About
Danielle A. Macdonald, Ph.D., is an associate professor of anthropology, specializing in Southwest Asian Prehistory and lithic (stone tool) analysis. She is interested in the importance of objects in our lives, specifically looking at how material culture shaped human behavior and activities leading up to the origins of agriculture. She co-directs the Kharaneh IV Excavation Project, which explores hunter-gatherer aggregation through artifacts at the Terminal Pleistocene site of Kharaneh IV, Jordan. She also co-directs the Ancient Seafaring Explorers of Cyprus project, addressing questions about the earliest hunter-gatherer communities in Cyprus.
To further address questions of human-object connections, Macdonald’s research evaluates how past behaviors can be interpreted through traces on archaeological objects, particularly at the microscopic scale using microwear analysis. Macdonald’s research explores methodological development for microwear analysis and the applications of 3D microscopy for archaeological research. Her research develops new methods for the quantification of microwear traces using microscopes developed for the field of surface metrology.
Macdonald also works closely with newcomer communities in Tulsa and supports UTulsa’s refugee-background students. She teaches cultural orientation for newcomers and runs programming for the university’s refugee-background students including the TU-Afghan Cultural Exchange program.
Awards and Honors
- Faculty Diversity Equity and Inclusion Changemaker Award, The University of Tulsa, 2024
Education
- Ph.D., University of Toronto
- M.A., University of Victoria
- B.A., University of Toronto
Research interests and areas of expertise
- Hunter-gatherers
- Stone tools
- Epipalaeolithic
- Southwest Asia
- Microscopy
- Surface metrology
