Meet Dr. Jillian Garvey, a zooarchaeologist who is interested in the role of native fauna in past and modern diets!
Jillian is an Australian Research Council (ARC) DECRA Fellow in the Department of Archaeology and History at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. She also graduated with a BA/BSc Honours (1999) and Ph.D. in Zoology (2005) from La Trobe. Jillian has combined her training in zoology and archaeology to focus on ‘zooarchaeology’ the role of animals in Indigenous Australian archaeology. Currently she is involved with several research projects, but her main interest is in ‘native bush tucker’ where she is undertaking a series of modern butchery/economic utility experiments (to determine how much meat, fat, and marrow a particular animal will provide) coupled with its nutritional quality (how healthy it is for you to eat). She is building up the most comprehensive database of its type which can be used for interpreting the archaeological record as well as helping to inform on our own modern diets.