Chantel White is Teaching Specialist in Archaeobotany at the Center for the Analysis of Archaeological Materials (CAAM), a joint appointment between the Department of Anthropology and the Penn Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology. She received her B.A. in anthropology from Beloit College, WI, and her Ph.D. in archaeology from Boston University. At the University of Pennsylvania, she teaches courses on archaeobotanical method and theory, ethnobotany, and interdisciplinary approaches to archaeological science. Her research is focused on the analysis of plant remains from archaeological sites in the Mediterranean and Near East, with a particular interest in the reconstruction of agricultural and cooking practices.

White’s project at the Price Lab centers on developing a digital database that provides students,academics, and researchers with online access to high-resolution images from CAAM’s archaeobotanical reference collection. This collection is unique in its documentation of various cooking technologies of the past and its focus on ancient food residues. Ongoing cooking experiments in our laboratory have created an extensive comparative collection of processed and carbonized seeds, herbs, and spices. High-resolution photographs of these specimens will provide a useful online tool for researchers seeking to identify evidence for food preparation techniques and charred macrobotanical remains in the archaeological record.