Jodi Barta
Jodi Barta
Post-Doctoral Fellow, Dept of Anthropology, Washington State University
Dr. Jodi Barta is a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Anthropology at Washington State University in the United States.
Dr. Barta holds a PhD from McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada. While there she conducted bio-archaeology research on the site of Vagnari in southern Italy. Archaeologists have unearthed 70 skeletons at the site so far. Vagnari holds an Imperial Roman estate that produced textiles and iron implements, some of the workers were slaves.
She conducted DNA analysis on the skeletons. Most of the skeletons are from the local area, but one turned out to be very unique. The skeleton’s DNA indicates that he was of East Asian ancestry on his mother’s side. He appears to be the first example of a person with East Asian ancestry found buried in the Roman Empire.
Barta is also doing archaeological research on the Northwest coast of North America where she is looking at dog bones. Dogs existed there before European contact and can provide researchers with clues as to how human lifestyles changed over time.
