The Catalan Institute of Classical Archaeology (ICAC) welcomes Matteo Bormetti, who joined the institute on 1 September as a postdoctoral researcher with a Juan de la Cierva fellowship funded by the Spanish State Research Agency. Bormetti joins the Landscape Archaeology Research Group (GIAP), where he is carrying out the project Mapping Roman Imperialism Through Animals, under the supervision of Dr. Lídia Colominas and Dr. Arnau Garcia.

The project investigates how local communities in different regions of the Roman Empire adapted their animal husbandry practices and relationships with animals in response to Roman conquest. By combining zooarchaeological data with geographic information systems (GIS), the research will map these responses and analyse how processes of imperial integration transformed animal breeding and exploitation practices.

Specialising in zooarchaeology and the study of past human–animal relationships, Bormetti has researched a range of topics, including animal husbandry systems, urban provisioning, ancient beekeeping and the exploitation of marine resources. He obtained his PhD from the University of Sheffield in 2023 with a thesis on animal husbandry and socioeconomic change in Late Iron Age Britain.

Following his doctorate, he taught zooarchaeology at the University of Milan, held a postdoctoral research position at the German Archaeological Institute (DAI), and took part in several international archaeological research projects. These include the Meninx Archaeological Project in Tunisia and excavations at Monte Zara in Sardinia. He is also currently an associate editor of the newsletter of the International Council for Archaeozoology (ICAZ).

ICAC welcomes Matteo Bormetti and wishes him every success in this new stage of his research career.