Laurel Darcy Hackley

LAUREL HACKLEY, University of Lumiere Lyon II, Lyon, France, was awarded a grant in October 2022 to aid research on “Desert Taskscapes of Egypt.” This project uses a combination of archaeological survey methods, GIS predictive modeling, phenomenological approaches, and ethnographic work to answer questions about the relationship between people and environment in the Eastern Desert of Egypt. The survey recorded more than seven hundred and fifty instances of archaeological material in an area of 1256 square kilometers, vastly increasing our understanding of the variety and chronology of human activity in the study area. This was largely enabled by a novel methodology that centers environmental micro-variation in the desert landscape and focuses on the range of human strategies for living and working in arid conditions. This approach was designed to create nuanced interpretations of daily “taskscapes” in the desert environment and assess how these taskscapes would have differed based on group membership, activity type, seasonality, and chronology. Close collaboration with the Maaza Bedouin in the area provided critical insights, as well as producing a modern comparative case study for living and working in the desert. This collaboration created relationships that will allow subsequent research projects to more effectively support the local community and advocate for their stewardship of the archaeological landscape.