Announcements

Upcoming Seminar at the Hudson River Foundation - March 24th:

"The Archaeology of Environmental Change in the NY/NJ Harbor Estuary"

Sponsored by the Hudson River Foundation in cooperation with the New York/New Jersey Harbor Estuary Program.

Location: 17 Battery Place, Suite 915. At the Battery in Lower Manhattan,facing Battery Park, 3 blocks west of Bowling Green. Wednesday, March 24, 2010 - 10:30 AM - 12:30 PM. RSVP: 212-483-7667 or info@hudsonriver.org. Seating capacity is limited. Please call or email in advance.

Download Complete Schedule of Seminars:

Recent Invited Conferences and Talks:

In addition to the upcoming seminar before the Hudson River Foundation on March 24th, over the past year I was honored by invitations to speak at several high profile venues, including ones held at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, The New York Botanical Garden and before the Annual Conference of the Hudson River Environmental Society (HRES). My HRES paper, “Archaeological Indices of Environmental Change and Colonial ethnobotany in 17th Century New Amsterdam”, is currently under peer review and is scheduled for publication by as part of the conference proceedings by SUNY Press sometime this summer.

Human-Landscape Interactions in the 21st Century begins with a review of background assumptions and concepts underpinning, and at times obscuring, modern research priorities and debates in human ecology and landscape studies from the perspective and data limits of archaeology.

The overview describes current archaeological and paleo-ecological evidence for prehistoric human/cultural impacts affecting, and responses to, environmental change, as well as recent popular theories attributing significant episodes of culture-change to various, and at times, biblical, catastrophic droughts and floods in human history.

International case studies are used to highlight the role archaeology is beginning to play in providing new insights into the processes of environmental trauma and degradation, sudden climate change, the loss of habitats and species diversity, sea level rise, the associated spectre of inundated coastal and river habitats, and of the often parallel pattern of desertification.

The treatment also addresses the logistical and policy implications of recent discoveries of well preserved archaeological and environmental data from formally ignored contexts beneath the sea and/or under the protective land-fill of urban landscapes.

Finally, it suggests some geospatial strategies, and data, our children will need to help address the challenges of environmental trauma in the future.

The Archaeology of Toxic and Hazardous Environments illustrates the use of applied technology to provide enhanced levels of data control in restricted time frames - and for archaeological challenges to the viability of historic preservation in dangerous settings.

Two examples of emergency rescue archaeology, one a Civil War complex under a contaminated Superfund site, the other a national monument damaged by natural disaster, illustrate the application of a range of applied technology solutions to emergency rescue archaeology in extreme settings.

Multiple categories of, overlapping - and often redundant - applied technology are discussed: all-weather field and laboratory operations, self-contained, "real-time" or concurrent, data control and feedback, and the use of GIS and geophysics in tandem with advanced 3D paleo-environmental modeling to target areas of archaeological sensitivity in difficult contexts.

New classes of high speed non-contact 3D recording, single-camera computer-integrated photogrammetry and the first-generation of true-color 3D laser-radar (Lidar), illustrate the ability of modern archaeology to do justice to our cultural resources....to the highest standards, and without compromise to the quality, precision or adequacy of the data.

At the policy level, these strategies demonstrate the ability of modern archaeology to do justice to our dwindling culture history - even in highly dangerous, toxic, radioactive or ordnance-laced environments.

Invited International Exchanges - Holland:

In October of 2009, I was honored to be invited to Amsterdam by the AWAD (The Atlantic World and the Dutch) program, in partnership with Netherlands Institute of Heritage (Erfgoed Nederland), the Nationaal Archief (National Archives), and the Dutch National Library to participate in an international conference, “Four Centuries of Dutch-American Relations” in commemoration of the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s arrival in the New World. My invited presentation, “New Insights into Dutch Material Culture”, focused on the 17th century archaeology of the original waterfront block of the Dutch West India Company in lower Manhattan, new ethnobotanical evidence of environmental change and the trans-Atlantic exchange of medicinal plants and knowledge between Dutch and Native Americans.

In addition, the seven-day exchange was tightly coordinated by Erfgoed Nederland to facilitate a series of fruitful bi-lateral discussions with heritage officials, archaeologists, material culture-specialists at various institutions, and in particular, the opportunity of meet with historical botanists at the National Botanical Gardens of both Amsterdam and Leiden. The visit culminated with a request by staff of the National Center for International Heritage Activities of Leiden that I give a seminar to graduate students at the University of Leiden on current research issues in the archaeology and environmental history of New Amsterdam. All travel and expenses were supported under the auspices of the Dutch International Visitors Program, the Roosevelt Center, the Free University of Amsterdam and the John Adams Institute.