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Katherine Miller Wolf

Biography

Dr. Katie A. Miller Wolf is a UWF associate professor of anthropology, Registered Professional Archaeologist (#47012451), and affiliated anthropology faculty at the National Autonomous University of Honduras.  

She is a bioarchaeologist broadly trained in archaeology, biological anthropology, and social theory. Her research aims to reconstruct the lived experience of individuals and populations to answer cultural questions about the past. 

Dr. Miller Wolf is the Director of the Bioarchaeology of Ancient Copan Project (PBAC) at the ancient Maya site of Copan where, since 2004, she conducts research and serves as a steward for the curation of the largest skeletal collection yet recovered in Mesoamerica (n=1300). She also serves as an archaeologist and/or biological anthropologist for the Ucanal Archaeological Project (Guatemala), the Sak B’alam and Salinas Maya Project (Mexico), and the Xaltocan (Colonial) Project (Mexico), among others. In Florida and Alabama, she supports NAGPRA compliance and repatriation and the analysis and care of historical skeletal remains from historic cemeteries and isolated contexts. Previous research also includes the Gobero Site dating to 8000 BP (Niger) and Mississippian and Woodland sites in the Lower Illinois River Valley (Schild, Koster, YokEm, and Klunk Mounds).

She is a Fulbright U.S. Scholar (Honduras, 2022), UWF Reuben O’D Askew Institute for Multidisciplinary Studies Fellow (2024-2027), and co-director of the UWF Biocultural Research Laboratory. Additionally, she focuses on curation and conservation of skeletal remains and her efforts were recognized by the Archaeological Institute of America when she received the Conservation and Heritage Management Award (2020).

To serve her discipline, Dr. Miller Wolf was a Science Advisor to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for the DoSER program, serves on the Committee on the Status of Women in Archaeology for the Society of American Archaeology, and was a guest editor of a special issue on skeletal conservation in the Journal of Advances in Archaeological Practice (Issue 7(1) 2019).

Degrees & Institutions

Dr. Miller Wolf earned her bachelor’s in anthropology from Indiana University and both her master’s and doctorate degrees in anthropology from Arizona State University. Her dissertation, “Family, Foreigners, and Fictive Kinship: A Bioarchaeological Analysis of Social Organization at Late Classic Copan,” was supported by a National Science Foundation grant (BCS1207533).

Research

Her interests include archaeology, bioarchaeology, biological anthropology, dental morphology, human osteology, biogeochemistry, historical archaeology, kinship, social organization, embodiment of inequality, structural vulnerability, identity, mortuary behavior, skeletal collection curation, North and Central America, prehistoric to colonial periods.

Classes Taught

  • Bioarchaeology (Graduate and Undergraduate)
  • The Body in Society (Graduate and Undergraduate)
  • Bioanthropology (Undergraduate in English and Spanish)
  • Advanced Methods in Bioanthropology (Graduate)
  • Biological and Evolutionary Theory (Graduate)
  • Mortuary Anthropology: Excavation, Analysis, and Interpretation (Graduate and Undergraduate)
  • Human Osteology (Graduate and Undergraduate)
  • Introduction to Archaeology
  • The Ancient Maya
  • Introduction to Anthropology
  • Primatology (Graduate and Undergraduate)
  • Peoples and Cultures of the World
  • Anthropology Senior Capstone

Publications

Publications and Manuscripts (*Peer Reviewed)

Forthcoming 2026. M. Marten, P.S. Tallman, A.P. Winburn, K. Miller Wolf, J. Byrnes, B.R. Burgen, R.C. Reineke, and C.L. Wendland. “Structural Vulnerability as a Multiscalar Analytical Tool for Health Inequities Prevention: A Holistic Approach. American Anthropologist.

Forthcoming 2026. K. Miller Wolf, C. Isamar Flores, Kenia Chacón, M. Siliezar Martinez, J. Ramos, E. Martinez Ordoñez. (Forthcoming). “The View from Honduras: The Emergence and Importance of the Study of Human Skeletal Remains from Ethnographic and Archaeological Perspectives”. Submitted to Special issue, edited by M. Velasco and S. Juengst, of Latin American Antiquity, October 2025.

Forthcoming 2026. H. Plumer-Moodie, K. Miller Wolf. “Skeletal Populations in the Northern Three Rivers Region: Demographics, Health, Bioarchaeological Ethics, and Future Research” in Ancient Maya Landscapes in Northwestern Belize. S. Krause and T. Guderjan, eds. Chapter 21. University of Florida Press. 

2025.   Halperin, C., K. Miller Wolf, and M.F. López López. “Precious People: Indigenous Medical-Spiritual Relations in the Archaeology of Maya Childhood”. Journal of Childhood in the Past. doi.org/10.1080/17585716.2025.2585706

2024    .J. Buikstra, L. Traxler, E. Bell., K. Miller Wolf “An Osteobiographic Narrative of Copan’s Early Royal Dynasty.” In: Osteobiographies in Mesoamerica: Their History and Scope, edited by G. Wrobel and A. Cucina. University Press of Florida, p. 345-381

2024.   C. Halperin, L. Perea, K. Miller Wolf, J. LeMoine. “A Pivot Point in Maya History: A Fire-burning Event at K’anwitznal (Ucanal) and the Making of a New Era of Political Rule”. Antiquity (18April2024): 1-19. doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2024.38 

2022.   A.P. Winburn, K. Miller Wolf, M. Marten. “Operationalizing a Structural Vulnerability Profile for Forensic Anthropology: Skeletal and Dental Biomarkers of Embodied Inequality.” Forensic Science International: Synergy 5(2022): 100289. doi.org/10.1016/j.fsisyn.2022.100289

2021. C. Halperin, Y. Flynn-Arajdal, K. Miller Wolf, and C. Freiwald. “Terminal Classic Residential Histories of Foreigners, and Migration at the Maya site of Ucanal, Peten, Guatemala.” Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 64(4): 101337. doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2021.101337   

2020. C. Friewald, K. Miller Wolf, T. Pugh, A. Rand, and P. Fullagar. Early Colonialism and Population Movement at the Mission, Guatemala. San Bernabé. Ancient Mesoamerica. doi.org/10.1017/S0956536120000218

2019. K. Miller Wolf. “Una Perspectiva Bioarquelógica de la Salud de los Entierros de Yautepec” in Excavaciones de casas en la ciudad Azteca de Yautepec, Morelos, México, M.E. Smith, ed. BAR International Series. Archaeopress, Oxford. p. 435-439. (In Spanish)

2019. K. Miller Wolf. “Curating Large Skeletal Collections: An Example from the Ancient Maya Site of Copan, Honduras” in the special issue “Curation and Conservation of Human Skeletal Remains: A Global Perspective of Best Practices” of the Journal of Advances in Archaeological Practice 7(1), 30-39. doi.org/10.1017/aap.2018.46

2019. H. Plumer-Moodie, C. Quiroz, K. Miller Wolf, Y. Musa. “When Provenience is Lost: Achievements and Challenges in Conserving the Historical St. John’s, Belize Skeletal Collection” in the special issue “Curation and Conservation of Human Skeletal Remains: A Global Perspective of Best Practices” of the Journal of Advances in Archaeological Practice 7(1), 40-46. doi.org/10.1017/aap.2018.41

2019. C. Frewiald and K. Miller Wolf (Guest Editors). “Considering Conservation of Human Skeletal Remains in Archaeological Contexts” in the special issue “Curation and Conservation of Human Skeletal Remains: A Global Perspective of Best Practices” of the Journal of Advances in Archaeological Practice 7(1), 3-9. doi.org/10.1017/aap.2018.48

2018. K. Miller Wolf and C. Freiwald “Re-interpreting Ancient Maya Mobility: A Strontium Isotope Baseline for Western Honduras.” Journal of Archaeological Sciences Reports. 20:799- 807. doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2018.04.023

2017. D. Bullock, K. Miller Wolf, W. Mohamed, M. Wolf. “Igniting the Passion: Examples for Anthropology, Sociology, and Geography” in Best Practices in Online Teaching and Learning across Academic Disciplines, R. Alexander, ed. George Mason University Press. p. 153-172.

2016. T.W. Pugh, K. Miller Wolf, C. Freiwald, P.M. Rice. “Technologies of domination at Mission San Bernabé, Petén, Guatemala.” Ancient Mesoamerica. 27(1): 49-70. www.jstor.org/stable/26301988

2014. C.M. Stojanowski, C.L. Carver, K. Miller. “Incisor Avulsion, social identity and Saharan population history: New data from the Early Holocene southern Sahara.” Journal of Anthropological Archaeology. 35:79-91. doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2014.04.007

2010. T.D. Price, J.H. Burton, R.J. Sharer, J.E. Buikstra, L.E. Wright, L.P. Traxler, K. Miller. “Kings and commoners at Copán: Isotopic evidence for origins and movement in the Classic Maya period.” Yearbook Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 29:15-32. doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2009.10.001

Keywords: bioarchaeology, archaeology, skeletal and dental analysis, Copan, Maya, structural vulnerability, biodistance, isotopes, colonial, household archaeology, kinship, and social organization