Kimberly Foecke

Photo of Kimberly Foecke holding a fossil skull replica and pointing to it's browridge. Kimberly is wearing a dark blouse with her medium brown hair pulled back, and is looking off camera

Kimberly Foecke is an archaeometry specialist. Her research applies methods from materials science and analytical chemistry to paleoanthropological and archaeological questions focused hominin dietary ecology, resource and space use, and environmental context. On the side, she is involved in research projects focused on the use of x-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF and pXRF) in sourcing geological, archaeological, and fossil material to areas of geographic origin. Apart from research, Kim mentors many undergraduate and master’s students in multiple departments and teaches several undergraduate courses. She currently works for the Human Origins Program as a contractor focusing on collections, education, and research.

Kim earned her BSc in Archaeological Science from Penn State University, and moved on to the department of geoscience at Penn State for her MSc. She received her PhD from George Washington University in the Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology. Her doctoral dissertation research involved refining the use of stable nitrogen isotopes in our understanding of complex food processing behavior in Neanderthals and other archaeological populations. Her dissertation was in collaboration with the Human Origins Program and the Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute. Her work is largely laboratory-based, but she has conducted fieldwork at sites in Croatia and Spain. 

Selected peer-reviewed publications:

Kimberly K. Foecke, Alain Queffelec, Robyn Pickering (2024). No sedimentological evidence for deliberate burial by Homo naledi – a case study highlighting the need for best practices in geochemical studies within archaeology and paleoanthropology. PaleoAnthropology.

Kimberly K. Foecke, Christine A. M. France, Alison S. Brooks (2024). Experimental assessment of the impact of food processing on δ15N values in dietary meat – Implications for paleodietary reconstruction. Journal of Archaeological Science 169, 106024.

Kimberly K. Foecke (2023). Is broader better? Review of: "The evolution of everything; The patterns and causes of big history. By Brian Villmoare (Ed.), New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. 2022." American Journal of Biological Anthropology 182(3), 499-500.

Kimberly K. Foecke, Ashley S. Hammond, Jay Kelley (2022). pXRF Geochemical Sourcing of Miocene Primate Fossils from Kenya. Journal of Human Evolution 170, 103234.

Ashley S. Hammond, Kimberly K. Foecke, Jay Kelley (2019). Hominoid anterior teeth from the Late Oligocene site of Losodok, Kenya, Journal of Human Evolution 128, 59-75.

Alison S. Brooks, John E. Yellen, Richard Potts, Anna K. Behrensmeyer, Alan L. Deino, David E. Leslie, Stanley Ambrose, Jeffrey Ferguson, Francesco d’Errico, Andrew M. Zipkin, Scott Whittaker, Jeffrey Post, Elizabeth G. Veatch, Kimberly Foecke, Jennifer B. Clark (2018). Long distance stone transport and pigment use in the earliest Middle Stone Age, Science 360(6384), 90-94.