Biography
As an archaeologist, my work has primarily been focused on the southern Caribbean.
I earned a B.A. and MPhil in History from the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine. These degrees have been followed by a PGDip in Archaeology at the University College London and an M.A in Archaeology from the University of Oxford with a focus on Maritime Archaeology.
I am a Special Cambridge Caribbean Scholarship recipient and a Cambridge Trust scholar. In addition, I have obtained an Explorer’s Club Discovery Expedition Grant for my studies of human migration and climate change in the Caribbean. I have been selected to the UNESCO Underwater Cultural Heritage Programme for Latin America and the Caribbean.
I am currently completing a PhD in Archaeology at the University of Cambridge.
Research
My research concerns the reconstruction of past ecological networks in the southern Caribbean, in particular Trinidad in the early to middle Holocene. I am interested in how, over thousands of years, the earliest human settlements of the island impacted its ecology and vice versa.
The Caribbean is a superhighway of landscapes and waterscapes constantly interfacing with geospheric, atmospheric, hydrospheric and biospheric factors. Understanding these complex networks in relation to Trinidad is achieved by using paleoclimactic and paleoenvironmental data and superimposing upon them micromorphological analyses and stable isotope analyses from Archaic sites across the island.
In tracking these gradual changes in soil structure, plant and animal life, and human movement and settlement, we draw reasonable and oftentimes revealing conclusions about ecological exchanges, in particular human-environment ones, and hope to gain insights about how modern humans may address one of the most challenging concerns of our time – dramatic shifts in climactic conditions.
Teaching and Supervisions
Primary Supervisor: Prof Paul Lane
Other Professional Activities
Excavations:
Banwari Trace Archaeological Site, Trinidad (Site Director 2022-24)
Huis te Kruiningen Shipwreck Site, Rockley Bay, Tobago (UNESCO Survey, 2023)
Roman Road, Chichester, UK (NEHHAS, 2022)
Wilberforce Road, Cambridge, UK (CAU, 2022)
Co-founder: The Society of Caribbean Archaeology and Heritage (2024)