Francesco Berna

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Research Assistant Professor of Archaeology

 
ASSOCIATE EDITOR OF JOURNAL, GEOARCHAEOLOGY
CODIRECTOR, LABORATORY OF MICROSTRATIGRAPHY
LAB SAFETY COORDINATOR
 
Office: Room STO 247A & 251
(617) 358-1657/-1666
 
PhD, University of Florence, 2000
Areas of interest: Archaeological Science, Early Fire & Ancient Pyrotechnologies

 

EXCAVATIONS & FIELD WORK

Francesco Berna is an expert of Fourier Transform Infrared Microspectroscopy applied to archaeological investigations. His work is contributing to several important issues in Old and New World Archaeology. These include  the onset of the controlled use of fire during the Lower and Middle Paleolithic in South Africa, Europe, and the Middle East; dating the earliest out-of-Africa evidence of Homo erectus at Dmanisi and the earliest North American occupation in Oregon; the study of domestic and industrial pyrotechnological activities in Maya, Roman, Egyptian, Bronze, and Iron Age sites.  The reconstruction of site formaton processes at the Middle Paleolithic Cave at Manot and at the Final Pre-Pottery Neolithic site of Beisamoun in the Upper Jordan Valley in Israel .

 

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

  • Wadley L., Sievers C., Bamford M., Goldberg P., Berna F., Miller C. 2011. Middle Stone Age bedding construction and settlement patterns at Sibudu, South Africa Science 334: 1388-1391
  • Poduska K.M., Regev L., Berna F., Mintz E., Milevski I., Khalaily H., Weiner S., Boaretto E., 2011. Plaster characterization at the PPNB site of Yiftahel (Israel) including the use of 14C: implications for plaster production, preservation and dating Radiocarbon in press
  • Ferring R., Oms O., Augusti J., Berna F., Nioradze M., Shelia T., Tappen M., Vekua A., Zhvania D., and Lordkipanidze D., 2011. Earliest human occupations at Dmanisi (Georgian Caucasus) dated to 1.85-1.78 Ma Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 108(26): 10432-10436
  • Goldberg, P. and Berna, F., 2010. Micromorphology and context. Quaternary International 214, 56-62.
  • Berna F., 2010. Bone alteration and diagenesis. In: Scientific Methods and Cultural Heritage. An Introduction to the Application of Materials Science to Archaeometry and Conservation Science (G. Artioli), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 364-367  
  • Matarazzo T., Berna F., Goldberg P., 2010. Occupation surfaces sealed by the Avellino eruption of Vesuvius at the Early Bronze Age village of Afragola in southern Italy: A micromorphological analysis Geoarchaeology 25 (4): 437-466
  • Harold L. Dibble, Francesco Berna, Paul Goldberg, Shannon P. McPherron, Susan Mentzer, Laura Niven, Daniel Richter, Dennis Sandgathe, Isabelle Thery-Parisot, and Alan Turq, 2009. A Preliminary Report on Pech de l'Aze IV, Layer 8 (Middle Paleolithic, France). PaleoAnthropology 2009:182-219  
  • Goldberg, P., Berna, F., Macphail, R.I. 2009. Comment on aDNA from Pre-Clovis Human Coprolites in Oregon, North America. Science , 325 , 148b-148c.
  • Goldberg, P., Miller, C.E., Schiegl, S., Ligouis, B., Berna, F., Conard, N.J. and Wadley, L. 2009. Bedding, hearths, and site maintenance in the Middle Stone Age of Sibudu Cave, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 1, 95-122.
  • Berna, F. and Goldberg, P. 2008. Assessing Paleolithic pyrotechnology and associated hominin behavior in Israel. Israel Journal of Earth Sciences 56, 107-121.
  • Berna F., Behar A., Shahack-Gross R., Berg J., Zorn J., Boaretto E., Gilboa A., Sharon I., Shalev S., Silshtein S., and Weiner S., 2007. Sediments Exposed to High Temperatures: Reconstructing Pyrotechnological Practices in Late Bronze and Iron Age Strata at Tel Dor (Israel) Journal of Archaeological Sciences34, 358-373
  • Berna F., Matthews A. and Weiner S., 2004.  Solubilities of Bone Mineral from Archaeological Sites: the Recrystallization Window? Journal of Archaeological Science 31, 867-882