About

Melandri is a lecturer in Biomedical Science at the University of Notre Dame Australia. She graduated from her PhD in biological anthropology at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand in 2020. She specialises in Bioarchaeology (Osteoarchaeology) in the Asia-Pacific region and has over a decade of fieldwork experience in archaeology in the region. Melandri is a National Geographic Explorer, having received a grant in 2018 for research in Vietnam.

She has identified the earliest evidence of surgical amputation in the world at 31kya, treponemal disease (yaws, syphilis) and malaria in the Asia-Pacific region. Melandri is a member of the Ngākahu New Zealand Repatriation Research Network and has experience in bioarchaeological work for repatriation purposes with indigenous Australian, Māori, Moriori and Indigenous Pacific Islander ancestral remains. 

Melandri is affiliated with the School of Languages and Culture, The University of Sydney, and the Centre of Osteoarchaeology in the North Atlantic, University of Aberdeen, UK.

Publications

Vlok M, Oxenham M, Domett K, Trinh HH, Minh TT, Nguyen MH, Matsumura H, andBuckley H. 2024. High prevalence of adult and non-adult scurvy in an early agriculturaltransition site from Mainland Southeast Asia was associated with decreased survivorship.American Journal of Biological Anthropology. 185(2): e25011

Vlok M, McFadden C, Matsumura H, and Buckley HR. 2024. Nutritional Disease,Ecological Stress, and Resilience in the Middle to Final Western Jomon. Antiquity.98(399): 709-723.

​Buckley, H, Vlok M, 2024. 'A Long Want' An archival exploration of scurvy in the Otagogoldfelds of New Zealand. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand. 54(3): 368-389.

Vlok M. 2023. Technical Note: The use and misuse of threshold criteria inpaleopathology. American Journal of Biological Anthropology. 181(2): 326-335.

Snoddy AM, Vlok M, Ramesh N, Wheeler BJ, Standen VG, Arriaza BT. 2023. Reply toMays and Brickley 2023: "Dietary calcium versus vitamin D in rickets: A response to Vloket al.". American Journal of Human Biology. 35(4): e23882. *as co-lead author.

Vlok M, Snoddy AM, Ramesh N, Wheeler BJ, Standen VG, Arriaza BT. 2023. The role ofdietary calcium in the etiology of childhood rickets in the past and the present. AmericanJournal of Human Biology. 35(2): e23819.

Walker MM, Oxenham MF, Vlok M, Matsumura H, Mai Huong NT, Trinh HH, Minh TT,and Miszkiewicz JJ. 2023. Human Femur Bone Morphology and Histology Variation withAncestry and Behaviour in an Ancient Sample from Vietnam. Annals of Anatomy. 247:152054

Wang, T Mcfadden C, Buckley H, Vlok M, and Oxenham, M. 2023. Paleoepidemiology ofcribra orbitalia: Insights from early seventh millennium BP Con Co Ngua, Vietnam.American Journal of Biological Anthropology. 181(2): 250-261.

Vlok M, Oxenham MF, Domett K, Hiep TH, Minh TT, Mai Huong NT, Matsumura H,McFadden C, Huu NT, and Buckley H. 2023. Scurvy in the Tropics: Evidence for increasingmicronutrient deficiency with the transition to agriculture in northern Vietnam. AmericanJournal of Biological Anthropology.180(4): 715-732.

Vlok M, Maloney, TR, Dilkes-Hall I, et al. 2023. Reply to: Common orthopaedic traumamay explain 31000-year-old remains. Nature. 615: E15-E18.

Robbins Schug G, Buikstra JE, DeWitte SN, Baker BJ, Vlok M, et al. 2023. Perspective:Climate Change, Human Health, and Challenges to Resilience in the Holocene. PNAS[invited for special issue]. Maloney, TR, Dilkes-Hall I, Vlok M, et al. 2022. Surgical amputation of a limb 31,000 years ago in Borneo. Nature. 609:547-551. [As co-lead author.] 

Vlok M, Myagmar E, Batsuren B, and Buckley HR. 2022. Pott's disease of the spine in aLiao Dynasty (10th-12th Century AD) adult from Mongolia. Bioarchaeology International.6(3): 149-160.

Vlok M. 2022. BOOK REVIEW: Bioarchaeology of care through a population levelanalysis. Childhood in the Past. 15(1): 79-80.

Vlok M, and Buckley HR. 2022. Palaeoepidemiological considerations of mobility andpopulation interaction in the spread of infectious diseases in the prehistoric past.Bioarcheology International 6(1-2): 77-107. [Invited for special issue].

Vlok M, Buckley HR, Domett K, Willis A, Tromp M, Trinh HH, Minh TT, Mai Huong NT,Nguyen LC, Matsumura H, Huu NT, and Oxenham MF. 2022. Echinococcus granulosis in aforager community from pre-agricultural northern Vietnam. American Journal ofBiological Anthropology. 117(1): 100-115.

Vlok M. 2022. BOOK REVIEW: Handbook of East and Southeast Asian Archaeology.The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. 28(2): 687-688.

Techataweewan N, Mann, RW, Vlok M, Ruengdit S, Panthongviriyakul C, and BuckleyHR. 2021. Thalassemia Major and Anemia ina 49-year-old Thai female: Gross and X-rayExamination of Dry Bone. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology. [as co-lead author].

Vlok M, Buckley HR, Miszkiewicz JJ, Walker M, Domett K, Matsumura H, Hiep T, MinhT, Mai Huong NT, Huu NT, and Oxenham M. 2021. Forager and farmer evolutionaryadaptations to malaria evidenced by 7000 years of thalassemia in Southeast Asia.Scientific Reports. 11:5667. 

Adams A, Halcrow S, King C, Miller MJ, Vlok M, Millard M, Gröcke D, Buckley H,Domett K, Trinh HH, Mai Huong NT, Tran TM and Oxenham M. 2021. We're all in thistogether: Accessing the maternal-infant relationship in prehistoric Viet Nam. In: E Kendall and R Kendall (eds.). The Family in Past Perspective: An InterdisciplinaryExploration of Familial Relationships Through Time. Oxfordshire UK: Taylor &Francis.

Vlok M, Oxenham M, Domett K, Tran M, Mai Huong N, Matsumura H, Trinh H,Higham T, Higham C, Huu N and Buckley H. 2020.Two Probable Cases of Infectionwith Treponema pallidum during the Neolithic Period in Northern Vietnam (2000-1500B.C.). Bioarchaeology International. 4(1):15-36.

Snoddy AME, Beaumont J, Buckley HR, Colombo A, Halcrow SE, Kinaston RL and Vlok M. 2020. Comment on Charlier et al., 2019: "The Mandible of Saint-Louis (1270AD): Retrospective Diagnosis and Circumstances of Death". Journal of Stomatology,Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery. 121(2): 192-194.

Snoddy AME, Beaumont J, Buckley HR, Colombo A, Halcrow SE, Kinaston RL andVlok M. 2020. Sensationalism and speaking tothe public: Scientific rigour andinterdisciplinary collaborations in paleopathology. International Journal ofPaleopathology. 28:88-91.

Vlok M, Paz V, Crozier R, Oxenham M. 2017. A New Application of theBioarchaeology of Care Approach: A Case Study from the Metal Period, Philippines.International Journal of Osteoarchaeology. 27 (4): 662-671.

​Vlok M. 2017. So that their graves overlooked the sea: Student experience of thePhilippines International Archaeological Field School. The Human Voyage. 1: 105-111.