Lecture Series

Dr. Brooke Bauer is a citizen of the Catawba Indian Nation of South Carolina and her research concentrates specifically on the ways in which Catawba Indian women created, promoted, and preserved a Catawba identity as they adapted to the changes occurring inside and outside Catawba tribal boundaries during the eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century. Her talk looks at women's intimate relationship to Catawba land through their shared history, kinship connections, and their economic productivity.

Archaeologists use a range of tools to find out about the past.  Absorbed pottery residue analysis uses Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry to identify and interpret the contents of unglazed pots from archaeological sites.  Excavations at the Barrracks West of Battery A at Brunswick Town – Fort Anderson produced a range of unglazed pottery made and used by Native Americans, slaves, and European Americans.  Fifteen sherds and one soil sample were selected for residue analysis.  We will discuss the interpretations of the different potsherds, and the differences between residues from Native A

Since 2011, archaeologists at UNC-Chapel Hill have been collaborating with the Pauli Murray Project to study and protect the archaeological legacy of the Fitzgerald/Murray family at the site of their family home in Durham, NC. This presentation summarizes results to date and situates the research within the contexts of contemporary and historical archaeology as well as public archaeology.

Dr. Anna Agbe-Davies is an Associate Professor at UNC-CH. 

Michelle Lanier will explore the uses of archaeology, mapping, ecology, and land conservation as intersecting tools for expanding and diversifying the historical narrative of North Carolina.

Michelle Lanier is the Director of the NC Division of State Historic Sites.

The lecture will be livestreamed and available on YouTube if you cannot make it in person.

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An interdisciplinary team of students and faculty from East Carolina University is investigating a set of diverse maritime cultural sites on the south eastern seaboard that represent either a preservation risk or a potential resource to be showcased for heritage tourism.  The project represents a partnership with private, state and federal stakeholders.

Dr. Rachel Briggs is a Teaching Assistant Professor of Anthropology at UNC Chapel Hill and specializes American Indian foodways, gender, and the emergence of complex societies in the Southeastern United States. Dr. Briggs will speak about how archaeologists have traditionally used the apex of Mississippian societies to model the genesis of these socially complex organizations.

What's going on in North Carolina archaeology? Come hear State Archaeologist John Mintz discuss the past, present, and future of archaeology in North Carolina and the OSA's role in preserving our cultural heritage.

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Shane Petersen is an archaeologist with the Environmental Analysis Unit of the NCDOT. Shane will speak about his ongoing research on one of North Carolina’s most important prehistoric resources.

In our third Lunchtime Lecture, Mr. Hughes investigates Moravian culture through local pottery production at the eighteenth-century town of Salem in the piedmont of colonial North Carolina. Salem’s congregation-owned pottery (1771-1829) represents one of the most thoroughly documented pottery production sites in North Carolina and has been the subject of archaeological investigation since the 1950s.

In our second Lunchtime Lecture, Mr. Southerly and Mr. Casserley dive into inter-agency partnerships to discover, research, and protect the hallmarks of North Carolina’s maritime cultural heritage: shipwrecks. North Carolina waters have long been known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic, with thousands of shipwrecks occurring over hundreds of years. These shipwrecks hold information about changing technologies and cultural and physical landscapes.