Kara Larson

Kara Larson is a PhD candidate in anthropological archaeology at the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on urban foodways, household provisioning strategies, and human-environment interaction in the ancient Near East, with particular emphasis on the Bronze and Iron Ages of the southern Levant. She applies an integrative methodological approach combining zooarchaeology, stable isotope analysis, ZooMS, and SEM-based morphometrics to investigate how food systems shaped and reflected social complexity in early cities. During her tenure as an ACOR fellow, Kara will serve as area supervisor for new excavations of the Iron Age II lower domestic settlement at Khirbat al-Balu’a as part of the Balu’a Regional Archaeological Project. Alongside household-scale excavation in the lower city, Kara will be conducting faunal and isotopic analyses to reconstruct animal-based herd management and provisioning practices at Khirbat al-Balu’a. She is also involved in similar analyses with the faunal material from Tall al-‘Umayri. Kara is thrilled to have the opportunity to head to Jordan this summer and begin excavations at the lower city of Balu’a.