Laura Llorente Rodríguez received her bachelor’s degree in Biology from Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain) in 2004 where she later completed one MsC in Paleontology (2007) and a second in Archaeology (2012), a third MsC in Education for Secondary School being completed in 2011 at Universidad Complutense (Spain). As postgraduate, Laura benefited from two visiting research grants one in the Universidad de Barcelona and a second in the University of Sheffield.

Laura’s postgraduate research was carried out in Laboratorio de Arqueozología-UAM under the supervision of Arturo Morales Muñiz where she carried out Palaeolithic to the Middle Ages archaeological faunal analyses from Iberia and the United Arab Emirates. Laura’s PhD dissertation in Paleontology was defended in December 2015 and is focused on the zooarchaeological assemblages of Cova Fosca (Spain) that spans from the Epipalaeolithic to the Middle Neolithic. The research has been addressed from an integrative biological and archaeological point of view, incorporating palaeogenetic, isotope, LIBS and MS analyses to resolve questions that the conventional zooarchaeological analyses put forward, from the origin of domesticates in Iberia, to the nature of the hunting and stockbreeding exploitation strategies by the last hunter-gatherers and the first farmers in the region and the different trajectories they underwent through time.

She is a current Marie Curie Research Fellow in the BioArCh group with the FISHARC project. This research aims at investigating Europe’s pristine marine fisheries and the potential role of estuaries as fishing areas. Through the analysis of pre-historic, historic and modern fish remains from the Iberian Peninsula, FISHARC will explore (1) the origin and evolution of fishing activities in the Northeast Atlantic, and (2) their impacts on fish biodiversity, behaviour and ecology through time and space, with a particular focus on the commercially import species of cod and hake. This will be carried out through stable isotopes and molecular signatures to generate baseline data on pre-industrial fish population levels potentially applicable to marine conservation and management issues.

10-2015-present: Marie Curie Research Fellow, Departament of Archaeology- BioArCh Centre. University of York, York, United Kingdom.

03/2011-09/2015: Teaching assistant, Departamento de Biología - Laboratorio de Arqueozoología. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM), Madrid, Spain.

SCHOLARSHIPS AND RESEARCH FUNDING

• 2014 - Erasmus+' traineeship scholarship in the Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom.
• 2013- UAM Visiting Research Grants (Ayudas para estancias breves en España y en el extranjero para PDI) in the Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom.
• 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008- UAM  Postgraduate Student Grant (Ayuda para estudiantes de tercer ciclo)
• 2003-2004- Bachelor’s last-year research scholarship (Beca de colaboración). Department of Biology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain

• Early marine resources exploitation, development and evolution throughout time.
• Hunter-gatherers economies and the transition to agropastoralist economies.  
• Evolution of taxa and domestication processes.
• Environmental archaeology, zoohistory, conservation.
• Integrative zooarchaeological methodologies