Dr. Yin Lam

Bio

I have been teaching at UVic since 2003. I grew up in Salem, Massachusetts ("The Witch City"), on the territory of the Indigenous people after whom that state is named. As an undergraduate, I participated in a field school at Koobi Fora, Kenya, an experience that sparked a long-term interest in the behavior of early hominins and hyenas. This eventually led me to a specialization in zooarchaeology and taphonomy, with a particular focus on how differential preservation of faunal remains and our own analytical decisions affect our interpretations of the faunal record. I have participated in archaeological research projects in France, Denmark, Nunavut, Alberta, Montana, South Africa, New York, Eritrea  Ethiopia, China, and Greece, and I have worked as a contract archaeologist in New York and Montana.  I am currently managing the archaeology labs and collections in the department and am turning the focus of my research to the zooarchaeology of the Pacific Northwest. I have been reflecting upon the colonial nature of certain areas of archaeological research and my own past role in them, and I hope to contribute to the remedy of this situation.

Interests

• Archaeology
• Zooarchaeology
• Palaeoanthropology

Courses

• ANTH 240 Archaeology
• ANTH 319 Research Methods in Archaeology and Biological Anthropology
• ANTH 347 The Pleistocene Archaeology of Africa
• ANTH 360 Zooarchaeology

Selected publications

• 2021 – M. Bullock and Lam, Y. Preliminary findings from the faunal assemblage from Eleon.  Mouseion 18: 31-47. 
• 2018 – Z. Assefa, A. Asrat, E. Hovers, Y. Lam, O. Pearson, and D. Pleurdeau. Engraved ostrich eggshell from the Middle Stone Age contexts of Goda Buticha, Ethiopia. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 17: 723-729.
• 2010 - Y. M. Lam, Katherine Brunson, Richard Meadow, Jing Yuan. Integrating taphonomy into the practice of zooarchaeology in China. Quaternary International 211:86–90.
• 2009 - S. L. Carto, A. J. Weaver, R. Hetherington, Y. M. Lam, E. C. Wiebe. Out of Africa and into an Ice Age: On the role of global climate change in the Late Pleistocene migration of early modern humans out of Africa. Journal of Human Evolution 56:139-151.
• 2008 - Y. M. Lam. Variability in cementum deposition in springbok on the South African Cape. Journal of Archaeological Science 35:1062-1073.
• 2008 - Z. Assefa, Y. M. Lam & H. K. Mienis. Symbolic use of terrestrial gastropod opercula during the Middle Stone Age at Porc-Epic Cave, Ethiopia. Current Anthropology 49:746-756.
• 2008 - Y. M. Lam. What have taphonomic studies taught us about early hominin behavior? Evolutionary Anthropology 17:158-161..
• 2005 - Y. M. Lam & O. M. Pearson. Bone density studies and the interpretation of the faunal record. Evolutionary Anthropology 14:99-108.​