Heather M.-L. Miller centers her research and teaching in the study of ancient technologies to elucidate questions grounded in anthropological archaeology. Moving beyond her previous work on Harappan pyrotechnologies, she has launched a new research project in 2025 on the “technologies of record-keeping”. This project explores technologies associated with record-keeping and especially writing as established frameworks of ancient social and political information systems. Although the project is broad, Professor Miller personally aims to use such data to identify possible ancient bureaucracies and/or centers for record keeping in the Indus.
Her past and continuing research streams focus on technological production and innovation in high-temperature pyrotechnologies of the Indus (Harappan) civilization during the third millennium BCE. Notably, this includes her most recent work on faience and glazed steatite technologies, though the study of metals and ceramics remain integral to her body of research. Professor Miller is also collaborating with other researchers on a project regarding the technology of food production and cooking. Though her co-directed project (Caravanserai Networks Project with Dr. Jennifer Campbell) on travel routes and amenities in northern Pakistan and India during the Late Historic/Islamic period is on long-term hold, her interest in cross-cultural interactions in multiple time periods continues.
Professor Miller has served in various governance positions in the University, including Vice-Dean of Teaching and Learning at UTM, Chair of the UTM Anthropology Department, and Associate Chair Graduate for the tri-campus Anthropology Graduate Department. As Vice-Dean, Professor Miller oversaw new curriculum and degree program proposals, and the routine provincially-mandated reviews of existing programs. She also led several of the groups involved in creating the Institute for the Study of University Pedagogy, including the founding of the first-year writing program at UTM and the transformation of the Robert Gillespie Academic Skills Centre.
Education
PhD in Anthropology (Archaeology concentration), University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1999
MA in Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1989
MSc in Bioarchaeology (Plant remains concentration), Institute of Archaeology, University College London, 1988
BA Honors in Anthropology and BA Biology, Rice University, 1987
Publications
Book: Archaeological Approaches to Technology. 2007, reissued 2016. NY: Routledge / Taylor & Francis. (Originally 2007 Academic Press imprint of Elsevier, hardback & eBook only; paperback 2009 with Left Coast Press; hardback, paperback & eBook reissued by Taylor & Francis / Routledge in 2016. All editions identical.) https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315434612
Articles: See Academia.edu or Research Gate pages. Full list to come.
Associations
Archaeological Institute of America (AIA)
Society for American Archaeology (SAA)
Society for Archaeological Sciences (SAS)
Historical Metallurgy Society (HMS)
Sigma Xi, The Research Society
Graduate Students
PhD students under Professor Miller’s supervision have engaged in archaeological, historical, and anthropological research on ceramics in relation to regional connections in Western Asia and ritual activities in Ontario and Peru; metals in relation to regional connections across Central Asia; pastoralist economies in ancient India as seen through archaeological scientific investigation; Buddhist architecture in Cambodian cities; architectural design and change at the Indus site of Mohenjo-daro and the Mughal/post-Mughal caravanserai of Gor Khuttree, Peshawar; and historical Hindu pilgrimage at Vijayanagara in South India. She is particularly interested in working with future students interested in topics associated with her new project on the technologies of ancient record-keeping/writing. The full list of her current and past graduate students can be found on the Graduate Student page.
Please contact Heather directly at heather.miller@utoronto.ca with your ideas if you are interested in participating in her new Technologies of Record-keeping project, particularly as a graduate student. While current restrictions severely limit the number of non-Canadian students who can be admitted into the University of Toronto Anthropology graduate program, she is happy to suggest alternative ways to associate with the project while a graduate student elsewhere.