History of Archaeology

An outline of the history of archaeology at the University of Connecticut

Archaeology has been a part of the curriculum since the formation of a Department of Anthropology at the University of Connecticut in 1969.  Listed below are those archaeologists that preceded the current faculty.

Tenure-track faculty

Jean Aigner (1970-1981)

  • Aigner, J.S. (1973) Pleistocene archaeological remains from South China. Asian Perspectives 16:16-38.
  • Aigner, J.S. (1976) Early Holocene evidence for the Aleut maritime adaptation. Arctic Anthropology 13:32-45.

Robert E. Dewar, Jr. (1979-2002)

  • Dewar, R.E. (1995) Of nets and trees: Untangling the reticulate and dendritic in Madagascar’s prehistory. World Archaeology 26:301-318.
  • Dewar, R.E. & Wallis, J.R. (1999) Geographic patterning of interannual rainfall variability in the tropics and near tropics: A L-moments approach. Journal of Climate 12:3457-3466.

Charles S. Spencer (1983-1991)

  • Spencer, C.S. (1987) Rethinking the Chiefdom. In (R.D. Drennan and C. Uribe, eds.) Chiefdoms in the Americas, Uribe Lanham, MD: University Press of America, pp. 369-390.
  • Spencer, C.S. (1990) On the tempo and mode of state formation: Neoevolutionism reconsidered. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 9:1-30.

Sally McBrearty (1995-2018)

  • McBrearty, S. & Brooks, A.S.B. (2000) The revolution that wasn’t: A new interpretation of the origin of modern human behavior. Journal of Human Evolution 39:453-563.
  • McBrearty, S. & Jablonski, N. (2005) First fossil chimpanzee. Nature 437:105-108.

State Archaeologists

Douglas F. Jordan (1969-1992)

  • Jordan, D.J. (1960) The Bull Brook Site in relation to “fluted point” manifestations in eastern North America. Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University.
  • Jordan, D.J. (1975) Factors affecting New England archaeology. Man in the Northeast 10:71-74.

Nicholas Bellantoni (1988-2018)

  • Bellantoni, N. & Poirier, D.A., eds. (1996) In Remembrance: Archaeology and Death. Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey Press.
  • Bellantoni, N. (2005) Critical issues in Connecticut archaeological preservation. Bulletin of the Archaeological Society of Connecticut 67:11-20.

Brian Jones (2014-2019)

  • Jones, B.D. (1997) The late Paleoindian Hidden Creek site in southeastern Connecticut. Archaeology of Eastern North America 25:45-80.
  • Jones, B.D. (2007) The Colonization of the Curriculum: 13,000 years of Missing History in the Connecticut Content Standards of the Social Sciences, with Suggestions for Class Exercises. Connecticut History Review 46:265-281.

Lecturers and visiting faculty

Elsa Redmond (1981-1991)

  • Redmond, E. (1983) A fuego y sangre: Early Zapotec imperialism in the Cuicatlan Cañada, Oaxaca. Ann Arbor: Memoirs of the Museum of Anthropology of the University of Michigan, No. 16.
  • Redmond, E. & Spencer, C.S. (1985) Archeological investigation in the Andean Piedmont and High Llanos of western Venezuela: A preliminary report. In (D.P. Kvietok & D.H. Sandweiss, eds.) Recent Studies in Andean Prehistory and Protohistory: Papers from the Second Annual Northeast Conference on Andean Archaeology and Ethnohistory. Ithaca, New York, Cornell Latin American Studies Program, pp. 137-157.

Nicholas Conard (1991-1993)

  • Conard, N. J. (1992) Tönchesberg and its Position in the Paleolithic Prehistory of Northern Europe. Monograph 20, Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum Series. Bonn: Habelt.
  • Roebroeks, W., N. J. Conard, & T. van Kolfschoten (1992) On Dense Forests, Cold Steppes and the Palaeolithic Settlement of Northern Europe. Current Anthropology 33:551-586.

David Perry (1997-1998)

  • Perry, D. (1999) Vegetative tissues from Mesolithic sites in the northern Netherlands. Current Anthropology 40:231-237.
  • Price, D.T.; Gebauer, A.B.; Hede, U.S.; Sedlacek, Larsen, C.S.; Noe-Nygaard, N.; Mason, S.L.R.; Nielsen, J.; Perry, D. (2001) Smakkerup Huse: A Mesolithic Settlement in NW Zealand, Denmark, Journal of Field Archaeology 28:45-67.