Richard Redding

Richard Redding

Information

  • Email: rredding@umich.edu
  • Phone: 734.764.2151
  • Office: 4017 Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, 434 South State St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1390
  • Ph.D. 1981, University of Michigan

Research Interests

Topical/Theoretical

  • Archaeozoology
  • Environmental Archaeology
  • Evolutionary ecology
  • Evolution of human subsistence behavior

Geographical

  • Egypt
  • Turkey
  • Israel
  • China

Research Projects

Research Description

Dr. Redding studies the evolution of human subsistence behavior and its relation to cultural change. He focuses on two questions: the origin of domestication and the development of cultural complexity. His work in southeastern Turkey, Greece and the Fayyum of Egypt is designed to investigate the selective pressures that led to food production. Redding's work in southwestern Iran, China and Egypt investigates the selective pressures that led to complex societies.

His major field project is the Workers' Town at Giza, Egypt. Since 1991 Redding has worked at this site with several goals: a) humanizing the pyramids; b) understanding the economic infrastructure of pyramid construction; c) understanding the social and political structure of pyramid construction. He has written a number of papers on his work at Giza. Recently he has put forth a model of animal and plant production for pyramid construction. The next phase of work, which is underway, is to model the settlement pattern in the Nile Delta for estates/villages that supplied the pyramid builders with meat.

Redding's other research interests revolve around modeling animal use in the past utilizing recent data on production, reproduction, ecology, and behavior. The best example of this is his recent work on the role of the pig and the chicken in subsistence system of the Middle East.