Dr. Choleva is an archaeologist specializing in Aegean prehistory, pottery-forming techniques, and the anthropology of technology. She holds a BA from the University of Athens and an MA and PhD from the University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.
She has been a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Louvain (2016–2018), the Fitch Laboratory of the British School at Athens (2019), the University of Athens (2020–2022), and the Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard University (2022–2023). In 2021, she was an adjunct professor of prehistoric archaeology at the University of Thessaloniki. She is involved in various field and research projects in Greece and Turkey, while being co-editor of the Greek journal on human sciences called Krisi – Biannual Scientific Review.
Maria’s research focuses on the materiality of technology. Her projects investigate the appropriation and transfer of the innovation of the potter’s wheel in the Aegean during the Bronze Age, with a special emphasis on the role of body techniques in shaping social roles and cultural knowledge. At ANAMED, Maria will be working on her project entitled “Making an Artisan for the Potter’s Wheel in the Prehistoric Aegean: An Anthropological Interdisciplinary Approach to Artifacts.” This research will trace the connectivity between pottery chaînes opératoires in mainland Greece and western Anatolia in the third millennium BCE by employing an innovative interdisciplinary approach that combines archaeological inquiry, scientifically based methods, and social theories of practice and embodiment.