Lucas Wirick

Lucas Wirick is a first-year graduate student in the Anthropology PhD program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He obtained his Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from Oakland University, graduating summa cum laude and receiving the Thesis Award in Anthropology for his undergraduate thesis titled “Lachish V: Regional and Site-Level Implications Revealed through the Past Decade of Research.” His research interests lie in social complexity and the rise of state level societies in the ancient Near East and those issues that come alongside them, such as inequality and organized violence and warfare. He is also interested in the archaeological applications of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and remote sensing, specifically drone archaeology. Lucas currently speaks a rudimentary amount of Arabic, although the FLAS will help him to further his mastery of the language and will soon enable him to communicate fluently with many people throughout the Near East and/or North Africa as he prepares to take on his graduate research.