Bio

Christina Ryder is an archaeological scientist whose research applies near-infrared spectroscopy (NIR) to assess biomolecular preservation in fossil bone. Her work develops and refines non-destructive screening methods to optimize sampling for radiocarbon, stable isotope, and paleoproteomic analyses, with applications to Late Pleistocene megafaunal and archaeological assemblages across North America, Eurasia, and Africa. She earned her Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology from the University of Colorado Boulder, where her dissertation, Saving Old Bones, established NIR spectroscopy as a predictive tool for evaluating collagen preservation in archaeological bone. At the Center for the Study of the First Americans, she leads NIR prescreening and radiocarbon sampling within a large-scale radiocarbon dating project investigating the timing of Late Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions.