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UNC Research Collaborator Affiliate

Email: lcs(@)email.unc.edu

Phone: (919) 962-3846

Fax:

(919) 962-1613

Office:

109B Alumni Bldg.

Area of Interest:

Archaeology, Hunter-Gatherers, Regional Survey, Settlement Patterns, Coastal Adaptations, Shellfish Analysis, Eastern North America.

Education:

Ph.D. 1987, SUNY Binghamton

Research & Activities:

Research Assistant Professor, Anthropology

Research Associate, Research Laboratories of Anthropology

Research Background

Although I have worked elsewhere in North America, most of my fieldwork has been in the Chesapeake Bay region. I have been investigating the transition from nomadic to sedentary life during the Woodland period (1000 B.C. – A.D. 1600). My research has focused on the study of regional settlement organization and community patterns.

Present Research

I am working on a monograph about the Stearns and Patterson I sites, two Woodland shell middens on the Patunxent River estuary in southern Maryland. Excavations at both sites yielded considerable evidence about change in the collection and production of food that accompanied the shift to more settled village life. I have also been working on a method for identifying the season of harvest of oysters, a mollusc common in shell middens along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. If successful, this method will be used to help establish the seasonality of site occupation and to evaluate the significance of shellfish use in local and regional economies.

Manuscripts in Preparation (with Joseph M. Herbert)

Determining Season of Harvest from Oyster Shell Growth Patterns. Excavations at the Stearns and Patterson I Sites: A Study of Two Woodland Communities in Coastal Maryland.