Nancy C. Lovell
Department of Anthropology
University of Alberta

Welcome

 

Nancy Lovell (PhD Cornell, 1987) is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of Alberta. A bioarchaeologist, she is interested in the skeletal biology of ancient peoples, particularly how their skeletons reveal aspects of the interrelationships between culture, environment, and health. She also has conducted research on the assessment of biological affinities of past populations and on methods of osteobiography (e.g., age estimation and sex determination). She has excavated ancient cemeteries in Egypt and Pakistan, and has studied human skeletal remains from ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Indus Valley Civilization, and from historic cemeteries of the Fur Trade Period in western Canada. A continuing interest is the expression of trauma and disease in the skeletal remains of free-living apes and monkeys and how this reflects social behaviour and may inform our understanding of selective pressures in primate and hominid evolution. Most recently, she has begun a study of historic cemeteries in western Canada, in order to assess the fit between archaeological interpretive models for prehistoric cemeteries with the documented evidence for burial practices.