Clarissa Cagnato

Clarissa Cagnato is a Postdoctoral fellow on the ANR-funded research project (Starch4Sapiens) at Aix-Marseille University. She received her Master’s from Yale University and her Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis. Her dissertation focused on the cuisine and use of ritual plants by ancient Maya people that inhabited northwestern Petén, Guatemala during the Classic period (A.D. 250-850). Her main interests include reconstructing ancient diets through the study of both macrobotanical remains and starch grains, and she is especially interested in identifying plants that tend to be overlooked in the archaeological record. As well as actively collaborating with archaeological projects in Guatemala and Mexico, Clarissa has also worked in other regions and periods, from the Early Neolithic diet of populations living in the Paris Basin (France) to documenting the last meal of sacrificed Chimú camelids in Peru.