Mélissa Morel

Mélissa Morel is an archaeometrist specializing in iron metallurgy in Africa. Her research focuses on ancient iron-smelting technologies and combines archaeology, laboratory analyses, and experimental approaches to reconstruct operational sequences and understand the technical logics of past iron-producing societies.

After completing a PhD at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) on iron metallurgy in northeastern Madagascar, she held several postdoctoral positions at the University of Geneva and the University of Toulouse Jean Jaurès, where she worked on iron-smelting sites in Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire.

Her research explores technological mastery and processes of knowledge transmission, with a particular focus on how efficiency is defined in ancient technical systems. She critically examines modern, productivity-based definitions of efficiency in order to better understand past technologies in which social and cultural dimensions were integral to technical choices.

She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, where she continues her work on the history of technology through the study of metallurgical remains from the Bassar region (Togo).