Chris Stantis

I am most interested in utilizing isotopic analyses to understand how people lived in the past. Stable isotope analyses can give us direct insight into how people ate, where they came from, and what their environment was like. These are all valuable pieces of information for understanding past cultures.

While data analysis and lab work are some of my favorite parts of my job, other lines of information provide opportunities to learn about past cultures to the fullest extent. I love doing archaeological fieldwork and actually being in the field is the best means of understanding a site. Some of the most rewarding work I've done during my thesis was collecting baseline samples of living plants and animals, working closely with local experts on islands to understand where plants and reef animals can be found and listening to their insight about local food practices. There's also nothing quite like cracking open old books and tracking down historic texts online to have an ethnohistoric perspective.