Miranda LaZar

PhD Candidate

About Miranda LaZar

Miranda is a PhD candidate in the archaeology program with a focus in zooarchaeology and ecological anthropology. She is broadly interested in studying human and animal relations in the circumpolar North. She is also interested in long-term impacts of climate change on marine ecosystems and how that has, and continues, to affect Alaska Native communities. Miranda holds a BA in anthropology from the University of New Mexico and a MA degree in anthropology from the University of Arizona.

Miranda’s current research examines the cultural and ecological relationships between the Unangax̂ and seabirds in the Aleutian Islands, AK. She draws from an ethno-ornithology framework to challenge the narrative that birds were merely supplemental food sources. She uses oral history and ethnohistory accounts of seabirds to complement zooarchaeology and stable isotope analyses. Her research also argues the importance of an animal’s life history and interactions with its environment when making inferences about past human/animal relationships. Her dissertation compares avifaunal collections from Sanak Island (eastern Aleutians) and Agattu Island (western Aleutians) to demonstrate how local ecosystems and cultural traditions can form vastly different archaeology assemblages within the same cultural region.

Miranda is also interested in place-based scientific inquiry as a pedagogical model. She is on the instructional team at the UA Sky School (UA Science: Sky School – Connecting students to science in the Sky Islands), a K-12 outdoor science outreach program that works with local schools in southern Arizona. The program emphasizes connection to the local Sonoran Desert and Santa Catalina Mountains. The program encourages students to learn about their environment through student-led inquiry projects. In addition to the outdoor outreach programs, Miranda has also helped develop curriculum and co-taught classes for high school students on subjects including sky island ecology, urban ecology, climate change, and ethnobiology.

 

Projects

Cultural and Ecological Relationships between the Unangax̂ and Seabirds (dissertation research)

Miranda has analyzed avifaunal collections from archaeology sites on Sanak Island and Agattu Island, AK. She has also conducted bulk stable isotope analysis on samples from both islands and compound-specific stable isotope analysis of amino acids on samples from Sanak Island.

Russian Era occupation on Agattu Island at ATU-216

Excavations of ATU-216 occurred in summer of 2023 of Agattu Island, AK. The site has an extensive Russian era component. Miranda was a crew chief during excavations and is currently working on preliminary analysis of Russian colonial materials including porcelain ceramics, beads, and metal. Aleutian Mercury Dynamics Project, University of Alaska Fairbanks (Aleutian Mercury Dynamics)

The Aleutian Mercury Dynamics (AMD) project is comprised of a large interdisciplinary team of researchers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks who are investigating historic and modern concentrations of mercury in Stellar Sea Lions, Northern Fur Seals, and Pacific Cod. Miranda participated in visiting museum collections and identifying faunal remains in summer of 2022. She also was the crew chief for excavations at ATU-216 in 2023 which was funded and run by the AMD project.

Tonto Basin Chronology

Miranda has worked as a research assistant at the UA Laboratory of Tree Ring Research from fall 2023 to present. This project aims to refine the chronology of Tonto Basin, AZ using wiggle-matching and better

understand past migrations and responses to changing environments. Miranda has contributed to laboratory analyses and development of outreach material.

Individuals from Isotopes

This project examines intra skeletal variation of bulk stable isotopes in individual birds with the goal of testing the ability to identify individual animals in the archaeological record based on their isotopic signature. This work was a part of Miranda’s undergraduate thesis at the University of New Mexico and is ongoing.

Research Interests

Human/animal relationships, ethno-ornithology, zooarchaeology, stable isotope analysis, circumpolar archaeology, collaborative archaeology, place-based education