About

John Krigbaum is a Professor and Chair in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Florida, within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. His areas of interest and research include biogeochemistry, bioarchaeology, paleodiet, migration, paleoecology, paleopathology, Southeast Asia, New World prehistory, Old World prehistory, paleoanthropology, and primate ecology. He is involved in studying various aspects of human and primate history, focusing on understanding ancient diets, migration patterns, ecological interactions, and health through archaeological and biological evidence. His work contributes to the broader understanding of prehistoric human life and environmental interactions.

Research topics

• Law
• Political Science
• Sociology
• Archaeology
• Geology
• Biology
• Geochemistry
• Genetics
• Microbiology
• Physics
• Virology
• Classics
• Demography
• Ancient history
• History
• Geography

Selected publications

• Africa’s Cultural Crossroads: Archaeological Evidence for Ritual Syncretism in Western Uganda from Western Kansyore, Transitional Urewe, and Bigo-Period Burials

  African Archaeological Review · 2025-09-01

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Archaeological research in the Ndali Crater Lakes Region (NCLR) in western Uganda has contributed significant insights into first millennium AD multilingual communities. These diverse communities, sharing food ways, ceramic technologies, and ritual beliefs, are traced to Bantu speakers who interacted with Sudanic speakers who made Kansyore ceramics. One of the significant exchanges of cultural beliefs was the adoption of Kansyore burial urns by Bantu makers of Transitional Urewe and Boudiné ware (Early Iron Age). This article provides additional evidence for a region of tropical Africa where burials are well preserved. These conditions allow unusual opportunities to assess syncretism in ritual treatments of the dead, using funerary practices that add significantly to evidence previously documented in the NCLR. Ritual interment of the dead on western caldera rims, where celestial renewal is assured, shows long-term continuities through documentation of later Bigo-period burials.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Effects of ketogenic diet on rat bone δ13C values and their implications for dietary reconstruction studies

  Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences · 2025-04-11

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• A Synthesis of Bioarchaeological Research on Carriacou, Southern Grenadines

  2025-06-25

  book-chapterSenior author

  Archaeological investigation at the Grand Bay site on the island of Carriacou in the southern Grenadines revealed a large Amerindian village site dating to between AD 400 and 1300. Found across the site were deposits with extensive artifactual and faunal assemblages accompanied by skeletal remains from more than two dozen human burials. Bioarchaeological research of these remains, along with a small number of individuals recovered from other sites on the island—represent the first osteological work focused on precontact lifeways, demography, health, diet, and mobility on Carriacou and are providing important clues regarding the peoples who settled on this small island over the course of a millennium. Here we report on the osteological and isotopic analysis of these remains.

  PublisherDOI

• Early transatlantic movement of horses and donkeys at Jamestown

  Science Advances · 2025-09-03

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Domestic equids were central to the initial colonization of the Atlantic coast of the Americas, a process partially chronicled by historical records. While Spanish colonists brought horses to the Caribbean decades earlier, settlement of the English colony at Jamestown, Virginia, was among the first dispersals of horses to the eastern seaboard. Archaeozoological analysis of identifiable domestic equid remains from two contexts associated with the initial occupation of Jamestown demonstrates intense processing and consumption of the first Jamestown horses during the "Starving Time" winter of 1609. Osteological and biomolecular study of these equid remains demonstrates their successful reproduction at the colony and use in transport activities and identifies an adult domestic donkey with mixed European and West African ancestry, possibly supplied through undocumented exchange during a transatlantic stopover. These results reveal the challenges of equid translocation in early settlement of eastern North America and the global connectivity of early transatlantic animal exchange.

  PublisherDOI

• Postclassic political conflict and isotope analysis in the central Peten lakes area, Guatemala

  Ancient Mesoamerica · 2025-08-01

  articleSenior author

  Abstract Isotopes of strontium, oxygen, and carbon were analyzed in human tooth enamel from two Postclassic sites in the central Peten lakes region, Guatemala, to examine patterns of mobility and diet during a time of social unrest. Excavations at both sites, Ixlu and Zacpeten, have revealed evidence for purposeful dismemberment and interment of individuals. This study examines a possible shrine surrounded by rows of skulls at Ixlu, and a mass grave of comingled individuals interred at Zacpeten. The interments coincide with a period of conflict and warfare between two dominant polities, Itza and Kowoj. The 14 sampled individuals at Ixlu were young males, six of whom isotopically match the Maya Mountains of central Belize/southeastern Peten. At Zacpeten, isotopic signatures of adults and children ( n = 68) suggested that many were either local or came from other parts of the Maya lowlands, but not the Maya Mountains. In the Late Postclassic, the Zacpeten individuals were exhumed, defiled, and deposited in a mass grave, probably by Kowojs. Although temporally and geographically related, the Ixlu and Zacpeten burials represent two distinct cases of ritual violence that reflect the tumultuous political landscape of the Postclassic period.

  PublisherDOI

• Multilingualism at the Crossroads of Africa: A Response to Commentaries on “Remaking Late Holocene Environment of Western Uganda: Kansyore and Later Settlers in the Ndali Crater Lakes Region”

  African Archaeological Review · 2024-12-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Violent death of a warrior in the destruction of Roca Vecchia, Apulia, Italy: Insights on hostilities and Aegean connections in the Bronze Age

  Journal of Archaeological Science · 2024-06-12 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access

  This study recreates aspects of the life and death of a young adult male who died during the siege of Roca Vecchia, a Bronze Age fortified coastal site in Italy. The partially charred and unburied individual, Roca US813A, was found among the debris in the southern room of the main gate to the city. This paper highlights information that can be retrieved from a single partially preserved skeleton. Detailed bioarchaeological, forensic, and taphonomic analysis, and thorough examination of archaeological and contextual data permit an osteobiography of this individual to be developed, which we situate in the overall picture of Middle Bronze Age regional events and exchanges between Italy and the Aegean world. This individual represents a unique example of information derived from bones from an archaeological context. After suffering fatal blows to the body, the individual was accidently exposed to heat. This allowed us to analyze wounds that had undergone thermal alteration. Since the combustion of the body was only partial and the same bone retains both highly burned and unburned parts, we were able to document the variations induced by heat at a macroscopic and microscopic level. To investigate the circumstances of his death, we focus on macroscopic and microscopic details of taphonomy and trauma using micro-CT, forensic, and multi-isotopic analysis. This may be the first secure evidence of a Middle Bronze Age (MBA) war casualty in Italy. In addition to detailed information about their manner of death, we discuss implications for the peopling of the site, tactics in Bronze Age warfare, and the nature of relations between Roca and the Aegean region. • Roca Vecchia; Middle Bronze Age; Warfare; Perimortem Traumas; Burned bones; Indigenous-Aegean relations.

  PublisherDOI

• Ancient DNA challenges prevailing interpretations of the Pompeii plaster casts

  Current Biology · 2024-11-01 · 10 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Animal movement on the hoof and on the cart and its implications for understanding exchange within the Indus Civilisation

  Scientific Reports · 2024-01-02 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access

  Movement of resources was essential to the survival and success of early complex societies. The sources and destinations of goods and the means of transportation - be it by boats, carts and/or foot - can often be inferred, but the logistics of these movements are inherently more difficult to ascertain. Here, we use strontium isotopic analysis to test hypotheses about the role of animal and animal-powered transport in medium and long-distance movement and exchange, using the Indus Civilization as a case study. Across the wide geographical spread of the Indus Civilisation, there is strong evidence for long-distance exchange of raw materials and finished objects and this process is presumed to involve boats and animal-driven transport, although there is little evidence as to the relative importance of each mode of movement. Strontium isotopic analysis of animal remains from four sites analysed for this study combined with results from nine other sites indicates limited long-distance animal movement between different geological zones within the Indus Civilisation. These findings suggest that individual animals primarily moved short- or medium-distances, though there are several significant exceptions seen in some pigs and cattle found at two large urban sites. We infer that long-distance transport of goods, be it raw materials, finished objects, other goods, or the animals themselves, could have occurred through the use of boats and waterways, by traction animals moving over long distances that did not end up in the archaeological record, and/or by different animals participating in many short to medium-distance movements.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Elemental and isotopic analysis of leaves predicts nitrogen-fixing phenotypes

  Scientific Reports · 2024-08-29 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Nitrogen (N)-fixing symbiosis is critical to terrestrial ecosystems, yet possession of this trait is known for few plant species. Broader presence of the symbiosis is often indirectly determined by phylogenetic relatedness to taxa investigated via manipulative experiments. This data gap may ultimately underestimate phylogenetic, spatial, and temporal variation in N-fixing symbiosis. Still needed are simpler field or collections-based approaches for inferring symbiotic status. N-fixing plants differ from non-N-fixing plants in elemental and isotopic composition, but previous investigations have not tested predictive accuracy using such proxies. Here we develop a regional field study and demonstrate a simple classification model for fixer status using nitrogen and carbon content measurements, and stable isotope ratios (δ 15 N and δ 13 C), from field-collected leaves. We used mixed models and classification approaches to demonstrate that N-fixing phenotypes can be used to predict symbiotic status; the best model required all predictors and was 80–94% accurate. Predictions were robust to environmental context variation, but we identified significant variation due to native vs. non-native (exotic) status and phylogenetic affinity. Surprisingly, N content—not δ 15 N—was the strongest predictor, suggesting that future efforts combine elemental and isotopic information. These results are valuable for understudied taxa and ecosystems, potentially allowing higher-throughput field-based N-fixer assessments.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Faunal Economy And Social Complexity

  NSF · $30k · 2014–2015

Frequent coauthors

• George D. Kamenov

  37 shared

• Peter T. Ellison

  Case Western Reserve University

  15 shared

• Ashley E. Sharpe

  Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

  11 shared

• Lyle W. Konigsberg

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  10 shared

• Daniel J. Wescott

  Texas State University

  10 shared

• Trudy R. Turner

  John Wiley & Sons (United States)

  10 shared

• Scott M. Fitzpatrick

  8 shared

• Ellen Lofaro

  8 shared