Yiru Wang

Yiru Wang China

Yiru Wang

Nanjing University

Committee Member

Dr. Yiru Wang (BA, MPhil, PhD) is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Archaeology and Chinese Civilization at Nanjing University (Suzhou Campus), Suzhou, China. She graduated from Peking University (China) with a double Bachelor’s degree in Archaeology and History, completing both her MPhil (Master Degree) in Archaeological Science and PhD in Archaeology at University of Cambridge (UK). She was formerly a post-doc researcher at Edinburgh University (UK) (2018-2019), Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Beijing, China) (2019-2021), and School of History, Nanjing University (Nanjing, China) (2021-2023). She has a wide range of research interests. She is currently perhaps best known for her work developing the osetomorphological and -morphometric system of distinguishing more than ten species of wild Caprinae and Antilopinae distributed in western China. Progressing from there, she further explored the plasticity in bone morphology relating to the locomotor functional adaptation in Caprinae when migrating into new ecological environments, either under artificial control (such as post domestication) or in natural distribution. Applying the ecomorphological discoveries to the animal remains from archaeological sites, coupled with the paleoenvironment data, ethnoarchaeological surveys, and other archaeological evidence, she unraveled complex mechanisms and processes of human-animal-environment interactions in prehistory across Eurasia. Her other research interests include: Neolithisation, food globalization in prehistoric Eurasia, origins and spread of agriculture and pastoralism, nomadic and pastoral economy, 3D geometric morphometrics, stable isotopic analyses of bones, ethnoarchaeology. Nine papers have so far been published in major journals, such as The International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, Quaternary Research etc. As a project leader she has presided over various national and international projects and funds, including Wenner-Gren Dissertation Fieldwork Fund (US) (completed), CSC-Cambridge Overseas Trust Fund (China-UK) (completed), the National Natural Science Youth Fund (China) (completed), the Chinese Postdoctoral Science Foundation Surface Project (completed), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation Special Funding Project (completed), the Ministry of Science and Technology of China Fund (ongoing), etc