Sarah B. McClure

Sarah B. McClure is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), where she also serves as Director of the Mediterranean Prehistory and Paleoecology Laboratory and the Zooarchaeology Laboratory. She specializes in environmental archaeology, focusing on the social and ecological impacts of early farming practices in the Mediterranean and Europe (8000–5000 years ago). Her work integrates ecological theory to study human adaptations to environmental and social changes, including domestication, food strategies, and demographic shifts.

Education: PhD in Anthropology from UCSB (2004). Prior roles include Assistant/Associate Professorships at Penn State and the University of Oregon. She returned to UCSB in 2019 after a career spanning over a decade in academia.

Research Interests:

• Origins and spread of agriculture in Europe and the Mediterranean
• Environmental impacts of early farming
• Zooarchaeology and faunal analysis
• Human-animal relationships (e.g., domestication of dogs)
• Landscape evolution and biodiversity

Labs/Spaces:

• Mediterranean Prehistory and Paleoecology Lab (HSSB 1029): Focuses on Mediterranean species collections, GIS tools, and paleoecological research.
• UCSB Faunal Lab (HSSB 1013): Houses comparative skeletal collections for North American species and supports zooarchaeological teaching.

Key Projects:

• Neolithic Dalmatia (Croatia): Examines early farming societies and the earliest Mediterranean cheese production.
• Krivače Paleolake: Studies environmental changes linked to early farming via lake core data (11,000–4,000 years ago).
• Cueva de la Cocina (Spain): Analyzes Mesolithic-Neolithic transition dynamics in the western Mediterranean.

Advocacy: McClure promotes family-friendly fieldwork practices, having organized projects accommodating childcare and partner involvement. She co-authored a recent blog advocating for flexible academic environments for parents in STEM fields.