My predominant research focus has been the origins of agriculture and its social and ecological, but I have interests in how we understand later agricultural systems in early states and empires, as well as the plant use systems in hunter-gatherers systems that precede any agriculture. I have a wider interest in human-environment interactions both in terms of climatic constraints but also human modification of environments. I have been actively engaged in fieldwork projects in India, starting from South India. I have subsequently carried out fieldwork in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarnchal, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, as well as Sri Lanka and have studied materials from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Kerala, Nepal and NWFP, Pakistan. My fieldwork has focused on systematic archaeobotanical sampling of archaeological sites aimed to fill in some of the many regional and temporal gaps in direct evidence for past agriculture. While filling gaps in the archaeobotanical record of South Asia has been a particular focus (since my Master’s dissertation in 1996), I take as my mission the larger task of helping to fill the major gaps in

knowledge of early agriculture in the Old World throughout Asia and Africa. In this regard, I have always been ready to take on archaeobotanical projects in Africa, either directly or through supervision of students. In this capacity I have worked/ am working on archaeobotanical from Libya, Mali, Mauretania, Morocco, Senegal, Niger, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Sudan. I began research in China in 2004, and have had a particular focus on understanding rice domestication and the evolution of rice cultivation systems in the Lower Yangtze region—especially as part of a NERC-funded Early Rice Project (2009-2012), but also in studies of agriculture in Later Neolithic to Bronze Age China more widely. In recent years I have also become involved is the study of archaeobotany in Thailand.