Shanti Morell-Hart is an anthropological archaeologist and paleoethnobotanist with a focus on ancient societies in Mesoamerica. Her published research tracks the origins and impacts of agriculture in the development of societies, contributions of plants to ritualized activity and healthcare, the range and diversity of quotidian botanical practices, and transformations in human-environment relationships, especially as related to narratives of collapse and resilience. Her teaching and supervisory interests include: foodways, ethnoecology, paleoethnobotanical analysis, spatial analysis, Mesoamerican societies, ancient history, and gastronomic heritage. She currently serves as Director of the Integrated Laboratory for Archaeological Sciences (ILAS) and the Paleoethnobotany Laboratory at Brown (PEBLAB).
Morell‐Hart, Shanti. "Whose “Problem” Is the Climate? Deep Time Perspectives and the Contemporary Lens." American Anthropologist, vol. 127, no. 3, 2025, pp. 649-651. |
Morell-Hart, Shanti Bérubé, Éloi. "Archaic-Period MRG-6 and the Deep Culinary Roots of Oaxacan Cuisine." Mesquite Pods to Mezcal: 10,000 Years of Oaxacan Cuisines, edited by Verónica Pérez Rodríguez, Shanti Morell-Hart, and Stacie M. King, Austin, University of Texas Press, 2024, pp. 49-70. |
"Maya Gastropolitics: Tactics, Strategies, Entrapments." Faces of Rulership in the Maya Region, edited by Patricia A. McAnany, Marilyn A. Masson, Washington, DC, Dumbarton Oaks, 2024, pp. 223-247. |
Mesquite Pods to Mezcal: 10,000 Years of Oaxacan Cuisines. edited by Verónica Pérez Rodríguez, Shanti Morell-Hart, and Stacie M. King, University of Texas Press, 2024. |
King, Stacie M. Morell-Hart, Shanti. "Preserving Oaxacan Foodways in the Face of Conquest: A Seed Bank in the Nejapan Sierra Sur." Mesquite Pods to Mezcal: 10,000 Years of Oaxacan Cuisines, edited by Verónica Pérez Rodríguez, Shanti Morell-Hart, and Stacie M. King, Austin, University of Texas Press, 2024, pp. 219-242. |
García‐Ramírez, P., Guillén, K., Sedov, S., Golden, C., Morell‐Hart, S., Scherer, A., Pi, T., Solleiro‐Rebolledo, E., Dine, H., Rivera, Y. "Soil development and ancient Maya land use in the tropical karst landscape: Case of Busiljá, Chiapas, México." Soil Science Society of America Journal, vol. 88, no. 5, 2024, pp. 1561-1582. |
Horseman, Grace, Morell-Hart, Shanti, Golden, Charles, Scherer, Andrew. "Suitability Models of Ancient Maya Agriculture in the Upper Usumacinta River Basin of Mexico and Guatemala." Latin American Antiquity, vol. 35, no. 4, 2024, pp. 946-964. |
Cuéllar, Andrea M. Pérez Rodríguez, Verónica Morell-Hart, Shanti King, Stacie M. "The Making of Oaxacan Foodways." Mesquite Pods to Mezcal 10,000 Years of Oaxacan Cuisines, edited by Verónica Pérez Rodríguez, Shanti Morell-Hart, and Stacie M. King, Austin, University of Texas Press, 2024, pp. 1-24. |
Schroder, Whittaker, Murtha, Timothy, Scherer, Andrew K., Morell-Hart, Shanti, Golden, Charles, Broadbent, Eben N., Zambrano, Angélica M. Almeyda, Fernandez-Diaz, Juan Carlos. "The Maya Landscape of El Infiernito, Chiapas, Mexico: Comparison of Occupied and Unoccupied Airborne LiDAR Mapping Systems." Remote Sensing, vol. 16, no. 23, 2024, pp. 4459. |
Fedick, Scott L., Morell-Hart, Shanti, Dussol, Lydie. "Agriculture in the Ancient Maya Lowlands (Part 2): Landesque Capital and Long-term Resource Management Strategies." Journal of Archaeological Research, 2023. |
Schroder, Whittaker, Murtha, Timothy, Golden, Charles, Brown, Madeline, Griffin, Robert, Herndon, Kelsey E., Morell-Hart, Shanti, Scherer, Andrew K. "Regional household variation and inequality across the Maya landscape." Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, vol. 72, 2023, pp. 101552. |
Sedov, Sergey, Rivera-Uria, M. Yazmin, Ibarra-Arzave, Georgina, García-Ramírez, Pamela, Solleiro-Rebolledo, Elizabeth, Cabadas-Báez, Héctor V., Valera-Fernández, Daisy, Díaz-Ortega, Jaime, Guillén-Domínguez, Karla A., Moreno-Roso, Sol de Jesús, Fedick, Scott L., Leonard, Daniel, Golden, Charles, Morell-Hart, Shanti, Liendo-Stuardo, Rodrigo R. "Soil toposequences, soil erosion, and ancient Maya land use adaptations to pedodiversity in the tropical karstic landscapes of southern Mexico." Frontiers in Earth Science, vol. 11, 2023. |
Morell-Hart, Shanti, Dussol, Lydie, Fedick, Scott L. "Agriculture in the Ancient Maya Lowlands (Part 1): Paleoethnobotanical Residues and New Perspectives on Plant Management." Journal of Archaeological Research, 2022. |
Rowan, Erica, Morell-Hart, Shanti, Shoda, Shinya. "Editors’ Introduction." Archaeology of Food and Foodways, vol. 1, no. 1, 2022. |
Watson, Sarah E., Schnell, Joshua T., Morell-Hart, Shanti, Scherer, Andrew K., Dussol, Lydie. "HEALTH CARE IN THE MARKETPLACE: EXPLORING MAYA MEDICINAL PLANTS AND PRACTICES AT PIEDRAS NEGRAS, GUATEMALA." Ancient Mesoamerica, vol. 34, no. 2, 2022, pp. 383-406. |
Luna Erreguerena, Pilar, James C. Chatters, Dominique Rissolo, Joaquin Arroyo-Cabrales, Deborah Bolnick, Shanti Morell-Hart, Patricia A. Beddows, Eduard Reinhardt, Alberto Nava-Blank, Alejandro Alvarez, Franco Attolini, and Roberto Chávez-Arce.
"Hoyo Negro: Un Sitio Prehistórico en Quintana Roo." Investigación, Conservación, y Manejo del Patrimonio Cultural Sumergido en México, edited by Pedro López Garrido, Laura Carrillo Márquez, Mexico City, Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 2022.
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Golden, Charles, Scherer, Andrew K., Schroder, Whittaker, Murtha, Timothy, Morell-Hart, Shanti, Fernandez Diaz, Juan Carlos, Jiménez Álvarez, Socorro del Pilar, Alcover Firpi, Omar, Agostini, Mark, Bazarsky, Alexandra, Clark, Morgan, Kollias, G. Van, Matsumoto, Mallory, Roche Recinos, Alejandra, Schnell, Joshua, Whitlock, Bethany. "Airborne Lidar Survey, Density-Based Clustering, and Ancient Maya Settlement in the Upper Usumacinta River Region of Mexico and Guatemala." Remote Sensing, vol. 13, no. 20, 2021, pp. 4109. |
Morell-Hart, Shanti, Pugliese, Melanie, McNeil, Cameron L., Barrios, Edy. "Cuisine at the Crossroads." Latin American Antiquity, vol. 32, no. 4, 2021, pp. 689-704. |
Morell-Hart, Shanti. "Everyday Knowledge and Apothecary Craft: Pharmacopoeias of Ancient Northwestern Honduras." Cambridge Archaeological Journal, vol. 32, no. 2, 2021, pp. 205-225. |
"The Dish of Theseus." Semiotic Review, 2021. |
"Botanical Foodstuffs of the Ancient Maya: Agents and Matter, Medium and Message." Her Cup for Sweet Cacao: The Social Uses of Food in Ancient Maya Society, edited by Ardren, Traci, Austin, University of Texas Press, 2020. |
Bérubé, Éloi, Hepp, Guy David, Morell-Hart, Shanti. "Paleoethnobotanical evidence of Early Formative period diet in coastal Oaxaca, Mexico." Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, vol. 29, 2020, pp. 102047. |
Schroder, Whittaker, Murtha, Timothy, Golden, Charles, Anaya Hernández, Armando, Scherer, Andrew, Morell-Hart, Shanti, Almeyda Zambrano, Angélica, Broadbent, Eben, Brown, Madeline. "The lowland Maya settlement landscape: Environmental LiDAR and ecology." Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, vol. 33, 2020, pp. 102543. |
Golden, Charles, Scherer, Andrew K., Houston, Stephen, Schroder, Whittaker, Morell-Hart, Shanti, Jiménez Álvarez, Socorro del Pilar, Kollias, George Van, Talavera, Moises Yerath Ramiro, Matsumoto, Mallory, Dobereiner, Jeffrey, Alcover Firpi, Omar. "Centering the Classic Maya Kingdom of Sak Tz’i’." Journal of Field Archaeology, vol. 45, no. 2, 2019, pp. 67-85. |
Morell-Hart, Shanti, Joyce, Rosemary A., Henderson, John S., Cane, Rachel. "ETHNOECOLOGY IN PRE-HISPANIC CENTRAL AMERICA: FOODWAYS AND HUMAN-PLANT INTERFACES." Ancient Mesoamerica, vol. 30, no. 3, 2019, pp. 535-553. |
Morell-Hart, Shanti. "Techniques for Integrating Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Datasets: Examples from Pre-Hispanic Northwestern Honduras." Journal of Field Archaeology, vol. 44, no. 4, 2019, pp. 234-249. |
Farahani, Alan, Katherine L. Chiou, Rob Q. Cuthrell, Anna Harkey, Shanti Morell-Hart, Christine A. Hastorf, and Payson D. Sheets. "Exploring Culinary Practices through GIS Modeling at Joya de Cerén, El Salvador." Social Perspectives on Ancient Lives from Paleoethnobotanical Data, edited by Maria Bruno, Matthew Sayre, New York, Springer, 2017, pp. 101-120. |
Chatters, James C., Dominique Rissolo, Joaquin Arroyo-Cabrales, Thomas W. Stafford, Jr., Brian M. Kemp, Alejandro Alvarez, Alberto Nava-Blank, Franco Attolini, Patricia A. Beddows, Eduard Reinhardt, Shawn Kovacs, Shawn Collins, Shanti Morell-Hart, Roberto Chávez-Arce, Susan Bird, and Pilar Luna Erreguerena. "Hoyo Negro: Tapping the Paleoanthropological and Paleoecological Potential of a Deeply Submerged, Underground Chamber on the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico." The Archaeology of Underwater Caves, edited by Peter Campbell, Oxford, Oxbow, 2017, pp. 119-129. |
"Paleoethnobotanical Analysis, Post-Processing." Method and Theory in Paleoethnobotany, edited by Jade D'Alpoim Guedes, John Marston, Christina Warinner, Boulder, University Press of Colorado, 2017, pp. 371-390. |
"The Scene of Disciplined Seeing." Then Dig, 2015.
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Herlich, Jessica
Morell-Hart, Shanti.
"Visualization and Collaborative Practice in Paleoethnobotany." saa archaeological record, vol. 15, no. 4, 2015, pp. 24-30.
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Chatters, James C., Kennett, Douglas J., Asmerom, Yemane, Kemp, Brian M., Polyak, Victor, Blank, Alberto Nava, Beddows, Patricia A., Reinhardt, Eduard, Arroyo-Cabrales, Joaquin, Bolnick, Deborah A., Malhi, Ripan S., Culleton, Brendan J., Erreguerena, Pilar Luna, Rissolo, Dominique, Morell-Hart, Shanti, Stafford, Thomas W. "Late Pleistocene Human Skeleton and mtDNA Link Paleoamericans and Modern Native Americans." Science, vol. 344, no. 6185, 2014, pp. 750-754. |
Morell-Hart, Shanti, Joyce, Rosemary A., Henderson, John S. "Multi-Proxy Analysis of Plant use at Formative Period Los Naranjos, Honduras." Latin American Antiquity, vol. 25, no. 1, 2014, pp. 65-81. |
Morehart, Christopher T., Morell-Hart, Shanti. "Beyond the Ecofact: Toward a Social Paleoethnobotany in Mesoamerica." Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, vol. 22, no. 2, 2013, pp. 483-511. |
Morell-Hart, Shanti. "Foodways and Resilience under Apocalyptic Conditions." Culture, Agriculture, Food and Environment, vol. 34, no. 2, 2012, pp. 161-171. |
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Grant. File number: 435-2019-0837. Proposal: Ancient Maya Agricultural Practices: Landscape Management, Ecological Sustainability, and Food Resilience in the Kingdom of Sak Tz'i', Chiapas, Mexico. Principal Investigator: Shanti Morell-Hart.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration - Science Mission Directorate - Earth Science Division Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Science (ROSES-2019) - Program Element A.32: Interdisciplinary Research in Earth Science. NASA-ROSES funded project 19-IDS19-0060. Proposal: The Ancient Maya Landscape: Households, Settlement, and Ecology of the Lowlands. Role: Collaborator. Principal Investigator: Timothy Murtha.
Strategic Alignment Fund, Office of the Provost, McMaster University. Proposal: Latin America at McMaster: Fostering Latin American/Latinx Excellence at McMaster University. Proposal Authors: Shanti Morell-Hart, Michael Egan, Stacy Creech de Castro, Maureen Lagos, José Moran-Mirabal, Rodrigo Narro Pérez, and Kimberley Dej.
National Geographic Society funded project NGS-60224R-19. Proposal: Warfare, Agriculture, and the Maya Kingdom of Sak Tz’i’. Role: Collaborator. Principal Investigator: Andrew K. Scherer.
National Science Foundation Funded Project BCS1917671. Proposal: Dynamic Landscapes of Warfare and Agricultural Intensification in the Western Maya Lowlands. Role: Collaborator. Principal Investigators: Charles Golden, Timothy M. Murtha, and Andrew K. Scherer.
National Science Foundation Funded Project 1849921. Proposal: Resilient Landscapes: Terraces and Settlement Ecology across the Maya Lowlands. Role: Collaborator. Principal Investigator: Timothy M. Murtha.
Canada Foundation for Innovation John R. Evans Leaders Fund (CFI-JELF) and Ontario Research Fund for Small Infrastructure Funds (CFI's Leaders Opportunity Fund) (ORF-RI). Project number 34522. Proposal: Understanding Climate Shifts, Foodways, and Societal Resilience through Ancient Plant Residues. Principal Investigator: Shanti Morell-Hart.
Year | Degree | Institution |
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2011 | PhD | University of California at Berkeley |
2003 | MA | University of California at Berkeley |
2002 | MA | The University of Texas at San Antonio |
1998 | BA | Wesleyan University |
Sophie Coe Prize for Writing in Food History, Special Mention
Public lectures selected for the Doris Z. Stone New World Archaeology Endowed Lecture Series, Archaeological Institute of America
Name | Title |
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Houston, Stephen | Dupee Family Professor of Social Science, Professor of Anthropology |
Scherer, Andrew | Pierre and Patricia Bikai Professor of Anthropology and Archaeology and the Ancient World, Professor of Archaeology and the Ancient World, Director of the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World |
Society for American Archaeology
World Archaeological Congress
International Phytolith Society
Latin American Studies Association
Director. Integrated Laboratory for Archaeological Sciences, 2023- |
ANTH 0680 - Anthropology of Food |
ANTH 1560 - Environmental Archaeology: Sustainability, Catastrophe, and Resilience |
ANTH 1740 - Paleoethnobotany: Ancient Agriculture to Criminal Investigations |
ANTH 2501 - Principles of Archaeology |