UHI Archaeology Institute alumna Francesca Meneghetti has begun a PhD, investigating slash-and-burn cultivation in the Amazon Basin.
Francesca relocated from Italy to Orkney in 2019 to undertake her BA (Hons) in archaeology. After being named UHI Orkney Student of the Year in 2022, and receiving both the Undergraduate Performance Award and Best Undergraduate Archaeology Student Dissertation Award in 2023, she moved on to the University of Cambridge for her master’s degree.
During her postgraduate studies, Francesca developed an interest in pre-Colonial Amazonian landscape management so upon graduating from Cambridge applied to TREES DLA – a doctoral training programme that brings together students from a range of disciplines to shape research in the environmental sciences to tackle today’s global challenges.
More than 600 candidtes applied to TREES DLA, with Francesca among the 30 selected for the studentship. Funded by NERC UKRI, the programme provides research training opportunities in the environmental sciences.
Francesca explained: “My PhD project is called ‘How old is slash-and-burn in Amazonia?’. I work under the supervision of Prof M. Arroyo-Kalin and Prof Dorian Fuller to investigate the antiquity of slash-and-burn cultivation in the Amazon basin through the study of landscape modification associated with past human activity.
“Over the next four years, I will employ geoarchaeological methods to provide an archaeological characterisation of fire use in localised areas of the Amazon basin, touching on pre-Colonial land use and Indigenous landscape legacies. By doing so, I will contribute to the wider project Voices of Indigenous Amazonia.
“The overarching goal is to help understand how human and landscape histories have mutually affected each other in the Amazon basin over the millennia, helping create a body of knowledge that can inform and promote sustainable environmental management strategies.”
