Staff profile

I am an archaeologist specializing in wild and domestic fauna from the Stone Age in northern Europe. Zooarchaeology and stable isotope geochemistry are my primary specializations. I am keenly interested in shell middens and shell midden taphonomy, and have analysed and am preparing for publication the bone material from several of the world-famous Danish shell middens. My current research takes a comparative approach to agricultural origins in Northern Europe and aims to better understand land use, landscape modification, homogeneity, and other aspects of agricultural practice through the application of multiple methods to the basic question, "What was the earliest agriculture actually like?" 

I completed a B.S. in Biology and Anthropology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2004, and a M.S. in Anthropology (Archaeology) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2008). I obtained my Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2013 (Thesis: The Ertebølle Faunal Economy and the Transition to Agriculture in Southern Scandinavia, Supervisor: T. Douglas Price) and shortly thereafter moved to Durham. I have fieldwork experience in the United States, Denmark, Norway, and the United Kingdom and my research has been funded by the National Science Foundation (USA), the Danish-American Fulbright Commission, the British Academy, and the Leverhulme Trust. 

• Agricultural origins
• Coastal adaptations
• Mesolithic
• Neolithic
• Stable isotopes
• Zooarchaeology

Chapter in book

• Gron, K. J., & Rowley-Conwy, P. (in press). Environmental Archaeology in Southern Scandinavia. In E. Piskin, A. Marciniak, & M. Bartkowiak (Eds.), Environmental Archaeology: Current Theoretical and Methodological Approaches (35-74). Springer International Publishing AG, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75082-8_4
• Gron, K. (2020). The Early Neolithic frontier farming of southern Scandinavia. In K. Gron, L. Sørensen, & P. Rowley-Conwy (Eds.), Farmers at the Frontier: A Pan-European Perspective on Neolithisation (317-337). Oxbow Books
• Gron, K., Sørensen, L., & Rowley-Conwy, P. (2020). Agricultural origins: where next?. In K. Gron, L. Sørensen, & P. Rowley-conwy (Eds.), Farmers at the Frontier: A Pan-European Perspective on Neolithisation (1-5). Oxbow Books
• Gron, K., Sørensen, L., & Rowley-conwy, P. (2020). The Early Neolithic origins of agriculture. In K. Gron, L. Sørensen, & P. Rowley-conwy (Eds.), Farmers at the Frontier: A Pan-European Perspective on Neolithisation (443-447). Oxbow Books
• Rogers, B., Gron, K., Montgomery, J., Gröcke, D., & Rowley-Conwy, P. (2018). Aurochs Hunters: The Large Animal Bones from Blick Mead. In D. Jacques, T. Phillips, & T. Lyons (Eds.), Blick mead : exploring the 'first place' in the Stonehenge landscape. Archaeological excavations at Blick Mead, Amesbury, Wiltshire 2005–2016 (127-152). Peter Lang. https://doi.org/10.3726/b11044
• Gron, K., Andersen, S., & Robson, H. (2015). Bone fragmentation as a tool for quantification and identification of taphonomic processes and their effects: the case study from Havnø, a stratified Danish “Køkkenmødding.”. In N. Bicho, C. Detry, T. Price, & E. Cuhna (Eds.), Muge 150th The 150th Anniversary of the discovery of Mesolithic Shellmiddens (189-206). Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Edited book

• Gron, K., Sørensen, L., & Rowley-conwy, P. (Eds.). (2020). Farmers at the Frontier: A Pan-European Perspective on Neolithisation. Oxbow Books

Journal Article

• Gron, K. J., Gröcke, D. R., Groß, D., Rowley-Conwy, P., Robson, H. K., & Montgomery, J. (2024). Neolithisation through bone: Stable isotope analysis of human and faunal remains from Syltholm II, Lolland, Denmark. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 53, Article 104384. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2024.104384
• Gron, K. J. (2023). The Feral Animal Question: Implications for Recognizing Europe's First Farmers. European Journal of Archaeology, https://doi.org/10.1017/eaa.2023.14
• Gron, K. J., Meiklejohn, C., Pedersen, K. B., Stewart, N. A., Alexandersen, V., Sørensen, L., & Montgomery, J. (2022). Sex and Gender in the Mesolithic: Adults and Children from the Strøby Egede Burial, Køge Bugt, Denmark. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 88, 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1017/ppr.2022.7
• Karkuleviciute, K., Gron, K., Patterson, W., Panelli, C., Rossi, S., Timsic, S., …Rowley-Conwy, P. (2021). Transhumance in the Early Neolithic? Carbon and oxygen isotope insights into sheep husbandry at Arene Candide, Northern Italy. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 40(Part B), Article 103240. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2021.103240
• Gröcke, D. R., Treasure, E. R., Lester, J. J., Gron, K. J., & Church, M. J. (2021). Effects of marine biofertilisation on Celtic bean carbon, nitrogen and sulphur isotopes: implications for reconstructing past diet and farming practices. Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry, 35(5), Article e8985. https://doi.org/10.1002/rcm.8985
• Gron, K., Larsson, M., Gröcke, D., Andersen, N., Andreasen, M., Bech, J., …Church, M. (2021). Archaeological cereals as an isotope record of long-term soil health and anthropogenic amendment in southern Scandinavia. Quaternary Science Reviews, 253, Article 106762. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2020.106762
• Gowland, R., Stewart, N. A., Crowder, K. D., Hodson, C., Shaw, H., Gron, K. J., & Montgomery, J. (2021). Sex estimation of teeth at different developmental stages using dimorphic enamel peptide analysis. American journal of physical anthropology, https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.24231
• Gron, K. J., Rowley‐Conwy, P., Jensen, T. Z. T., Taurozzi, A. J., & Marciniak, A. (2020). Separating caprine (Capra/Ovis) distal tibiae: A case study from the Polish Neolithic. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, 30(2), 170-179. https://doi.org/10.1002/oa.2844
• Jensen, T. Z. T., Sjöström, A., Fischer, A., Rosengren, E., Lanigan, L. T., Bennike, O., …Collins, M. J. (2020). An integrated analysis of Maglemose bone points reframes the Early Mesolithic of Southern Scandinavia. Scientific Reports, 10(1), Article 17244. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-74258-8
• Frantz, L. A., Haile, J., Lin, A. T., Scheu, A., Geörg, C., Benecke, N., …Larson, G. (2019). Ancient pigs reveal a near-complete genomic turnover following their introduction to Europe. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(35), 17231-17238. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1901169116
• Price, T. D., Ritchie, K., Gron, K. J., Gebauer, A. B., & Nielsen, J. (2018). Asnæs Havnemark: a late Mesolithic Ertebølle coastal site in western Sjælland, Denmark. Danish Journal of Archaeology, https://doi.org/10.1080/21662282.2018.1551979
• Gron, K. J., Rowley-Conwy, P., Fernandez-Dominguez, E., Gröcke, D. R., Montgomery, J., Nowell, G. M., & Patterson, W. P. (2018). A Meeting In The Forest: Hunters And Farmers At The Coneybury ‘Anomaly’, Wiltshire. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 84, 111-144. https://doi.org/10.1017/ppr.2018.15
• Gron, K., & Sorensen, L. (2018). Cultural and economic negotiation: a new perspective on the Neolithic Transition of Southern Scandinavia. Antiquity, 92(364), 958-974. https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2018.71
• Andre Stewart, N., Fernanda Gerlach, R., Gowland, R. L., Gron, K., & Montgomery, J. (2017). Sex determination of human remains from peptides in tooth enamel. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(52), 13649-13654. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1714926115
• Gron, K., Gröcke, D., Larsson, M., Sørensen, L., Larsson, L., Rowley-Conwy, P., & Church, M. (2017). Nitrogen isotope evidence for manuring of Early Neolithic Funnel Beaker Culture cereals from Stensborg, Sweden. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 14, 575-579. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2017.06.042
• Gron, K., & Rowley-Conwy, P. (2017). Herbivore Diets and the Anthropogenic Environment of Early Farming in Southern Scandinavia. Holocene, 27(1), 98-109. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959683616652705
• Gron, K., Montgomery, J., Otto Nielsen, P., Nowell, G., Peterkin, J. L., Sørensen, L., & Rowley-Conwy, P. (2016). Strontium isotope evidence of early Funnel Beaker Culture movement of cattle. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 6, 248-251. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2016.02.015
• Gron, K. J., & Robson, H. K. (2016). The Ertebølle zooarchaeological dataset from southern Scandinavia. Open Quaternary, 2(1), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.5334/oq.15
• Gron, K., Montgomery, J., & Rowley-Conwy, P. (2015). Cattle Management for Dairying in Scandinavia’s earliest Neolithic. PLoS ONE, 10(7), Article e0131267. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0131267
• Gron, K. J. (2015). Body part representation, fragmentation and patterns of Ertebølle deer exploitation in northwest Zealand, Denmark. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, 25(5), 722-732. https://doi.org/10.1002/oa.2339
• Ritchie, K. C., Gron, K. J., & Price, T. D. (2013). Flexibility and diversity in subsistence during the late Mesolithic: faunal evidence from Asnæs Havnemark. Danish Journal of Archaeology, 2(1), 45-64. https://doi.org/10.1080/21662282.2013.821792