Rachel V Briggs

Teaching Assistant Professor
Archaeologist

rvbriggs@email.unc.edu
Alumni Building 409B
Website

Research Interests

Foodways, Gender, Southeastern United States, Mississippian Period, Early Spanish Colonization, Ceramic Analysis

Specializations

Experimental Archaeology

Research Background

I am a foodways and gender studies archaeologist with a regional focus on Native communities in the Southeastern United State shortly before and after European colonization. In 2017, I received my PhD from the University of Alabama; my dissertation research focused on the role that the hominy foodway and Mississippian women had in the social ethnogenesis of the Mississippian center of Moundville (located in west-central Alabama). Presently, I continue to explore the generative power of food and gender in Southeastern Native societies through two ongoing projects: the first is a long-term field project located in Morganton, North Carolina at the sixteenth century Native village of Joara (or Xualla) and the historic Spanish Fort San Juan de Joara; and second, through an edited volume on the profound influence of Native women during the Mississippian period (University Presses of Florida, in review).

Education

PhD, University of Alabama