Valasia Isaakidou (Univ. of Oxford) is the bioarchaeology co-ordinator and zooarchaeology specialist for the Sissi project. She studied zooarchaeology and Aegean prehistory at UCL (London) and Sheffield. Her PhD thesis (UCL 2004) explored animal consumption based on zooarchaeological analysis of a large diachronic (7000-1300 BC) assemblage from Knossos. Her research interests focus on methodological and theoretical aspects of prehistoric cuisine, ideological and ritual dimensions of animal product consumption and the nature and socio-economic implications of early farming. She is currently exploring the latter as a member of the AGRICURB team in Oxford through systematic integration of bioarchaeological and isotopic evidence with original ethnographic research which she has been conducting since 2000 in collaboration with Prof. P. Halstead (Sheffield). With other Sissi colleagues, she is hoping to apply advances in this field in the study of bioarchaeological materials from the Sissi excavations.