Véronique Forbes

Position

Assistant Professor

Contact

Email: vforbes [@] mun.ca
Office: QC 4014
Phone: 

Ph.D. (Archaeology), University of Aberdeen, 2013
M.A. (Archaeology), Université Laval, 2009
B.A. (Archaeology), Université Laval, 2006

Research Interests 

My research centres on the archaeology and ecology of northern communities’ changing relationships with subarctic and arctic environments. My methodological expertise is in environmental archaeology, and I specialize in the analysis of insect remains and the excavation of sod/turf-built dwellings, which allows me to examine past lifeways and living conditions as well as long-term human-mediated landscape and biodiversity change.

Most of my fieldwork experience involved excavating turf and sod houses (and associated middens) and undertaking small-scale surveys of modern beetles in Iceland (2006-2013), southwestern Alaska (2013-2017) and Newfoundland (2018-today). Over the last few years I have begun to turn my attention to peat bogs as archives of long-term biocultural footprints and biodiversity data, which led me to begin developing, in collaboration with colleague Paul Ledger, a methodology to effectively excavate, record and sample peat for high-resolution palaeoecological analyses.

I am currently leading the SSHRC-IG-funded project ‘Biocultural and Archaeological Legacies at L’Anse aux Meadows’, which aims to revitalize research at this UNESCO World Heritage site through an examination of legacy data combined with cutting-edge environmental-archaeological analyses. I am also maintaining international collaborations through involvement in interdisciplinary projects focusing on the Yup’ik site of Nunalleq in southwestern Alaska, and my involvement in an NSF-funded project focusing on southern Greenland. For more information on these projects, I invite you to have a look at the PEAT Lab web page.

Please note that due to my current commitments I will not be accepting new graduate students until the 2024 application year (for a start in Fall 2025).

Ph.D. Dissertations
  • Milliard, Pier-Ann (in progress). Analysis of beetles remains from peat profiles close to archaeological sites on the island of Newfoundland (working title).
  • Simms, Elsa (in-progress). Participatory approach to storytelling the heritage of L’Anse aux Meadows (working title).
M.A Theses
  • Reesor, Alyshia (in progress). The Examination of the Biogeography, Ecology, and History of Human-Flea Relationships Through the Collation of Fossil, Historical and Modern Locality Data (working title).
  • Salazar Guerra, Carlos (in progress). Testing whether High-Resolution Archaeoentomology is Worthwhile: A Case Study Using Peat Samples Collected at L’Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland (working title).
  • Lanphear, Juliet (2023). Visualizing Scandinavian Stories: An Exploration of the History of Scandinavian Involvement in Archaeological Research at L’Anse aux Meadows
  • Milliard, Pier-Ann (2023). A beetle-based palaeoecological reconstruction of human-environment interactions at Kivalekh, Northern Labrador.
  • Speller, Jeffrey (2022). A Palaeoecological and Archaeological Analysis of Plant Macrofossils from Monolith 4A800B3-6 at L’Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland.  
  • Carlson, Ivan (2022). The Genesis of Labrador's Indigenous Landscapes: A Review of Research Approaches and Current Knowledge (Co-supervised with Dr. Peter Whitridge).                 
Honours Essays
  • Branton, Bryan D. (in progress) Analysis of Insect Remains from Block Samples Collected at L’Anse aux Meadows in 2023 (working title)
  • Andrews, Liam M. (2023) Virtual Vikings: Video Games as Educators on the Past.
  • Cox, Leo (2023) Destroy these Invasive Aliens! Why Language in Conservation Matters.
  • Hogan, Jared (2021) The Perception and Understanding of Archaeology in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador: A Pilot Study.
  • Lanphear, Juliet (2020) History, Archaeology and Palaeoecology of the Icelandic Plagues: A Review.
Publications