headshot of Lisa Maher smiling

Research Bio

Lisa Maher is an anthropological archaeologist specializing in prehistoric societies of the Near East. She has been directing archaeological projects in Jordan for twenty five years and worked in many other countries throughout the Middle East, North Africa, Asia and North America. She currently directs a project in Cyprus exploring the earliest island inhabitants. Her interdisciplinary work integrates archaeology, geoarchaeology, and paleoenvironmental studies to reconstruct lifeways of early humans.

Maher is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at UC Berkeley, a member of the Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology graduate faculty, and curator of lithic collections at the Hearst Museum. She has received grants from the National Science Foundation, National Endowment of the Humanities, Wenner-Gren Foundation, National Geographic Society, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and Arts & Humanities Research Council of Britain. Her publications contribute to debates on the transition from foraging to farming. Her expertise spans prehistory, lithic technology, the origins of agriculture, and place-making.

Research Expertise and Interest

archaeology, hunter-gatherers, prehistory, geoarchaeology, landscape use, stone tools technology, emergence of social complexity, ancient technology

In the News

What ancient poop reveals about the rise and fall of civilizations

The pre-Columbian city of Cahokia was once among the most populous and bustling settlements north of Mexico. But by 1400 A.D., Cahokia’s population had dwindled to virtually nothing. While theories abound about what happened to the indigenous people of Cahokia, AJ White, a Ph.D. student in anthropology at UC Berkeley, has studied ancient poop samples to connect the city’s 13th century population plunge – at least in part – to climate change.

Featured in the Media

Please note: The views and opinions expressed in these articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or positions of UC Berkeley.
February 17, 2021

A Body Burned Inside a Hut 20,000 Years Ago Signaled Shifting Views of Death

Science News
Bruce Bower
Middle Eastern hunter-gatherers changed their relationship with the dead nearly 20,000 years ago. Clues to that spiritual shift come from the discovery of an ancient woman's fiery burial in a hut at a seasonal campsite. Burials of people in houses or other structures, as well as cremations, are thought to have originated in Neolithic-period farming villages in and around the Middle East no earlier than about 10,000 years ago. But those treatments of the dead appear to have had roots in long-standing practices of hunter-gatherers, says a team led by archaeologists Lisa Maher of the University of California, Berkeley and Danielle Macdonald of the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma.
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