Education

Ph.D. Anthropology, University of Georgia 1983

Expertise & Interests

I am fascinated by the economic lives of people in rural places, where food and other resources come from the land, forest, and sea.  Rural economies are highly diversified, partially integrated into markets, and vulnerable to risk and uncertainty.  We often think of them as "traditional," and traditions are important; but they have experienced long histories of social change.

I study big turning points in human history, especially how people have come together to form societies and how they've interacted with their environments over time. I focus on wetland and coastal areas, mainly along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the U.S., where I use archaeology to understand how people and climate have shaped each other over thousands of years. A big part of my work looks at how Indigenous communities governed themselves, highlighting the many different ways democratic systems can look beyond what we’re used to today.

I study how the environment, biology, and culture shape human health and disease. My recent research in Panama focuses on Zoonotic diseases and deforestation, while in Bolivia, I study nutrition, health, and life history. I am interested in how individual and household conditions may shape disease patterns, and also how they shape childhood growth, diet, and nutrition.

I am a zooarchaeologist who focuses on Latin American and southeastern archaeology with an emphasis on ecological and ecological archaeology. As the head of the zooarchaeology lab and as a consultant, I work with collections management.