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Profile for Cynthia Kocik

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Cynthia Kocik

Pronouns: She/Her/Hers
Research Intern
Archaeology Center
University of Wisconsin-La Crosse

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Cynthia Kocik Pronouns: She/Her/Hers

Research Intern

Archaeology Center

Specialty area(s)

Cultural Resource Management, Midwest Archaeology, Historical Archaeology, Dendrochronology

Education

MA, Archaeology, Cornell University, 2014

BS, Archaeological Studies, UW-La Crosse, 2012

Career

Professional history

Cynthia worked at the Mississippi Valley Archaeology Center (MVAC) at UWL as a field and lab technician after graduating from UWL in 2012.

After a year spent gaining valuable experience in practicing archaeology at MVAC, she traveled to Ithaca, New York, in 2013 to pursue a master's degree in archaeology at Cornell University. Upon graduating, she joined the staff of the Cornell Tree-Ring Laboratory as a service technician and later a research aide. There she honed her skills in dendrochronology (tree-ring dating) on a variety of projects involving analysis of wood from historical buildings and archaeological sites in New York State, Mexico, and beyond.

Cynthia returned to MVAC in 2018 as a research intern, and she currently participates in field and lab work for cultural resource management projects, aids with basic collections management, and assists with public outreach efforts such as lab tours for grade school groups and the MVAC video series.

Research and publishing

Manning, Sturt W., Cindy Kocik, Brita Lorentzen, and Jed P. Sparks

2023    Severe Multi-Year Drought Coincident with Hittite Collapse around 1198-1196 BC. Nature 614:719-724. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05693-y.

 

Cremaschi, Mauro, Carol Griggs, Cynthia Kocik, Angela Mutti, Andrea Zerboni, and Sturt W. Manning

2021    Dating the Noceto Vasca Votiva, a Unique Wooden Structure of the 15th Century BCE, and the Timing of Major Societal Change in the Bronze Age of Northern Italy. PLoS One 16(6):e0251341. DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0251341.

 

Griggs, Carol, Cynthia Kocik, Thomas M. Urban, and Sturt W. Manning

2019    Dendrochronology of Swift Water Place and Other Tree-Ring Samples from Northwest Alaska. In Life at Swift Water Place: Northwest Alaska at the Threshold of European Contact, edited by Doug D. Anderson and Wanni W. Anderson, pp. 129-154. University of Alaska Press, Fairbanks.

 

Kocik, Cynthia A.

2017    The Edges of Wood: Dendrochronological Analysis of Three Seneca Iroquois Log Structures at Letchworth State Park, New York. Historical Archaeology 51(2):194-217.

Kudos

published

Sturt W. Manning, Cornell Tree-Ring Laboratory, Department of Classics, and Cornell Institute of Archaeology and Material Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, and The Cyprus Institute, Nicosia, Cyprus; Brita Lorentzen, Department of Anthropology, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia; Jed P. Sparks, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York; and Cynthia Kocik, MVAC; co-authored the article "Severe multi-year drought coincident with Hittite collapse around 1198-1196 BC" in Nature published on Feb. 8 by Springer Nature. The article examines tree-ring width and stable carbon isotope evidence for a continuous, multi-year dry period that could have factored into the collapse of the Hittite Empire around 1200 BC.

Submitted on: Feb. 15, 2023

Memberships & affiliations

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