His specialization is zooarchaeology, with a focus on historical archaeology. He is also currently involved in a number of medieval era projects as well. Dr. Hambrecht’s main area of research is Iceland and the sub-arctic, as well as arctic North Atlantic area. His second developing area of research is in the Leeward Islands, specifically the islands of Antigua and Barbuda. Dr. Hambrecht’s main theoretical concerns center on interactions between the political, environmental, and biological dimensions of the transformative processes of the early modern period (global culture contact, voluntary and forced migration, pandemic disease, translocation of species, mechanisms of subordination and dominance, commoditization, market vs. subsistence production) and in the comparative political ecology of different colonial situations.