Dr Lorena Becerra-Valdivia

Research Profile

I am an archaeological scientist and radiocarbon dating expert, with MSc (2015) and DPhil (2019) degrees from the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, School of Archaeology, University of Oxford. My research involves the construction of reliable, high-resolution chronologies using radiocarbon dating and Bayesian age modelling techniques, and focuses on the interface between past human occupations, ecology, and climate. Past projects include the establishment of timelines for hominin (modern humans and Neanderthals) dynamics during the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic Transition in the Zagros Mountains, and the initial arrival of humans to the Americas around the Last Glacial Maximum. I've previously worked at the W.M. Keck Carbon Cycle Accelerator Mass Spectrometer (University of California, Irvine) and Chronos 14Carbon Cycle (University of New South Wales, Sydney) radiocarbon dating facilities. I am currently a member of HERCA, an AHRC-FAPESP funded project researching human-environment relationships in pre-Columbian Amazonia. My primary aim within HERCA is to produce/manage radiocarbon data for the creation of highly resolved human occupation and palaeo-environmental sequences. The integration of these results will help us better understand the relationship between humans, ecological and climatic changes in pre-Columbian Amazonia.

External websites:  

HERCA https://research.reading.ac.uk/herca/

Google Scholar https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=NlAKxXUAAAAJ

ResearchGate https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Lorena-Becerra-Valdivia

Publications