About me

I am Natalia Égüez, a geoarchaeologist at the Archaeological Micromorphology and Biomarkers Lab (AMBI LAB, IUBO-AG), University of La Laguna (Tenerife, Spain) and at the Department of Anthropology, University of California Davis (United States). I am currently leading the IBERHUNT project, thanks to the European Union’s H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Global Fellowship (Grant Agreement ID 101032608), and since the last 15 years I have been working as a geoarchaeologist in various Middle Paleolithic, Upper Paleolithic, Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Age sites in Africa, Europe and Asia.

In 2018 I completed my PhD in Natural Sciences at the University of Kiel (Germany) and directed a project financed by the National Geographic Society on the archeology of pastoralism in Mongolia. This research has continued through the project Archeology of nomadic pastoralism in Mongolia: the invisible traces of domestic spaces and the support of Fundación Palarq (2020-2022).

My research interests are:

  • Soil micromorphology, lipid analysis, proteomics and stable isotope biochemistry.
  • Taphonomy of organic matter in habitation sites of past and current hunter-gatherer and nomadic pastoral societies.

Overall, my research focuses on understanding the socio-economic dynamics of human groups and their relationship with animals, taking into account adaptations to the natural environment and the creation of cultural landscapes.

Geo-ethnoarchaeology makes it possible to understand these processes based on the connections between human behavior observed in current contexts and the formation of the archaeological record. Thus, based on the microscopic and molecular signatures collected in archaeological and present-day domestic spaces, we can recover a set of biochemical markers that are associated with specific human practices. This microcontextual biomarker approach allows to gain information about the palaeoenvironment, seasonality, diet and individual’s biological sex, among others.

Do not hesitate to contact me at neguezgo@ull.edu.es or neguez@ucdavis.edu