Greetings Dr. D-

Hope all is well with you and you are having a great year.  I have been monitoring your website and have heard good things about what you are doing with your archaeology program.  If there is a way I can assist, please let me know.

My career in archaeology has been insane.  Thank you for all the assistance you have provided to me.  For the last couple of years, I have been training in zooarchaeology.  I am focusing on the animal economy of the Faynan region in southern Jordan as a lens to study changing complexity during the Early Bronze Age in the Southern Levant.  My dissertation topic is:  Feeding the Periphery: Modeling Changing Early Bronze Age Environments and the Cultural Landscape of the Wadi Fidan, Southern Jordan.  

In the meantime, I am keeping busy working on my bone collection.  I just returned from Washington D.C., where I was working with Dr. Melinda Zeder at the Smithsonian Institute on Near Eastern fauna. She has agreed to serve as the zooarchaeologist on my dissertation committee.  Further, I am headed out to the Middle East at the end of September to begin my dissertation writing campaign.  As well, I have procured major funding for the next year-thanks in part to the UC Presidential Dissertation Fellowship and the Kress Foundation. I plan to have my Ph.D. in hand by next summer.

Thinking about all that has happened, it is very surreal. However, it can all be traced back to Palomar and your program. Ten years seem like weeks. It was this long ago I was excavating with Steve Crouthamel and surveying with you in the Cuyamaca Mountains.  It was fun then, and while it is hard work, it is as much fun now. 

Good luck on your research and hoping for the best with your program.

Best Always

Ad

A.A. Muniz

University of California, San Diego

Levantine Archaezoology Lab

Chemistry Research Building 314

9500 Gilman Drive

La Jolla, CA 92093-0532

http://admuniz.org