Dr. Sravanthi Satuluri, project scientist, at IIT Kanpur is currently working on understanding the ancient inhabitants their practices and the environment they lived in and coped up with. The major focus is to comprehend the human-environmental interactions during late Holocene period by undertaking geoarchaeological proxy studies to reconstruct the paleodiet and paleolandscape of ancient settlements located in Northern India which is a multidisciplinary study. She has finished her doctoral dissertation titled “Paleoseismic and Archaeoseismic studies around Kachchh, Gujarat and their implications on the abandonment of ancient sites” from the Department of Civil Engineering at Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IITK), India. The doctoral dissertation deals with the identification of seismic signatures in the existing geological stratigraphy and also in the archaeological ruins to understand the past earthquakes and their future hazard probabilities in Kachchh region of Gujarat, India. She has carried out many geological and archaeological field works that includes digital mapping of buried features, topographic mapping of terrain, trenching, collection and analysis of sediment samples using TL/OSL dating techniques. Her masters study titled “Ground Penetrating Radar investigations at Ahichhatra, Bareily, UP” focuses on subsurface mapping of archaeological structures buried beneath ground. She has been part of different subsurface mapping field works (Ahichhatra, Kaushambi, Humayun Tomb-Delhi, Srirangam Temple-Tamil Nadu, Kampil, Karenghar-Sivasagar-Assam, Red Fort-New Delhi, Subash Park-New Delhi, Vigukot-Kachchh and railway bridges in Kanpur District) using Ground Penetrating Radar. Also, she was actively involved in executing Ground Penetrating Radar survey projects to carry out subsurface mapping in the field of archaeology, geology and railway bridges. Both her masters as well as doctoral studies have been specialized in the field of Geosciences and focuses on interdisciplinary approaches in understanding the past remnants and the natural processes that resulted in the collapse and abandonment of settlements. She has attended 10 technical conferences in the field of geoarchaeology and earth sciences, 2 workshops on Accelerator Mass Spectrometry and Active Fault Mapping & Paleoseismology. She has published 7 papers in renowned journals like International Journal of Geophysics, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, Journal of Structural Geology, Current Science and Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports and 3 more papers are under review. All her journal articles exhibit multidisciplinary approach towards geoarchaeological investigations in different potential regions. Her current work focusses on reconstruction of paleo-landscape by looking into the paleo-dietary trends and past land utilization practises correlating to the climatic conditions that are prevalent in ancient times. Being an active researcher, she has undertaken multidisciplinary studies with a high level of scientific curiosity and strong aptitude to provide answers to many research problems which are not fully explored in Indian context. With similar enthusiasm she looks forward to continue her research activities by exploring potential research areas with a novel geoarchaeological approach.
2023-06-21