Current Team

Donna Yates Dr Yates is a Lecturer in Antiquities Trafficking and Art Crime at the University of Glasgow’s Scottish Centre of Crime and Justice Research. As part of the Trafficking Culture project, she studies the looting and trafficking of cultural property, particularly from Latin America. She has a PhD in Archaeology from the University of Cambridge and has conducted or collaborated on fieldwork in several far-flung locations, including Belize, Bolivia, Guatemala, Ecuador, Mexico, Nepal, and Greece. She blogs as Anonymous Swiss Collector and Grotesque Stone Idols, tweets as @DrDonnaYates, @StolenGods, @CultureTraffic, and @Lego Academics, and runs Culture Crime News.

Barbora Brederova Barbora (@Barby_Bred) is current a master’s student at University College London, and is a 1st Class graduate in Archaeology with an award-winning dissertation that explores solutions to the looting and deliberate destruction of cultural heritage in the times of modern conflict. In order to explain the causes of this issue, she focuses on the relation of current political, economic and social circumstances to the plunder of archaeological sites and museums. The objective of her blog People & Their Heritage is to enhance people’s appreciation of heritage and to raise awareness of the need for its protection. She puts a strong emphasis on the threat to human identities, ideologies and social well-being caused by the illicit trade of stolen cultural objects.

Past Contributors

Kirsty Escalante Kirsty Escalante lives in Dallas, Texas, and received her B.A. degree in Archaeological Studies from Yale University in 2011. Kirsty has worked on research projects in Belize, Peru, South Africa, Pennsylvania, Texas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. She is currently a Staff Archaeologist at Red River Archaeology in Dallas, and regularly contributes to technical reports sent to state and federal agencies for cultural resource management surveys.

Chiara Williamson Chiara Williamson is in her final undergraduate year at the University of Toronto majoring in Archaeology. Her main interest in archaeology is in archaeology from North America particularly Eastern Canada, but she is very interested in learning about artifacts from all over the world. The knowledge of the theft and trafficking of cultural objects and art, and also the preservation of objects and art is important knowledge she is excited to contribute to and share with the world.