DC 3 – Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain
Sara Scaglia is an Italian archaeologist with a major in archaeobotany. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Cultural Heritage – Archaeology from the University of Turin, Italy. Her final dissertation utilised ancient DNA (aDNA) to detect plants in an Alpine settlement from a longue durée perspective. While pursuing her Master’s in Archaeology at Uppsala University in Sweden, she specialised in macrofossil analysis, focusing on seeds and food remains, and also gained knowledge in pollen identification. During her Master’s studies, Sara had the opportunity to work as an archaeobotanist, performing macrofossil analysis in the Uppland region of Sweden. Her MA thesis aimed to develop a novel methodology for analysing bread and bread-like fragments, encompassing all stages from initial fieldwork to laboratory examination and the interpretation of results.
In addition to her laboratory activities, Sara has actively incorporated fieldwork into her studies since the early stages of her academic career, collaborating with the University of Turin, the University of Bologna, and Uppsala University. Thanks to her experience, she worked with a commercial archaeology company based in Bamberg, Germany, for one and a half years as a trench leader and field technician. Sara is now involved in the AGRY-DRY project as a PhD candidate at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain, focusing on spatial analysis applied to archaeological data.
AGRI-DRY Project:
Changing land use over the Holocene: Mediterranean and North Africa
Sara Scaglia’s ongoing PhD project focuses on studying human occupations in the Sahara and Sahel regions as well as in Mediterranean Africa throughout the Holocene up to the present day. Her research investigates the socioeconomic and environmental dynamics that contributed to the emergence and development of cultivation in North Africa during the Holocene. By integrating agricultural practices and their implications with paleoenvironmental and subsistence data, the study aims to analyse patterns of land use and land cover transformation. Moreover, CO2 anthropogenic loss, combined with land use and land cover changes, will be considered a valuable tool for interpreting human-environment interactions from a diachronic perspective. By the conclusion of this research, she will analyse the retrieved information to depict Northern Africa through land use change (LUCS) models that integrate geographical, paleoenvironmental, and archaeological data. The results will be critically assessed against the HYDE and KK10 models to evaluate accuracy and reliability. Each candidate is set to undertake two secondments as a fundamental part of their education. Two secondments have been arranged for her to enhance her knowledge of land use classification and quantification at the University of Pennsylvania (United States) and to learn about the impact that traditional practices have on land use at the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa).
AGRI-DRY 