Heather Miller
Heather Miller, Ph.D. (University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1999)
Associate Professor, UTM and Graduate Coordinator
(905) 828-3741 (Main)
(416) 946-3320
Office: NB 208 (Main) and AP 236
Website: http://www.utm.utoronto.ca/~w3hmlmil/
Field: Archaeology, prehistory and history complex societies, ancient technology, material culture, social organization, regional inter-connections, agriculture; South Asia
Research
Dr. Miller's research is currently centered around the medieval/Islamic period trade and communication routes through northwestern Pakistan, particularly through the city of Peshawar. She is working with a number of Pakistani and international scholars on a long-term project, the Caravanserai Networks Project, to examine economic, political, and social aspects of the contact between people along these routes. A major part of this endeavor is the development of a database of travel amenity locations based on both textual and archaeological data, which will eventually be available to the research community as a searchable internet database.
Her field research at the moment is the development of a pottery typology for both glazed and unglazed ceramics from the excavations at Gor Khuttree in the centre of Peshwar, work being conducted by the Directorate for Archaeology and Museums of the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP).
This research is currently funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), and the Connaught Foundation at the University of Toronto, with great assistance from Prof. Ihsan Ali, formerly Director of the NWFP Directorate and now Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hazara, Pakistan.
In the summer of 2005, Dr. Miller spent six weeks in Papua New Guinea as the material culture consultant for a new project on imagination and perception among the Asabano, directed by Prof. Roger Lohmann of Trent University. More information on this project is posted on Dr. Lohmann's website. Sharon McCartan (BA 2006 from UTM), Roger Lohmann, and Dr. Miller have been cataloging and analyzing materials previously collected from the Asabano by Dr. Lohmann (wooden drums, wooden arrows, string bags, shell and fiber ornaments, bamboo smoking tubes, grass skirts, etc.) for inclusion in the Mountain Ok database being created by Dr. Barry Craig & Andrew Fyfe.
Dr. Miller is currently a member of TUARC, the Trent University Archaeology Research Centre, and the Centre for South Asian Studies at the University of Toronto.
Recent Publications
2008 The Indus Talc-Faience Complex: Types of Materials, Clues to Production. In: South Asian Archaeology 1999, ed. Ellen M. Raven. pp. 111-122. International Institute of Asian Studies (IIAS), Leiden, Netherlands. (PDF courtesy of the publisher, for individual use only)2007 Jonathan Mark Kenoyer and Heather M.-L. Miller. Multiple Crafts and Socio-Economic Associations in the Indus Civilization: New Perspectives from Harappa, Pakistan. In: Rethinking Craft Production: The Nature of Producers and Multi-craft Organization, ed. Izumi Shimada. pp. 152-183. Univ. of Utah Press.
2007 Associations and Ideologies in the Locations of Urban Craft Production at Harappa, Pakistan (Indus Civilization). In: Rethinking Specialization in Complex Societies: Archaeological Analysis of the Social Meaning of Production, ed. Zachary X. Hruby & Rowan K. Flad. pp. 37-51. Archaeological Paper of the American Anthropological Association (AP3A), Number 17. American Anthropological Association and University of California-Berkeley Press.
2006 Archaeological Approaches to Technology. San Diego, CA: Academic Press/Elsevier.
2006 Comparing Landscapes of Transportation: Riverine-oriented and land-oriented systems in the Indus Civilization and the Mughal Empire. In: Space and Spatial Analysis in Archaeology, ed. E.C. Robertson et al. pp. 281-292. University of Calgary Press and University of New Mexico Press.
2006 Water Supply, Labor Organization and Land Ownership in Indus Floodplain Agricultural Systems. In: Agriculture and Irrigation in Archaeology, ed. Charles Stanish & Joyce Marcus. Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press. (PDF courtesy of the publisher, for individual use only.)
