Monica Ramsey

As an environmental archaeologist, with an expertise in microbotanical methods, phytolith, starch grain and starch spherulite analysis, and microcharcoal, Dr. Ramsey investigates how people used plants in the past. More broadly she studies how people used, modified and ultimately constructed their environments and how this feedback impacts human experience and plant-use.

Her early research includes investigating the development of hunter-gatherer plant-food production through macrobotanical analysis of Canadian Plateau earth ovens. She later developed an expertise in microbotanical analysis, employing phytolith analysis at several key Epipaleolithic (ca. 23-14.7 cal. BP) sites in the Levant (Israel and Jordan) to investigate hunter-gatherer plant-use throughout the climate fluctuations of the late Pleistocene. This research led her to consider the critical role of reliable resources, particularly wetland resources, to hunter-gatherer life-ways. 

Building on this, her current project, investigating anthropogenic wetlands and the long transition to agriculture in the Levant, employs a combination of microbotanical approaches, (phytolith, starch and microcharcoal analyses) to investigate how increasingly anthropogenic wetland landscapes and the reliable resources therein may have influenced the evolution of plant-food production and the origins of agriculture through the Final Pleistocene into the Early Holocene (ca. 23-8 ka cal. BP) in the Levant. She has also more recently developed a research focus on early plant food processing and foodways, in particular the application of starch spherulites to archaeological contexts. This new archaeobotanical proxy has the potential to allow us to identify a range of processing activities, including baking, brewing and boiling of starchy plant foods deep into the archaeological past. Dr. Ramsey is also interested in the application of deep learning or AI to palaeoethnobotany and in particular phytolith identification and analysis. 

Her work has been funded by SSHRC, a Marie Curie Individual European Fellowship, and a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship. 

Publications

Berganzo-Besga, I., Hector A. Orengo, Felipe Lumpreras, Paloma Aliende and Monica N. Ramsey.
2022    "Automated detection and classification of multi-cell Phytoliths using Deep Learning-Based Algorithms." Journal of Archaeological Science, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2022.105654

Ramsey, M.N, and Dani Nadel
2021    A new archaeobotanical proxy for plant food processing: Archaeological starch spherulites at the submerged 23,000-year-old site of Ohalo II, Journal of Archaeological Science, 134:105465. DOI: 10.1016/j.jas.2021.105465

Arranz-Otaegui, A., L. Gonzalez Carretero, M.N. Ramsey, D.Q. Fuller and T. Richter
2018    Archaeobotanical evidence reveals the origins of bread 14,400 years ago in northeastern Jordan, PNAS. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1801071115

Ramsey, M.N., A.M. Rosen, L. Maher, D. MacDonald and D. Nadel
2018    Sheltered by the Reeds: Construction and use of a twenty thousand year old hut according to phytolith analysis from Kharaneh IV, Jordan. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 50:85-97. DOI: 10.1016/j.jaa.2018.03.003

Ramsey, M.N., A.M. Rosen and D. Nadel
2017    Centered on the Wetlands: Integrating new phytolith evidence of plant-use from the 23,000-year-old site of Ohalo II, Israel. American Antiquity, 82(4):702-722. DOI: 10.1017/aaq.2017.37

Ramsey, M.N., A.M. Rosen, L. Maher and D. MacDonald
2016    Risk, Reliability and Resilience: Phytolith evidence for alternative ‘Neolithization’ pathways at Kharaneh IV in the Azraq Basin, Jordan. PLOS One. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0164081

Ramsey, M.N. and A.M. Rosen
2016    Wedded to Wetlands: Exploring Late Pleistocene Plant-Use in the Eastern Levant. Quaternary International, 396:5-19. DOI: 10.1016/j.quaint.2015.10.109

Ramsey, M.N., M. Jones, T. Richter and A.M. Rosen
2015    Modifying the Marsh: A Preliminary Evaluation of Early Epipaleolithic Hunter-Gatherer Impacts in the Azraq Wetland. The Holocene, 25:1553-1564. DOI: 10.1177/0959683615594240

Laparidou, S., M.N. Ramsey and A.M. Rosen
2015    Introduction to the Special Issue: ‘The Anthropocene in the Longue Durée’. The Holocene, DOI: 10.1177/0959683615594472

Crumley, C., S. Laparidou, M.N. Ramsey and A.M. Rosen
2015    A view from the past and the future: concluding remarks on ‘The Anthropocene in the Longue Durée’. The Holocene, DOI: 10.1177/0959683615594473

*Dr. Ramsey is currently seeking graduate students. Prospective students should contact Dr. Ramsey directly via email.