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Carla Klehm

 

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Carla Klehm
Ph.D. Candidate, University of Texas at Austin
DIA Fellow, Spring 2011

Carla is a PhD candidate at the University of Texas at Austin, receiving her
master's degree there in 2009. Broadly, her foci include social aspects of the political
economy and long-distance trade networks, regional analysis, settlement patterning,
ceramics, GIS, and spatial analysis. Since her earliest work on Bronze Age Hungary,
she has participated in projects in Kenya (Iron Age), Ethiopia (Middle Stone Age),
and Botswana, where she is currently conducting her dissertation research on Iron Age
Africa. Her dissertation examines the peak of long-distance trade and stratification at
polity of Bosutswe, Botswana during the Middle Lose period (CE 1300-1450) through a
regional analysis of its hinterland sites. Bosutswe (CE 700-1700) was a major regional
hub for local and long-distance exchange that extended across the Kalahari and ultimately
linked to Indo-Asian trade systems. Long-distance glass trade beads at Bosutswe attest
to a strong local economy supported by cattle herding, subsistence farming, and iron
and bronze manufacture. The project evaluates the material correlates of the local
political economy that link these sites through unequal exchange and dependency,
measured by access to cattle, comparative subsistence strategies, diet, and luxury goods.
It incorporates 3-D spatial statistics of broad-scale horizontal excavations, the use of GPR
and magnetometry, and predictive modeling of unidentified ground sites in the region.
Outside of archaeology, Carla enjoys playing soccer and tennis, sailing, and music,
particularly blues.