Hardy, Karen

Biography

She joined ICREA in 2008. Following a PhD in the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, she worked on projects based in Hungary, Scotland and Papua New Guinea. From 1997-2005 she co-directed the Scotland's First Settlers project which explored the early post glacial environment and human population around the Isle of Skye, Scotland. In 2005 she was awarded a Marie Curie OIF to visit the University of Sydney where she set up an international project to recover information of the role of plants in human evolutionary and pre-agrarian diets. Her return phase took place at the University of York where she remain a research associate.

Research Interest

Her interest lies in early prehistoric periods before the adoption of farming; specifically, pioneer populations, human adaptations, use of land and sea-scapes and exploitaton of wild plant as food medicine and raw materials. The analysis of chemical compounds and microfossils extracted from samples of ancient dental calculus provides direct access to biographical details and paleoenvironmental information; this is particularly useful for earlier Palaeolithic periods where the evidence is very limited. Much of my research is also focused on the human use of the Atlantic coastline, specifically in West Africa and North west Europe. In the early postglacial periods, until the mid-Holocene, around 6200, Britain was still physically attached to Europe and the coastline of North West Scotland was part of Europe's continental limit.