April 1, 2025
To celebrate our 2025 Fellowship recipients, we contacted our winners to learn about their projects and and share their unique experiences in the world of archaeology. We’re thrilled to announce Megan Savoy, the winner of the prestigious John R. Coleman Traveling Fellowship for 2025!
John R. Coleman Traveling Fellowship Winner: Megan Savoy (University of Michigan Ann Arbor)
The 2025 John R. Coleman Traveling Fellowship winner, Ph.D. candidate Megan Savoy, will continue their research at the site of Roca Vecchia in Apulia, Italy in order to complete an analysis of the human skeletal remains from an Early Iron Age (950-700 BCE) mass grave. Following last year’s field season, where Megan trained American and Italian students on human osteology at the site and led the cleaning and inventory of roughly one third of the skeletal collection, Megan plans to continue to clean and identify the rest of the skeletal elements, calculate estimations on the age and sex for the complete individuals, and record paleopathological data such as the presence of disease and trauma. This research will provide a more complete picture of life in Early Iron Age Italy by giving us a glimpse into the living conditions during this period of social and economic change.
How did you get your start in archaeology?
I was first introduced to archaeology in my freshman year at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. I took a course called, Violence in MesoAmerica which examined different aspects of violence (structural, cultural, physical) through a bioarchaeological lens. Before this experience, I had never considered violence to be so nuanced and so I wanted to dive deeper into bioarchaeology and learn what else the human body could tell us. During my junior year, I began a bioarchaeology project on a collection of Medieval Italian human skeletal remains (from Noli, Italy) which turned into a senior thesis about understanding population health through childhood morbidity and paleopathology. Since then, I’ve been looking at different ways to understand lifeways and the lived experiences of individuals through bioarchaeology.
Where in the world has archaeology brought you (fieldwork, research, conference travel, etc.)?
I conducted fieldwork (survey and excavation) in South Carolina, South Korea, Mongolia, and most recently Italy and Albania. I was a bioarchaeology supervisor for the Roca Vecchia field school in September 2024. I studied stable isotopes at the Center for Stable Isotope Analysis at the University of New Mexico Albuquerque. I traveled on a research trip to the University of Nebraska department of parasitology to learn about human parasites and how to collect them from archaeological sediments. I applied for and received semi-finalist (and alternate candidate) for the Fulbright 2024-2025 cycle to develop a novel method analyzing paleoparasites at the University of Utrecht, Netherlands. For conferences, I presented at the Society for Anthropological Archaeology New Orleans (2024) and most recently at the Mediterranean Archaeology Collaborative Specialization (MACS) symposium at the University of Toronto.
What is one of the most memorable things that has happened to you in the field?
Last September, I was the bioarchaeology specialist at the Roca Vecchia field school directed by Professor Teodoro Scarano (University of Salento). It was one of the my first times leading a bioarchaeology project myself, and I trained a group of Italian and American students through the bioarchaeology process of cleaning, identifying, and cataloguing human skeletal remains. I found it so rewarding to teach the students these skills and then later watch them grow confident in their abilities to do bioarchaeology. Many of these students had never seen or handled skeletal remains before, and by the end of my time at the field school, many of them were excited to learn about the human body and what it can tell us. I can’t wait to go back and continue that work with Professor Scarano this coming September.
How has the AIA contributed to your success/professional goals?
My ultimate professional goal is to become a professor teaching bioarchaeology and my current dissertation research is on the skeletal material at Roca Vecchia. Thanks to the AIA’s contribution, I am granted the time and opportunity to dive deep into the skeletal analyses to learn more about the inhabitants at Roca. The John R. Coleman Traveling Fellowship grants me the flexibility I need to coordinate my time to match my collaborator, Professor Scarano’s, field school at Roca which begins in September which is usually the start of my Fall semester at my host institution. Last year, I was only able to afford two weeks to doing research at Roca which was not enough time to do an in-depth analysis on the skeletal remains. Now, I am able to return for the entirety of his field school, train and utilize the help of those students, complete the osteobiography, and begin analyzing that data to get a better understanding of the lived experiences at Roca all while also working closely with Professor Scarano and his colleagues at the University of Salento during the entire period. The AIA has also provided me with a platform where I can share my research, findings, and successes to a wider community.
I am incredibly grateful for this opportunity to share and continue my research. I am excited to see what new discoveries await at Roca Vecchia. Thank you so much for supporting my goals and this project.
Learn more about what Fellowship opportunities are available through the AIA.
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