Nathan Acebo

Assistant Professor

Anthropology

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Education

Ph.D., 2020, Stanford University

About

Nate Acebo is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAISI) at the University of Connecticut. He practices Community-Based Participatory Research (CPBR) in Indigenous Archaeology and his work explores how past and present Indigenous knowledges and practices can enable subaltern resistance, communal autonomy and affective potentiality in the pre- and post-colonial contexts of North America (Alta California and New England) and the Pacific (Hawaiʻi). Dr. Acebo explores these subjects through field and museum-based collection analysis using different methodologies inclusive of geochemical archaeometry techniques, digital ethnography, and qualitative approaches to geographic information system cartography. Dr. Acebo’s research has been supported by the Mellon Foundation, the National Science Foundation, Society for California Archaeology, and various research institutes at University of Connecticut, Tufts University, the University of California system, and Stanford University.

Visit Dr. Acebo’s personal website.

Research Interests

Hist. Archaeology, Indigenous Knowledges, Anti-colonialism, New Materialist approaches to resistance and communal autonomy

Teaching

• ANTH 5395. Indigenous & Collaboration-Based Archaeologies
• ANTH 1006. Introduction to Anthropology
• ANTH 3098. The Archaeology of Resistance
• ANTH 1095. Introducing Decolonization and Indigenous Worlds
• ANTH 3027. Contemporary Native Americans
• ANTH 3098*.Cultural Heritage Industries

Affiliations

• P.I. UConn Community-Based Digital Heritage Lab
• Editorial Board: California Archaeology

Publications

Acebo, Nathan P. and T. Schneider in press (2024). Indigenous Homelands Beyond the Missions in California. In Critical Mission Studies Handbook. (University of California Press)

Acebo, Nathan P. and P. Nelson in press (2024). Embracing Decolonial Epistemic Asymmetry: Transformative Indigenous Knowledge and Stories in Colonial California. In ‘What End for Epistemology in Archaeology? Indigenous Knowledges, Ontology, and Axiology in Archaeological Research’. (University of Arizona Press)

Allen, Mark W., Sapp, B., James, S., and N. Acebo 2022, The Archaeology of Willow Creek Crossing and Rock Camp. California Archaeology Vol. 14

Acebo, Nathan P. 2022 Terminal Narratives and Indigenous Autonomy: Fragmented Historicity in the Santa Ana Mountains of Orange County, CA. In Exploring Place: Historical Archaeology of the American West, edited by Carolyn White and Emily Dale. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, UT.

Awards

Mellon Foundation Faculty of Color Working Group Fellow, Tufts University 2022-2023