Highlights
Student Profile: Alexander Martin
by Gina McDonell
If Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, and Alexander Martin were to all look at a kangaroo, Darwin would wonder about the evolution of the marsupial’s pouch, Freud would wonder about the effect of being so close to one’s mother for an extended period of time, and Martin would look beyond the kangaroo to wonder about the whole environment and question how its elements might contribute to the sociopolitical development of a complex society. Pitt graduate student Alexander Martin is an anthropologist.
It was during his undergraduate studies in Florida when Martin discovered his interest in anthropology and, more specifically, in understanding the causes of civilization. What innovation or new resource moves a society from a small village to a burgeoning city-state? To pursue his interests, Martin first obtained a master’s degree in anthropology from Florida Atlantic University and then began searching for doctoral programs.
Before choosing Pitt, Martin considered four or five programs. He says, “Pitt really sold itself. I jumped on the opportunity to study with Jim Richardson and Robert Drennan; they wrote publications that I had been referring to for years! And bottom line, Pitt offered me the best funding.”
Martin is a recipient of the prestigious Howard Heinz Endowment Graduate Fellowship. This award provides full tuition support plus a stipend for three years before an anthropologist’s field study and one year afterwards. After two years in Pitt’s doctoral program, Martin began preliminary fieldwork in Ecuador, which is his home country. To cover costs, he received supplemental funding from the University’s Center for Latin American Studies and from the School of Arts and Sciences Department of Anthropology. He was also awarded a K. Leroy Irvis Summer Research Grant, the purpose of which is designed to enhance the diversity of the University of Pittsburgh's graduate student population and eventually the professoriate.
In summer of 2006, Alexander returned to Ecuador to complete his fieldwork on which he’ll base his dissertation. The National Science Foundation awarded him $12,000 to study “Pre-Columbian Societies of Southern Manabí (Ecuador) and the Role of Shell Export.” He is looking at the industry of shell-trading in that area through history and linking his findings to conclusions about the effect of trade on the development of complex societies.
To gather data about an industry that dates back 3,500 years, Martin planned and managed an archaeological expedition. He and his crew surveyed a 100-square-kilometer area in order to model the shell industry during various time periods. Popular belief about archaeological expeditions involves extensive digging and time. However, University of Pittsburgh anthropology faculty members have pioneered survey techniques involving surface collection only. The density of material such as ceramics remnants collected from the surface area provides information about the shell trade during various time periods. The process is far more efficient than traditional techniques with results just as valid; the technique allowed Martin to collect more and better data for his research.
After his summer expedition, Martin returned to Pittsburgh to finish his research and dissertation. He expects to graduate in 2009, and hopes to eventually expand his findings to other regions of the world, in order to extend his conclusions to the general formation of complex societies throughout history and into the future.
