Katelyn J. Bishop

I am an anthropological archaeologist and zooarchaeologist whose research investigates how relationships between people and animals—especially birds—shaped social, ceremonial, and political life in the ancient Americas, with a specific focus on the North American Southwest. My research spans the last 4,000 years and ranges geographically across New Mexico, Arizona, California, Mexico, and Guatemala. I draw on zooarchaeology, collections-based research, archival research, and social theory to understand animals not simply as economic resources, but as active participants in the creation of social identities, ritual practices, and systems of power.

Through my research, I seek to understand dimensions of the archaeological record and past human-animal relationships that have been overlooked, obscured, or distorted by earlier collecting practices and interpretive frameworks. I combine the analysis of collections with that of archival records and legacy data and focus on detailed reconstruction of depositional context to reexamine longstanding archaeological questions and assumptions about past human-animal relationships. Much of my current research explores the relationship between people and birds in the Pueblo Southwest, specifically in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico between 800 and 1150 CE. From a “zoontological” perspective, I examine how animal agency and birds’ rarity, behavior, appearance, and symbolic qualities shaped their social and ceremonial significance, contributed to status differentiation, and positioned them as active participants in human social worlds.

My research on human-animal relationships is closely connected to a broader interest in the historical and social processes through which archaeological collections are created and archaeological knowledge is produced. This work examines how colonial collecting practices, excavator decisions, institutional values and priorities, and gendered assumptions shape interpretations of the past and raise broader questions about ethics, stewardship, equity, and accountability within the discipline.

My research has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Geographic Society.

I direct the Zooarchaeology Laboratory, which provides training and research opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students working with archaeological faunal remains and collections.