocol. C 16:0 and C 18:0 saturated fatty acids were obtained from archaeological potsherds recovered from nine Neolithic settlements in the Middle East dating between 4700 and 7300 cal BC, including materials that had not produced evidence for the survival of any lipid species through use of 'conventional'solvent extraction techniques. Compound-specific isotopic analyses of C 16:0 and C 18:0 fatty acids in potsherd extracts subsequently revealed d 13 C/d 12 C compositions consistent with modern subcutaneous fats of wild boar and goats pastured on lands adjacent to the Jordan Valley, and residues from a modern pottery vessel used in the manufacturing of butter, cheese and yogurt in central Turkey. These results are presented as an illustration of capabilities of the microwave-assisted recovery protocol. The reclamation of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids from archaeological pottery fragments recovered from a number of the earliest ceramic horizons in the Middle East is herewith reported, and the extraction methods and instrumental analytical techniques are described.

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Gregg, M.W., Janetsky, J., Chazan, M., 2011, Variability in Symbolic Behavior in the Southern Levant at the end of the Pleistocene, Before Farming.,Volume 1/article 1.

This paper presents evidence for a high degree of variability in symbolic representation at the m... more This paper presents evidence for a high degree of variability in symbolic representation at the multi-component, Epipalaeolithic hunter-gatherer encampment at Wadi Mataha in the Petra Basin of southern Jordan. Twelve sandstone, siltstone, basalt and flint objects were recovered from Geometric Kebaran and Early and Late Natufian occupations of the site during excavations in 1999 and 2001 and subsequently examined using both optical and scanning electron microscopy techniques. A number of these artefacts show clear iconographic links and similarities in patterning and form to art objects from the Mount Carmel, western Galilee and central Negev regions,

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