Geographical Areas of Specialization: Near East, North America
Topical Interests: Indigenous and community archaeology, postcolonial/decolonizing research, collaborative methodologies, clay/ceramics analysis, anthropology of food and cooking, comparative ethics, cultural and intellectual property
Current Courses: P399/P600 Goddesses, Bulls and Mounds, P604 Collaboration, Community, and Ethics
Profile:
I am an archaeologist with active fieldwork projects in the Middle East and the Great Lakes region of the U.S. My research has two primary aspects. The first relates to Indigenous archaeology - particularly the use of community-based participatory research designs, Indigenous forms of heritage management and stewardship, and the ethics of community and public collaboration. I view Indigenous archaeology as being solidly grounded within a community-based research methodology, and my work in this area involves development of a participatory research program at the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük, Turkey and collaborative research with Anishinaabek communities in the Great Lakes region of North America. In both these projects I am primarily concerned with investigating the application of participatory research methods in the fields of archaeology and heritage management.
The second involves clay and ceramic analysis and an interest in foodways and cooking technologies. My current research in this area involves analysis of several thousand clay objects excavated at the 9,000 year-old Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük, Turkey. This work brings together my interests in household archaeology, ceramic analysis, pyrotechnology, and food preparation. As the clay object specialist at Çatalhöyük I have been investigating the production and use of clay cooking devices such as clay balls, hearths, and ovens through both laboratory analysis and excavation, as well as using a series of experimental and ethno-archaeology investigations. I am particularly interested in the way food was prepared and the role of pyrotechnology and clay-working skills during early plant and animal domestication at Çatalhöyük, and more generally in the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods throughout the Middle East.
Selected Publications:
Journal Articles
Atalay, Sonya 2006 Introduction: Decolonizing Archaeology. In ‘Decolonizing Archaeology – Efforts to Transform a Discipline’, American Indian Quarterly 30:3.
Atalay, Sonya 2006 Indigenous Archaeology as Decolonizing Practice. In ‘Decolonizing Archaeology – Efforts to Transform a Discipline’, American Indian Quarterly 30:3.
Atalay, S. and C. Hastorf 2006 Food, Meals, and Daily Activities: The Habitus of Food Practices at Neolithic, Çatalhöyük. American Antiquity 71(2): 283-319.
Atalay, Sonya 2006 No Sense of the Struggle: Giving voice to our survivance at the National Museum of the American Indian. In ‘Indigenizing Museums: The Significance of the National Museum of the American Indian’, American Indian Quarterly, 30:4.
Book Chapters
Atalay, Sonya 2005 Domesticating Clay: the Role of Clay Balls, Mini Balls, and Geometric Objects in Daily Life at Çatalhöyük. In Changing Materialities at Çatalhöyük: reports from the 1995-99 seasons. Ian Hodder (ed.), Chapter 6, p. 139-168. Çatalhöyük Project Volume 5. McDonald Institute Monographs/British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara.
Atalay, Sonya and Christine Hastorf 2005 Foodways at Çatalhöyük. In Çatalhöyük Perspectives: themes from the 1995-99 seasons. Ian Hodder (ed.), Chapter 8, p.109-124. Çatalhöyük Project Volume 6. McDonald Institute Monographs/British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara.
Atalay, Sonya (forthcoming) Raise your head and be proud Ojibwekwe. In Being and Becoming Indigenous Archaeologists. George Nicholas (ed.). AltaMira Press.
Atalay, Sonya and Amy Lonetree (forthcoming 2007) The Dissertation Writing Process: Tips for Completion. In Archaeologist's Field Handbook. Heather Burke, Claire Smith, and Larry Zimmerman (eds.), AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek: CA.
