Heather Miller

Biography

Heather Miller is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology, UTM. She is a member of TUARC, the Trent University Archaeology Research Centre, and the Centre for South Asian Studies at the University of Toronto. Heather Miller’s research is currently centered around the medieval/Islamic period trade and communication routes through northwestern Pakistan, particularly through the city of Peshawar. She is working with a number of Pakistani and international scholars on a long-term project, the Caravanserai Networks Project, to examine economic, political, and social aspects of the contact between people along these routes. A major part of this endeavor is the development of a database of travel amenity locations based on both textual and archaeological data, which will eventually be available to the research community as a searchable internet database.

Her field research at the moment is the development of a pottery typology for both glazed and unglazed ceramics from the excavations at Gor Khuttree in the centre of Peshwar, work being conducted by the Directorate for Archaeology and Museums of the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP). This research is currently funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), and the Connaught Foundation at the University of Toronto, with great assistance from Prof. Ihsan Ali, formerly Director of the NWFP Directorate and now Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hazara, Pakistan. In the summer of 2005, Dr. Miller spent six weeks in Papua New Guinea as the material culture consultant for a new project on imagination and perception among the Asabano, directed by Prof. Roger Lohmann of Trent University.

Selected Publications:

2014. Brett Hoffman and Heather M.-L. Miller. “Production and Consumption of Copper-base Metals in the Indus Civilization,” In Benjamin W. Roberts and Christopher P. Thornton (eds) Archaeometallurgy in Global Perspective. Method and Syntheses, pp. 697-728. Springer Publications, NY.

2013.  Weighty Matters: Evidence for unity and regional diversity from the Indus Civilization weights. In S. Abraham et al. (eds)  Connections and Complexity: New Approaches to the Archaeology of South and Central Asia. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.

2010.    Heather M.-L. Miller and Ihsan Ali.  Pottery Classification and Activities in a City Centre:  First Results from Pottery Analysis of Mughal to Modern Period Excavations at Gor Khuttree, Peshawar, Pakistan.  Ancient Pakistan XXI: 89-106.

2009.   Archaeological Approaches to Technology. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.

2009.  Brett Hoffman and Heather M.-L. Miller. Production and Consumption of Copper-base Metals in the Indus Civilization. Journal of World Prehistory 22(3): 237-264.

2008.    “Issues in the Determination of Ancient Value Systems:  The Role of Talc (Steatite) and Faience in the Indus Civilization.” In Intercultural Relations Between South and Southwest Asia.  Studies in Commemoration of E.C.L. During-Caspers (1934-1996),  ed. Eric Olijdam.  pp. 145-157. BAR International Series.  Archaeopress.

2006. “Comparing Landscapes of Transportation: Riverine-oriented and land-oriented Systems in the Indus Civilization and the Mughal Empire.”  In Space and Spatial Analysis in Archaeology, ed. E.C. Robertson et al. pp. 281-292. University of Calgary Press and University of New Mexico Press.

2006. “Water Supply, Labor Organization and Land Ownership in Indus Floodplain Agricultural Systems.” In Agriculture and Irrigation in Archaeology, ed. Charles Stanish & Joyce Marcus. Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press.