Taylor Vollman

I am a master’s candidate working under the supervision of Dr. Iain McKechnie.

I earned my BA in Anthropology and a minor in History from the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 2020. During the last year of my undergraduate degree, I completed an undergraduate Honors Thesis where I did a taphonomic study of caribou bones from an Ipiutak site in the Brooks Range of Alaska. From 2019-2020 I worked for the University of Alaska Museum of the North in the Archaeology Lab. 

My master’s research aims to explore the historical ecology of Olympia oysters, a shellfish species with current conservation concerns, in the Salish Sea. Specifically, I am interested in the distribution of Olympia oysters in archaeological sites throughout time as well as using past oyster size to guide restoration.