Madeline Johnson

Madeline’s research focuses on grindstone technologies, past human-plant relationships, and hunter-gatherer adaptive mechanisms by past populations in marginal environments. She uses use-wear, residue analyses, and experimental archaeology to generate functional analyses of grinding implements and reconstruct their role within these past populations. Her previous work began to generate a Southern African reference collection for use-wear traces on quartzitic grindstones. 

Her current PhD research hopes to elucidate how Southern African grindstones were employed and what materials were being processed on these tools. Her current work builds on her previous research by creating a more comprehensive comparative reference collection for both use-wear and residue traces. She aims to identify plant exploitations by hunter-gatherers in Southern Africa and draw conclusions surrounding adaptability within marginal environments.