Research

My current research explores the long-term legacies of disaster among Northern Plains indigenous populations—specifically how Hidatsa crafting communities changed or maintained production, use, and discard practices related to pottery after the smallpox epidemics of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. More broadly this research seeks to understand the social and cultural implications of the loss of skilled knowledge holders for contemporary indigenous communities. In addition to my doctoral research, I am presently engaged in collaborative archaeometric, technological, and soil chemistry studies to explore activity areas inside earthlodges as well as extramural thermal features with the State Historical Society of North Dakota and National Park Service. My work has appeared in American Antiquity (2001) and American Ethnologist (2011) as well as The Oxford Handbook of Material Culture Studies (2010), Behavioral Archaeology: Principles and Practice (2010), and Landscapes of Movement: The Anthropology of Paths, Trails, and Roads (2009).

Research Interests

  • Disaster and Hazard Research
  • Long-term Impacts of Disaster
  • Collaborative and Indigenous Archaeologies
  • Archaeology and Anthropology of the American Great Plains
  • Technological Change and Continuity
  • Culture Contact
  • Ceramic Analysis