Research Focus 

      My research focuses on two issues, early hominid lifeways, and the origins and spread of pastoralism in Africa.  I have explored these topics through excavation and zooarchaeological research in East Africa, Kenya, and recently Ethiopia.  I have been involved in the conservation of early hominid footprints at the site of Laetoli in Tanzania.  I have also undertaken ethnoarchaeological field work designed to investigate factors that affect body part representation in archaeological sites, and alternative pathways to food production, among Okiek hunter-gatherers and small-scale farmers in Kenya. 
      Students at Washington University’s zooarchaeological laboratory have undertaken research projects on topics such as the study of faunas from Ithaca, a Bronze Age site in Greece excavated by Professor Sarantis Symeonoglou of Washington University’s Art History and Archaeology department, faunas from sites in Missouri including Cahokia, and prehistoric faunas from Africa, and Europe, and experimental studies of factors affecting bone breakage and carnivore damage to bone.  The Zooarchaeology laboratory has worked closely with the Paleoethnobotany laboratory, the Art  and Archaeology department, the University’s Tyson Research Center, and the St. Louis Zoo. 

Courses 

Introduction to Archaeology, The Archaeology of Africa, Pathways to Food Production in the Old World, Zooarchaeology, Experimental Zooarchaeology, Ethnoarchaeology, Human Patterns of Predation 

Selected Publications 
 

1991	Origins of specialized pastoral production in East Africa.  American  Anthropologist 92:873-894.
1991	(with Tom Pilgrim)  Meat vs. within-bone nutrients:  Another look at the meaning of body part representation in archaeological sites.  Journal of  Archaeological Science 18:149-163.
1993	Food sharing and body part representation in Okiek Faunal assemblages.   Journal of Archaeological Science  21:65-77.
1996	(L. Rose and F. Marshall)  Meat eating, hominid sociality and home bases revisited.  Current Anthropology 37:307-338.
1996	(C. Fiebel, N. Agnew, B. Latimer, M. Demas, F. Marshall, et al.)  A new look at the Laetoli hominid footprints—a preliminary report on the conservation and scientific restudy.  Evolutionary Anthropology 4:149-154.
1998	Early food production in Africa.  The Review of Archaeology.  Special Issue: The Transition to Agriculture in the Old World, O. Bar-Yosef Ed., 19:47-58.
1999	(Marshall, F. and K. Mutundu)  The role of zooarchaeology in archaeological interpretation: A survey of the African literature from later Archaeological Periods, c. 20,000 bp-present.  Zooarchaeologia X: 83-106.
2000	The Origins of Domesticated Animals in Eastern Africa.  In The Origins and Development of African Livestock: Archaeology, genetics, linguistics and ethnography.  K.C. McDonald and R.M. Blench Eds. Chapter 10, pp. 191-221.  London: University College London Press.