Author: mmritchey

Hi! I’m Morasha Rabinowitz, an undergrad summer researcher! I’ve been working with Melissa Ritchey on her research on early Central Asian pastoralists, as well as starting a project analyzing samples from Classical Greece and Cyprus. I’m part of a program through the Center for the Environment at Washington University, which brought together many students working […]

Collaborative research by colleagues in the Department of Biology, Jordan Brock and Kenneth Olson, and lab member Melissa Ritchey combine genetic and archaeological datasets to trace the origins of domestication of Camelina sativa (false flax or gold-of-pleasure). This oil seed crop has seen recent scientific interest as a potential for sustainable, low‐input biofuels for aviation. […]

An article recently published in World Archaeology by lab members Melissa, Yufeng, Xinyi and Petra, shows the role that Central Eurasian cuisines played in changing the morphology of barley (Hordeum vulgare) as it spread across the continent during the Bronze Age. Barley becomes shorter in Monsoonal China, interpreted as a selection for smaller-grain size to […]