Maria Saña Segui

Maria Saña Segui is a prominent Professor in the Department of Prehistory at the Autonomous University of Barcelona's Faculty of Geography and History. Her research focuses on the evolution of early food production systems, animal domestication, and Neolithic societies across the Iberian Peninsula, with particular expertise in high-mountain pastoralism and volcanic landscape archaeology.

Her research interests span Neolithic period studies, zooarchaeology, and human-environment interactions. She leads major projects including Evolution and impact of early food production systems - EarlyFoods, Arqueologia entre Volcans examining prehistoric volcanic eruptions in Garrotxa, and UNCOVERING FAUNAL DIVERSITY AND TRACING DOMESTICATION THROUGH FRAGMENTED BONES. Her work integrates morphometric analysis of livestock evolution with landscape archaeology to understand pastoral dynamics in Mediterranean contexts.

Her publications reveal consistent focus on animal domestication processes, Neolithic settlement patterns, and environmental adaptation strategies. Recent works emphasize methodological innovations in fragmented bone analysis and high-altitude pastoralism studies across the Pyrenees.

Saña Segui actively supervises research with 92 supervised works documented in institutional records. Her current projects include international collaborations across Spain, France, and the Near East, securing significant research funding through active grants like ZooMing in to Neolithic animal diversity (2024-2025) and Arqueología del pastoralismo en la alta montaña (2024-2027).

She directs fieldwork at key sites including La Draga (Banyoles), Coro Trasito (Huesca), and Cova de les Pixarelles (Osona), leading interdisciplinary teams studying early herding practices and settlement dynamics. Her research group EarlyFoods coordinates studies across Mediterranean Neolithic contexts with particular emphasis on Northwestern Iberia.