Alexandra Slucky

Research

Title: Silk Roads Urban Economies: A Combined Archaeobotanical and Molecular Approach to Exploring Agriculture and Subsistence at Medieval Merv (Turkmenistan)

Supervisor/s: Professor Michelle Alexander and Dr. Lara Gonzalez Carretero

Funding: AHRC funded through the White Rose College of the Arts & Humanities (WRoCAH) with support from the Central Asian Archaeological Landscapes Project (CAAL) funded by Arcadia

Summary of research project: My project focuses on the medieval city of Merv (Turkmenistan) between the Arab and Mongol Conquests (7th and 12th centuries CE), a time when this region experienced profound socio-political and ideological transformations. This PhD investigates the effect these changes had on daily practices and subsistence strategies at Merv by applying a pioneering combined archaeobotanical and molecular approach. The aim is to examine how these socio-political transitions impacted agricultural production and the lifeways of the inhabitants of one of the world’s largest oasis cities along the Silk Roads.

Profile

I completed my BA at Mount Holyoke College in the USA, where I studied Politics and Ancient Studies with a focus on Mediterranean Archaeology and heritage policy. I then completed an MA in Museum and Heritage Studies from the University of Sydney in Australia, where I focused on archaeological heritage management. This was followed by an MSc in Environmental Archaeology focused on archaeobotany from the UCL Institute of Archaeology in London. My supervisors were Prof Dorian Fuller and Prof Tim Williams.

Concurrent to my MSc at UCL, I interned at The Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew in the Economic Botanical Collection under the supervision of Dr Mark Nesbitt and conducted archaeobotanical research on the Aitchison collection as part of the Afghanistan Delimitation Commission Survey of the 1880s.

I have both professional and academic experience in archaeology and heritage consulting, spanning a decade with fieldwork conducted in North Macedonia, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan

 My academic research interests include

• Late Antique, Medieval Central Asia
• Archaeobotany and Ethnobotany 
• Plant Isotopes
• Food trade along the Silk Roads
• Cuisine Development 
• Biocultural museum collections 

Publications/Papers and Academic Awards

Publications 

• In Press, People and Plants: Museums, Biocultural Collections and Indigenous Knowledge, Editors: Ali Clark, Inbal Livne and Mark Nesbitt, Chapter 16. What next for biocultural collections? Nicola Froggatt, Ayesha Fuentes, Jonn Gale, Rowena Hill, Kathleen Lawther, Violet Nicholls, Fiona Roberts and Alexandra Slucky

Academic Awards

• IWGP Student Bursary 2025: a financial bursary to attend the International Working Group for Palaeoethnobotany (IWGP) 20th Conference in Groningen, Netherlands, to present on current PhD results

• University of York Department of Archaeology Departmental Research Funding 2025

• CHC Workshop Attendance Funding: Funded to attend the July Crop History Consortium

  [Project Reference: AH/Y006631/1] workshop hosted at Kew Gardens in July 2025

• Max Planck Workshop Funding 2025: full funding [including travel and housing] to attend and present PhD research at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology in Jena,

  Germany’s Hands-On Workshop in Archaeobotany and Environmental Archaeology in Central Asia, 24–28 March 2025

Conference presentations

• Slucky, A., Gonzalez Carretero, L., Alexander, M., and Williams, T., 2025. Urban Silk Roads Agro-Economies: A Combined Archaeobotanical and Molecular Approach to Exploring Agriculture and Subsistence in Medieval Central Asia. IWGP, oral presentation.

• Slucky, A., 2024. Culinary Communities of the Silk Roads: An isotopic and archaeobotanical approach to exploring dietary patterns in Medieval Urban Central Asia. Approaches and Perspectives for the Caucasus and Central Asia Workshop, Oxford Nizami Ganjavi Centre, Faculty of History, Oxford University, Oral Presentation.