Gregoricka Receives Fulbright Scholar Award

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Posted on May 14, 2024 by Michelle Matthews

Michelle Matthews

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Bioarchaeologist Dr. Lesley Gregoricka, professor of anthropology in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work at the University of South Alabama, received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award for 2024-25.

She will travel to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, where she will examine prehistoric human skeletons dating to the Early Bronze Age in order to answer questions about how ancient communities successfully adapted to their surroundings during periods of social and environmental stress.

Gregoricka will be in Abu Dhabi from January through June of 2025. She has been to UAE many times, but not yet to Abu Dhabi, and she has never had the luxury of spending that much time there.

“I am thrilled to be able to go and spend dedicated time conducting research on these bones,” she said. “Most of the research has to be done in the wintertime. Archaeologist don’t work in the summer in that region due to the heat.”

Her project will be hosted by the new Zayed National Museum, which will be open by the time she arrives in January.

The official title of her study is Mobility and Shifting Bronze Age Social and Environmental Landscapes at the Al Ain Oasis, UAE.

“Having five months to devote to that research is really huge,” she said. “It’s a tremendous opportunity to delve into bioarchaeological research. It’s very exciting.”

In the oasis in the middle of the desert, “We see the continuity of at least 1,200 years of people living there,” she said. “I’ll be looking at social changes over the millennium and how they affected people from a biological perspective.”

She will study “what we see written on their bones,” to assess the changing mobility and diets of those who lived in 3200-1200 BCE as they transitioned to agriculture and experienced climate change.

As a result of her Fulbright, Gregoricka hopes to publish on her findings and create new research programs to involve students with, she said, and she plans to continue to return to the UAE.

A native of Michigan, Gregoricka has taught at South for the past 12 years. She earned her undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame and her master’s and Ph.D. from The Ohio State University. She has been interested in studying bones since she was a child, she said, but “most kids grow out of it, and I never did.”

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