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As an Old World prehistorian, my research focuses on two issues: early hominid lifeways, and the origins and spread of pastoralism in Africa. I have explored these topics through survey and excavation, principally in the Loita-Mara area of southwestern Kenya , and through zooarchaeological studies of faunas excavated from archaeological sites. I have also undertaken ethnoarchaeological field work designed to investigate factors that affect body part representation in archaeological sites, and alternative pathways to food production among Okiek hunter-gatherers of the western Mau Escarpment, Kenya. I have been involved in a major conservation project at Laetoli, and I am currently conducting interdisciplinary research on the domestication of the donkey with archaeological, morphometric, genetic, behavioral and ethnoarchaeological components.
African archaeology, ethnoarchaeology, the beginnings of food production and zooarchaeology are research foci for most of my graduate students. Recent students have completed PhDs on domestication of yams and ensete in southwestern Ethiopia (Elizabeth Hildebrand), fauna from Axum , Ethiopia (Chester Cain); Kansyore hunter-gatherers and socio-economic variation in Kenya (Darla Dale).
Students at Washington University 's zooarchaeological laboratory are currently working on projects in Kenya , New Mexico and Bolivia. Students have also worked on fauna from sites in Greece and Missouri including Cahokia and prehistoric faunas from Africa and Europe , as well as experimental studies of factors affecting bone breakage and carnivore damage to bone. The zooarchaeology laboratory has worked closely with the palaeothnobotany laboratory, the Department of Art and Archaeology, the University's Tyson Research Center and the St. Louis Zoo.
The Archaeology of Africa, Pathways to Food Production in the Old World, Zooarchaeology, Experimental Zooarchaeology, Ethnoarchaeology, Human Patterns of Predation.
Marshall, Fiona 2007 African pastoral perspectives on domestication of the donkey: A first synthesis. In Rethinking Agriculture: Archaeological and Ethnoarchaeological Perspectives. Chapter 18, pp 537 - 594. T.P. Denham and L. Vrydaghs Eds. London , UCL Press.
Shahack-Gross, R., Fiona Marshall, Kathleen Ryan, and Steve Weiner. 2004 Reconstruction of Spatial Organization in abandoned Maasai Settlements: Implications for Site Structure in the Pastoral Neolithic of Kenya. Journal of Archaeological Science 31 :1395-1411.
Dale, D., Marshall F. and T. Pilgram. 2004 Delayed-Return Hunter-Gatherers in Africa ? Historic Perspectives from the Okiek and Archaeological Perspectives from the Kansyore. In Hunters and Gatherers in Theory and Archaeology. G. Crothers Ed. Chapter 15, pp. 340-375. Center for Archaeological Investigations Occasional Paper 31, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.
Shahack-Gross, R., Marshall , F. and S. Weiner. 2003 Geo-Ethnoarchaeology of Pastoral Sites: The Identification of Livestock Enclosures in Abandoned Maasai Settlements. The Journal of Archaeological Science 30:439-459.
Marshall, F. and L. Hildebrand. 2002 Cattle before Crops: the Origins and Spread of Food Production in Africa. Journal of World Prehistory 16: 99-143.
Marshall, F. 2000 The Origins of Domesticated Animals in Eastern Africa. In The Origins and Development of African Livestock: Archaeology, genetics, linguistics and ethnography. K.C McDonald and R.M. Blench Eds. Chapter 10, pp. 191-221. London : University College London Press.
