Briana Doering
Department of Anthropology
Assistant Professor, Archaeology
B.A. 2012, Barnard College
M.A. 2016, University of Michigan
Ph.D. 2020 University of Michigan
Briana N. Doering is an anthropological archaeologist interested in understanding human decision-making in the past. She undertakes multiscalar research projects with mixed methods that draw on traditional knowledge, zooarchaeology, isotopic dietary reconstruction, and geospatial modeling to reconstruct past adaptations to social and natural environments. In 2023, Dr. Bree was awarded a National Science Foundation Career grant to continue her research with Dene on past central Alaskan environments through the lens of cooking.
Dr. Bree conducts her field research primarily in central Alaska but has also worked in Australia, Egypt, Georgia, Michigan, Mexico, Madagascar, Wyoming, and Kodiak, Alaska. She teaches a variety of courses in archaeology and regularly offers Introduction to Archaeology, GIS in Anthropology, North American Archaeology, and Zooarchaeology I.
Dr. Bree is currently accepting MA students. She is especially interested in working with students on isotopic chemistry and/or material from Alaska that incorporates traditional knowledge. Funding may be available for such students. Please reach out if you are interested in working with her.
Courses Taught:
ANTH 1300 Introduction to Archaeology
ANTH 4110/5110 Zooarchaeology I
ANTH 4160/5160 GIS in Anthropology
ANTH 5015 Archaeological Method and Theory
Recent Selected Publications:
2024 Doering, B. Considering the Whole Environment in the Arctic Past. Current Anthropology.
2023 Doering, B., K. Hladek, M. Herron, J. Esdale, J. Reuther, C. Holmes, and G. Smith. Evaluating Systematic Use of Ground Penetrating Radar and Auger Surveys to Determine Activity Areas at Three Open Air Sites in Central Alaska. Journal of Field Archaeology.
2021 Doering, B. Subarctic landscape adaptations and paleodemography: A 14,000-year history of climate change and human settlement in central Alaska and Yukon. Quaternary Science Reviews 285(107139): 1-16.
2020 Doering, B., J. Esdale, J. Reuther, and S. Catenacci. A Multiscalar Consideration
of the Social and Environmental Processes Driving the Athabascan Migration. American
Antiquity 85(3), 470-491.
2019 Doering, B. Evaluating the Effects of Fermentation on the Carbon and Nitrogen
Isotopic Values in Chinook Salmon. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 23C,
626-633.
Research Interests:
Migration, Indigenous knowledge systems, human-environment interactions, zooarchaeological methods, landscape archaeology, dietary reconstruction, Subarctic adaptation and resilience
