About

Catherine West is a Research Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Boston University, affiliated with the Archaeology Program and the Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer Range Future. Her research focuses on two primary questions in archaeology: the effects of Holocene climate change and resource availability on prehistoric subsistence in Arctic and Subarctic ecosystems, particularly in coastal Alaska, and how the archaeological record can be applied to contemporary environmental issues. She employs zooarchaeological and stable isotope data within the frameworks of historical ecology and evolutionary ecology to understand the long-term relationship between hunter-gatherers and their environment. Her work addresses contemporary concerns about landscape change, invasive species, and climate change in northern regions.

Research topics

• Geography
• Biology
• Environmental resource management
• Ecology
• Environmental science
• Oceanography
• Fishery
• Engineering
• Archaeology
• Geology

Selected publications

• Global research priorities for historical ecology to inform conservation

  2023 · 4 citations

  • Ecology
  • Environmental resource management
  • Geography

  Historical ecology draws on a broad range of information sources and methods to provide insight into ecological and social change, especially over the past ~12,000 years. While its results are often relevant to conservation and restoration, insights from its diverse disciplines, environments, and geographies have frequently remained siloed or underrepresented, restricting their full potential. Here, we synthesize knowledge from the fields of history, anthropology, paleontology, and ecology from scholars and practitioners working in marine, freshwater, and terrestrial environments on six continents and various archipelagoes to identify global research priorities for historical ecology to influence conservation. Specifically, we identify and address questions within four key priority areas: (i) methods and concepts, (ii) knowledge co-production and community engagement, (iii) policy and management, and (iv) climate change impacts. This work highlights the ways that historical ecology has developed and matured in its use of novel information sources, its efforts to move beyond extractive research practices and toward knowledge co-production, and its potential use in addressing management challenges, including climate change. Together, we demonstrate the ways that this field has brought together researchers across disciplines, connected academics to practitioners, and engaged communities to create and apply knowledge of the past to addressing the challenges of our shared future.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Instances of avian osteoarthritis from the Unalaska Sea Ice Project, Unalaska Island, Alaska

  International Journal of Paleopathology · 2021 · 3 citations

  • Archaeology
  • Geography
  DOI

• Size distribution of Pacific cod (<i>Gadus macrocephalus</i>) in the North Pacific Ocean over 6 millennia

  Quaternary Research · 2020 · 12 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Fishery
  • Oceanography
  • Geography

  Abstract In this paper, we compile estimates of cod size distributions based on zooarchaeological data and contemporary length-frequency data to look at variability in size composition through time across the North Pacific, from the northern Kuril Islands through the Aleutian Islands to southeast Alaska. The results suggest that a strong longitudinal trend in cod size has remained consistent over time, with the largest cod found to the west. We find that five of nine sites show that overall cod length and distribution of the largest fish remain relatively unchanged. Two sites where we find truncation of the length distributions—or loss of the largest fish—are places where the modern fisheries have the longest history and have been most intense, suggesting a potential for anthropogenic impacts on these local populations. We acknowledge two limitations in these data: (1) there are differences in selectivity between the ancient and modern fisheries; and (2) seasonal variability in fish availability was observed to be an important explanatory variable in the modern data set, but the season of harvest is poorly understood for the ancient collections. Therefore, while differences observed between the two data sets suggest possible anthropogenic influence on the size structure of Pacific cod, they are not conclusive.

  DOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: An examination of human social and cultural adaptation through archaeological and paleoclimate data from the Aleutian Islands

  NSF · $442k · 2016–2024

Frequent coauthors

• Tatiana R. Feuerborn

  National Institutes of Health

  12 shared

• Allowen Evin

  Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution de Montpellier

  11 shared

• Mikkel‐Holger S. Sinding

  University of Copenhagen

  10 shared

• Ardern Hulme‐Beaman

  University of Liverpool

  10 shared

• Thomas H. McGovern

  The Graduate Center, CUNY

  9 shared

• Ophélie Lebrasseur

  Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

  9 shared

• Anna Linderholm

  Bolin Centre for Climate Research

  9 shared

• Keith Dobney

  9 shared

Labs

• Zooarchaeology LaboratoryPI

Similar researchers at Boston University

• Alexa S. Beiserh-188
• David Boash-156
• Benjamin Sovacoolh-143
• Kathryn L. Lunettah-132
• Ranga Mynenih-130