Torben Rick is the director and curator of North American Archaeology at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

UGA’s Jennifer Birch and Cornell University’s Sturt Manning are investigators for a National Science Foundation grant, “Establishing a High-Resolution Framework for Age Determination.” A team including graduate assistant Megan Anne Conger works to date Northern Iroquoian sites to new, acutely accurate placements now possible with astonishing developments in radiocarbon dating techniques.

Ben Steere, Director of Cherokee Studies at Western Carolina University (Ph.D. '11), has published a book exploring the evolution of houses and households in the Southeast from the Woodland to the Historic Indian period (200 B.C. to 1800 A.D.). A reviewer states that “The Archaeology of Houses and Households in the Native Southeast” is certain to become an essential reference for anyone doing native archaeology in the Southeast. Another calls the book “a critically important work that moves beyond mere synthesis and summary.”

2009 graduate Faren Rachels’ tattoo says it all: “[H]ad this dream from a tender age.” Faren, who played and sang in Athens bars before her talent took her around the country and the rooms got bigger, releases her first EP next month and Rolling Stone magazine takes notice. The magazine slots her at number one in a piece called “10 New Country Artists You Need to Know.”

Faren was our student worker for two years and anytime you walked by the office, there she was. It’ll cost you to see her now, but there’s the bonus of hearing her sing. 

Several faculty members and an alumnus were featured in UGA's fall issue of Georgia Magazine.

HECLab promotes interdisciplinary research that is engaged, both intellectually and in practice, with environmental change as it relates to humans and society. It supports work that focuses on long-term human and ecological well-being in light of changing social and environmental conditions. Our research encompasses actor and system-based perspectives and institutional and governance analyses to help elucidate relationships of people and their environments – both urban and rural.

David Hurst Thomas has served as curator of anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York since 1972, and, for seven years, served as the chairman of the department of anthropology. Thomas has conducted archaeological research on St. Catherines Island since 1974.

Sponsored by the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and the department of anthropology.

Associate Professor Bram Tucker has been awarded a National Science Foundation grant for a three year investigation of cultural adaptations to risk in southwestern Madagascar entitled “Testing Multiple Approaches for Understanding Adaptive Functions of Cultural Institutions” (NSF BCS 1733917). When anthropologists encounter cultural beliefs and practices that have persisted for centuries within challenging environments, they often conclude that the culture persists because it helps people to adapt to these environmental challenges.