Hannah Chazin

Hannah Chazin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Columbia University. Her office is located at 964 Schermerhorn Extension (Mail Code: 5523), with contact information including phone number (212) 854-7764 and email hc2986@columbia.edu. She maintains regular office hours on Mondays from 2:30-4 PM and has a professional website at http://www.hannah-chazin.com/.

Her educational background includes:

• PhD in Anthropology from University of Chicago (2016)
• MA in Anthropology from University of Chicago (2011)
• Postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford Archaeology Center (2016-2017)

Chazin's research focuses on human-animal relationships in the past and their connections to political power, inequality, and systems of value. She challenges conventional narratives that link contemporary inequality directly to deep historical processes like domestication. Her work spans Human/Animal Relations, Bodies & Medicine Empires, States and Sovereignties, Intellectual & Disciplinary Histories, Language, Social Theory, Critical Theory, and Art. More specifically, she concentrates on Human-Animal Relationships, Political Anthropology, Semiotics, Archaeological Theory and Methods, Zooarchaeology, and Isotope Analysis, with regional expertise in Eurasia, particularly the Caucasus and South Caucasus.

Her scholarly output demonstrates a consistent interdisciplinary approach that bridges archaeology, anthropology, political theory, and material science. The 15 most recent publications reveal a strong focus on innovative zooarchaeological methods, particularly isotopic analysis, to investigate human-animal relationships in the Late Bronze Age South Caucasus. Her work consistently challenges deterministic narratives about the development of political systems and economic structures, emphasizing the diversity of human-animal entanglements in the past.

Her major contributions include:

• 'Live Stock and Dead Things: Zoopolitics between domestication and modernity' (University of Chicago Press 2024)
• 'Animal work before capitalism: Sheep's reproductive labor in the ancient South Caucasus' (American Anthropologist 2023)
• 'Multi-Season Reproduction and Pastoralist Production Strategies' (Journal of Field Archaeology 2021)
• 'Isotopic Perspectives on Pastoralist Mobility in the Late Bronze Age South Caucasus' (Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 2019)

Chazin is currently co-director of the Karashamb Animals Project, which analyzes animal remains in Bronze and Iron Age burials at Karashamb, Armenia. She has conducted extensive fieldwork across Armenia, Russia, Chile, Cambodia, and the western United States. Her teaching portfolio includes 'Think Like an Archaeologist,' 'Value, Objects, and Meaning,' 'Living with Animals: Anthropological Perspectives,' 'Thing Theory,' and 'Contemporary Archaeological Theory,' reflecting her interdisciplinary approach to understanding material culture and human-animal relationships.