Institute at Brown for Environment and Society

Harper Dine's research centers on foodways and agricultural strategies in the northern Maya lowlands during the Classic period (250-900 AD). Her dissertation project involves the use of paleoethnobotanical and archaeological methods to examine local household food production and consumption in the context of grand-scale political and economic change across the landscape of the Yaxuna-Coba region. Currently, Harper is examining phytoliths, starch grains, and macrobotanical remains from artifact extractions and soil samples collected during excavations at Yaxuna and nearby Joya. More broadly, she's interested in food security/food sovereignty, political economy, and people-plant relations.