Kristine Martirosyan-Olshansky

Director of the Armenian Lab

308 Charles E Young Dr. North, A204 Fowler Building, Los Angeles, CA 90095

Education

2014 C. Phil. Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles

2012 M.A. Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles          

2009 A.A. Anthropology, Santa Barbara City College                

2008 B.A. Classical Languages and Literature, University of California Santa Barbara, Russian Language and Literature, University of California Santa Barbara                                 

Areas of Interest

Prehistoric archaeology of the Caucasus and the Near East; lithic analysis; obsidian sourcing; emergent social complexity; economic anthropology.

Research

Kristine's current research focuses on the Neolithic settlement of Masis Blur (Armenia) and the obsidian economy of its inhabitants. She is uses portable x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy to analyze the obsidian artifacts from Masis Blur and trace the origin of the raw material used for tool production. 

Field Experience

Armenia, Israel, Egypt, Peru

Publications

2014 Preliminary Results of the 2012 Excavations of the Late Neolithic Settlement of Masis Blur. In Stone Age in Armenia. Edited by Boris Gasparyan, Makoto Arimura, Sumio Fujii. Kanazava University Press. Pp. 39-53. (with Hayrapetyan, A., Gregory E. Areshian, Pavel Avetisyan).

2013 Masis Blur: A Late Neolithic Settlement in the Plain of Ararat, Armenia. In Backdirt 2013: Annual Review of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA. (with Gregory E. Areshian, Pavel S. Avetisyan, and Armine Hayrpetyan).

2011 Wine and Death: The 2010 Excavations Season at the Areni-1 Cave Complex, Armenia. In Backdirt

2011: Annual Review of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA. (with Gregory E. Areshian, Boris Gasparyan, Lyssa S. Stapleton, Dina Zardaryan).

Presentations

2016 First Steps Towards Understanding Past Societies and Cultures on the Territory of the Armenian Highlands. An Archaeological Perspective. Fall 2015. Guest Lecture, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, UCLA. (Armenian 106A: Armenian Society and Culture).

2015 Prehistoric Connections Between the Inhabitants of the Armenian Highlands and the Iranian Plateau. 2nd Hamazasp and Ovsanna Chitjian Conference on Armenian Studies. Fall 2015. UCLA, Los Angeles, CA.

2015 Putting People into Their Places: A Geoarchaeological Approach. Fall 2015. Guest Lecture, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, American University of Armenia, Yerevan, Armenia. (CHSS 195: Introduction to Archaeology).

2015 Portable X-ray Spectrometry (pXRF) in Archaeology. Fall 2015. Institute of Physics of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia, Yerevan, Armenia.

2015 The Way We Were: Researching the Prehistoric Period in Armenia. Spring 2015. Pacific Coast Archaeological Society Distinguished Guest Speaker Series, Irvine, CA.

2015 Provenance Study of Obsidian Artifacts from the Neolithic Settlement Masis Blur (Armenia) using Portable X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometry. Society of America Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA. April 15-April 19, 2015.

2014 Masis Blur: A Neolithic Settlement in the Ararat Plain, Armenia. Society for American Archaeology 79th Annual Meeting, Austin, TX. April 29 2014.

2014 Provenance Study of Obsidian Artifacts from the Fowler Museum Collection (UCLA) using a Handheld X-ray Fluorescence Spectrometer. International Symposium on Archaeometry. Session on Stones, Plaster, and Pigments. Getty Villa, Los Angeles, CA. May 19, 2014.

2013 Settlement Patterns and Social Complexity in the Arpa River Basin, Armenia: Results of a Preliminary Survey, Society for American Archaeology 78th Annual Meeting, Honolulu, HI.

2011 Patterns of Cave Occupation during the Pre-Subboreal Holocene of the Caucasus and Center Near Eastern Highlands. Symposium Session on Advances in the Prehistory of the Southern Caucasus at the Society for American Archaeology 76th Annual Meeting, Sacramento, CA. March 30-April 2, 2011.

Awards

Armenian National Science Foundation (ANSEF) Award (#arch-4336) - Cambridge-Yerevan Sister City Association: Tracing our Roots, 2016

R.E. Taylor Society for Archaeological Sciences Honorable Mention, 2015

UCLA Graduate Student Summer Mentorship, 2013

National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Fellowship Honorable Mention, 2012

UCLA Graduate Research Fellowship, 2011