Olga Szynkaruk

Research & Interest:

My legal name is Olga Szynkaruk; my chosen names are Vivien and Nauthiz.

I raise my hands in acknowledgment, respect and gratitude to the Lək̓ʷəŋən peoples on whose territories the University of Victoria stands, and the Songhees, Esquimalt, and WSÁNEC peoples whose historical relationship with the land continues to this day. I intend for my work to play a role in decolonization, and to aid the healing of the land and all its beings.

Between the years 2013 and  2021, I have acquired MA degrees in Archaeology, History and Sociology at the University of Szczecin in Poland. While I will always remember my alma mater with fondness and gratitude, I am glad that the next stage of this journey has brought me to the University of Victoria, under the supervision of a scholar I have admired for a long time: Professor April Nowell.

The main goal of my research is the construction of a comprehensive body of information on the world's known Upper Palaeolithic burials, focused especially on evidence of symbolic behaviours practiced, as well as their implications in relation to the buried individual and the society they lived in. My goals include also an attempt to re-interpret some of the traditional narratives pertaining to certain burials. Another anticipated contribution is for my work to provide a methodological model for the choosing of sound and scientifically persuasive archaeological and ethnoarchaeolgical analogies in interpretive research.

Outside of academic pursuits, my interests include historical martial arts, game design, and fashion.

Publications:

The Exile’s Lament. Solitude and Togetherness in Ovid’s Later Works. Paedagogia Christiana [online]. 15 May 2020, T. 45, nr 1, s. 217–224.

Website: https://olgasz.academia.edu/