Christyann M. Darwent

Education

• Ph.D., Anthropology, University of Missouri–Columbia, 2001
• M.A., Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, Canada, 1995
• B.Sc., Archaeology, University of Calgary, Canada, 1992

About

Christyann Darwent is a zooarchaeologist interested in how humans adapt to arid, high arctic environments and coastal ecosystems. She manages the Zooarchaeology Lab and Comparative Skeletal Collection, which includes the Peter D. Schulz Osteoichthyology collection. Currently, Dr. Darwent a member executive committee and a graduate advisor for the Forensic Science Graduate Group. Formerly she served as editor of the journal Arctic Anthropology (2012-2022).

Research Focus

Professor Darwent’s interests lie primarily in animal skeletal remains from archaeological sites and how these remains can shed light on past human subsistence economies and past environments. Over the past 25 years her arctic field research has taken her to western Alaska, northwestern Greenland, and the high arctic islands of Nunavut. In collaboration with Bowdoin College and the Greenland National Museum, research continued at the site of Iita in northwestern Greenland with support of the National Science Foundation in 2016. Since 2013, graduate students at UC Davis have been working in collaboration with the Native village of Shaktoolik, Alaska, to investigate subsistence fishing and the archaeological record in this part of Norton Sound.

Publications

• Ebel, E., G.M. LeMoine, C.M. Darwent, J. Darwent, and D.P. Kirby (2023) Using Bone Technology and ZooMS to Understand Indigenous Use of Marine Mammals at Iita, Northwest Greenland. Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology https://doi.org/10.1080/15564894.2023.2213662
• Miszaniec, J.I., Darwent,, C.M., Darwent, J., & Eldridge, K.A. (2021) Zooarchaeological Analysis of a Late Holocene Multi-Component Village Site in Shaktoolik, Norton Sound, Alaska. Arctic Anthropology 58(2): 154–199. https://doi.org/10.3368/aa.58.2.154
• Darwent, C. M., and G. M. LeMoine (2021) Pre-Inuit Walrus Use in Arctic Canada and Greenland, c. 2500 BCE to 1250 CE. In ​The Atlantic Walrus: Multidisciplinary Insights into Human-Animal Interactions, edited by X.A. Keighley, M.T. Olsen, P. Jordan & S. Desjardins, pp. 99‒120. Academic Press, London.
• Miszaniec, J.I., J. Darwent, J., and C.M. Darwent (2019) Small Game, Estuaries, and Nets: New Perspectives on Norton Coastal Adaptations from a Shell Midden in Norton Sound, Alaska. Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology https://doi.org/10.1080/15564894.2019.1701148 .
• Ameen, C., Feuerborn, T. R., Brown, S.K.., Linderholm, A. . . . Dalén, L., Hansen, A., Gilbert, M.T.P., Sacks, B.N., Frantz, L. Larsen, G., Dobney, K., Darwent, C.M., & Evin, A. (2019) Specialised Sledge Dogs Accompanied Inuit Dispersal Across the North American Arctic. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 286: 2191929. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2019.1929
• Darwent, J., LeMoine, G. M., Darwent, C. M., & Lange, H. (2019) Late Dorset Deposits at Iita: Site Formation and Site Destruction in Northwestern Greenland. Arctic Anthropology 56(1):96–118. https://doi.org/10.3368/aa.56.1.96
• Darwent, C.M. & Darwent, J. (2016) The Enigmatic Choris and Old Whaling Cultures of the Western Arctic. In The Oxford Handbook of the Prehistoric Arctic, edited by T. Max Friesen and Owen K. Mason, pp. 371–394. Oxford University Press. https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199766956.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199766956-e-22
• LeMoine, G.M. & Darwent, C.M. (2016) Development of Polar Inughuit Culture in the Smith Sound Region. In The Oxford Handbook of the Prehistoric Arctic, edited by T. Max Friesen and Owen K. Mason, pp. 873–896. Oxford University Press. https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199766956.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199766956-e-43

Teaching

Dr. Darwent teaches upper, lower and graduate level courses in Anthropology including Introduction to Archaeology, Indigenous Arctic Peoples, Vikings, Zooarchaeology, Archaeological Theory and Method, and Personal Identification in Forensic Science.

Awards

UC Davis Academic Senate Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award (2020); UC Davis College of Letters and Sciences, Division of Social Sciences Dean’s Leadership Award (2015). Various research grants from NSF Polar Programs (n=10, 2003–present).