Dominic Stratford
Research Instructor
Education
PhD, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, 2011
Links
Google Scholar
Email
dominic.stratford@stonybrook.edu
I am a geoarchaeologist focusing on stratigraphy and site formation processes on southern African archaeological and palaeoanthropological sites. I specialize in the study of cave and rock shelter sediments but have worked on a diverse spectrum of fossil- and artefact-bearing sedimentary contexts. One of the aspects I really enjoy about geoarchaeology is that it is an inherently multi-disciplinary field, often requiring the application of innovative combinations of analyses that utilise methods and techniques from archaeological and earth science disciplines. The goal of these studies is to develop cohesive depositional histories and stratigraphic frameworks that enable evidence to be associated across space and time within a context of cumulative modification processes. As a geoarchaeologist, I apply these analyses to numerous southern African contexts, from the Namib Desert to numerous rockshelters and caves that contain deposits spanning the last 3.5 million years. In my capacity as Director of Research at the Sterkfontein Caves, my goal is to facilitate new and innovative research on all evidence, from multi-scale analysis of StW 573 and three-dimensional spatial analysis of fossils and stone tools, to augmented reality applications in science education.
