C. (Canan) Çakirlar, PhD
UD1 met ius promovendiShe/Her
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c.cakirlar rug.nl
Vakgebied
Expertise
Çakırlar is a zooarchaeologist whose research brings together biomolecular archaeology, zooarchaeology, and political ecology to investigate the long-term relationships between humans, animals, and environments. She is interested ---in a nutshell--- in the interactions between socio-economic structures and earth's biodiversity. Born in Nişantaşı, Istanbul, she studied archaeology at Bilkent University (BA) and the American University of Beirut (MA) before completing her PhD at the University of Tübingen under the supervision of Hans-Peter Uerpmann. Her archaeological career began at the site of Kinet Höyük on the Mediterranean coast of Türkiye, where an enduring interest in human–animal relationships in the eastern Mediterranean first took shape. Since then, she has worked across Europe, Southwest Asia, and North Africa, conducting research and postdoctoral fellowships at several institutions, including the Smithsonian Institution. During her postdoctoral training, she collaborated closely with leading scholars such as Wim Van Neer, Melinda Zeder, and Scott Redford. At the University of Groningen, Çakırlar is a member of the East Mediterranean and West Asian Archaeology chair group led by Lidewijde de Jong within the Groningen Institute of Archaeology. She serves as Head of the Zooarchaeology Collections and Biomolecular Archaeology Laboratory, that currently homes nine PhD candidates, two technical staff members, several BA and Research Master's thesis students, and two postdoctoral researchers. She is also Director of Studies of the University's selective two-year Research Master's programme in Archaeology. Çakırlar's research spans a broad geographical arc from western Türkiye to the Netherlands and addresses themes ranging from the Neolithisation of Europe and the emergence of early farming communities to the political economies of the Bronze and Iron Ages. More recently, she has expanded her research into historical marine ecology (especially the impact of Roman fishing). A distinctive aspect of her scholarship is the study of animals as active participants in socio-political transformations. She is particularly interested in species that occupy ambiguous or liminal positions in human societies, including Assyrian elephants, pigeons, and hybrid camels. Through the archaeological record, biomolecular evidence, and environmental data, she explores how these animals contributed to the formation of state systems, oligarchic structures, trade networks, and cultural identities across the Bronze and Iron Age Levant and eastern Mediterranean. Most of her field and laboratory research has focused on the Mediterranean world, although her recent projects have also taken her to places such as Sri Lanka's western coast and Nineveh. Across these diverse regions, her work seeks to understand the reciprocal relationships between humans, animals, and environments and their relevance to contemporary debates on sustainability, biodiversity, and the Anthropocene. Her research has been supported by major funding bodies including the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), the Wenner-Gren Foundation, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), the European Union's Horizon 2020 programme, and the University of Groningen. She has also served as a National Geographic Expert. Her work has been published in leading international journals, including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), PLOS ONE, Journal of Archaeological Science, Antiquity, Environmental Archaeology, and other prominent outlets in archaeology, ecology, and interdisciplinary environmental research. In addition to her research articles, she has co-edited several scholarly volumes and special journal issues that have helped shape interdisciplinary debates on zooarchaeology, human–animal relations, environmental archaeology, and Mediterranean archaeology. A strong advocate of Open Science, Çakırlar is committed to transparent, collaborative, and reproducible research practices. She actively promotes open access publishing, data sharing, and interdisciplinary knowledge exchange, viewing openness as essential for advancing archaeological research and for making scientific knowledge accessible to wider academic and public audiences. Çakırlar collaborates internationally with scholars and institutions across archaeology, ecology, heritage studies, and biomolecular archaeology. Her work is characterised by extensive international collaboration across Europe, the Mediterranean, and Southwest Asia. Selected long-term collaborators include Salima Ikram (American University in Cairo), Brian Rose (University of Pennsylvania), Çiler Çilingiroğlu (Ege University), Kevin Daly (Trinity College Dublin), Rémi Berthon (Sorbonne Université), and many others working at the intersections of archaeology, environmental history, ancient biomolecules, and heritage research. Alongside her research, she teaches courses on Zooarchaeology, Anthropocene Studies, and Archaeological Theory for a Changing World, and serves as Visiting Professor in the Master's programme in Mediterranean Archaeology at the University of Pavia. She is also a member of the Anthropocene Research Group at Ege University. Her professional service includes editorial board memberships for Anatolica and the Journal of Field Archaeology. She has previously held elected and advisory positions within the International Council for Archaeozoology, the Association for Environmental Archaeology, the Faculty Council of the Faculty of Arts at Groningen, and the advisory board of the Groningen Institute of Archaeology.
Overige functies
- Programma coodinator ResearchMaster Archaeologie
- Leiding gevende, Collecties Archeozoologie Faculteit Letteren
- Visiting Professor, University of Pavia
- Member, Anthropocene Working Group, Ege Üniversitesi
Laatst gewijzigd:17 juni 2026 07:38