Fiona Pichon

My research

I am a researcher in Archaeology, focusing on the emergence of the first farming societies in the Southwest Asia. My approach is based on the analysis of stone tools to define the interaction processes between technical innovations and social practices when the last groups of hunter-gatherers adopted a sedentary lifestyle and became food producers. I am one of the emerging researchers in use-wear analysis, trained by the world-renowned expert of the discipline (P. Anderson and S. Beyries, French CNRS). The approach I propose has been successfully carried out in my PhD thesis, funded by the Paris-Sorbonne University. For my academic formation, I gained a solid teaching experience in higher education in Archaeology (46 hours of lectures and 234 hours of tutorials at the Paris-Sorbonne University) for which I obtained my Qualification for the functions of Lecturer. 

During my first postdoctoral position at the Milà y Fontanals Institute (CSIC) in Spain under the supervision of J.J. Ibáñez (Fyssen Foundation grant), and afterwards at the Tsukuba University in Japan under the supervision of A. Tsuneki (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science grant), I studied various tool assemblages from different Neolithic sites across the Southwest Asia (Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Iran), dated between 10^th and 6^th millennia. Recently, I joined the international research ‘South-eastern Badia Archaeological Project’, working on the comparison between sedentary villages and the semi-nomadic hunters of the desert kites, in southern Jordan. Addressing these issues over a widespread area, in different archaeological settlements, I will be able to signify the particularities of these productions in a long-term perspective. My aim is to determine whether observed changes are related to an economic specialisation of sites, or to a chronological or cultural diversity.

In the coming years, with the MSCA-funded OBSTRADE project, I will investigate the role of the obsidian exchange networks in the transmission and spread of innovations during the transition to farming. For understanding obsidian trade, the project proposes an original, innovative, and interdisciplinary approach, by analysing Neolithic obsidian tool function and geographical distribution. I will develop, for the first time, a methodology for the study of obsidian tools using high-precision surface texture analysis through confocal Scanning Microscopy in collaboration with J.J. Ibáñez of the Archaeology of Social Dynamics Research group (IMF-CSIC). This work will allow to run a modelling on the use and exchange of obsidian in the SW Asia, by applying network analysis and agent-based modelling in collaboration with R. Toral (IFISC, Baleares University). In addition, I will continue exploring the mechanism of diffusion and adaptation of the Neolithic in the Fertile Crescent and its surroundings (Iran, Iraq, Kurdistan, Jordan, and Turkey).