Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology
P.O. Box 1848
University, MS 38677-1848

Phone: 662-915-6544
Office: Leavell 209
E-mail: crfreiwa@olemiss.edu

Biography

Research

Publications

Associate Professor of Anthropology
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
P.O. Box 1848
University, MS 38677-1848

Phone: 662-915-7343
Office: Leavell 114
E-mail: sasisson@olemiss.edu

Biography
As a graduate student at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and Harvard University, I conducted research on the Maya at Palenque, Chiapas and on the Olmec in the Western Chontalpa, Tabasco.
Prior to returning to the University of Mississippi, my undergraduate institution; I was engaged in teaching and contract archaeology at the University of Utah and Curator at the R.S. Peabody Foundation in Andover, Massachusetts. As Curator my primary responsibility was research on the Late Postclassic Period in the Tehuacan Valley, Puebla, Mexico. I also taught an introductory anthropology course for the high school students at Phillips Academy and took them on trips of discovery to Mexico. At the University of Utah, my primary responsibility was overseeing contract archaeological research.
Currently I teach introductory courses in anthropology for lower division undergraduates and upper division courses on the Maya, Aztec, and Mesoamerican Art History. I consider the latter my area of special expertise. I enjoy teaching the former because I believe it important for undergraduates to be exposed to the rational, diverse cultural practices of other peoples with world views different from their own. I hope that the experience will challenge them to critically examine their own values and assumptions about the world.

Research
My research focuses on the Late Postclassic Period in the Tehuacan Valley, Puebla, Mexico and the local consequences of that valley’s incorporation into the Aztec Empire and subsequently into New Spain.

Publications
My most recent publication is an English translation and annotation of Karl Anton Nowotny’s Tlacuilolli; Style and Contents of the Mexican Pictorial Manuscripts with a Catalog of the Borgia Group (University of Oklahoma Press 2005).

I have also published articles and short monographs on my research in the Tehuacan Valley, Puebla and the Western Chontalpa, Tabasco.

Instructional Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Associate Director of Projects
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
P.O. Box 1848
University, MS 38677-1848

Phone: 662-915-3995
Office: Leavell 307
E-mail: mlmurray@olemiss.edu

Biography
I joined the University of Mississippi in January 2003 as Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Associate Director of Projects. I received undergraduate training in Anthropology and Prehistory at the University of Connecticut and the Universität Salzburg in Austria, and I was awarded a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Harvard University in 1995.

Research

My primary research interest is the investigation and interpretation of later prehistoric landscapes in Central Europe from the early Neolithic to the later Iron Age. I explore early Iron Age mortuary places through excavation and landscape archaeology and I use archaeological reconnaissance and survey to examine Neolithic social development and settlement practices and the lives of ancient “Celtic” peoples of the Bronze and Iron ages. I have also practiced applied archaeology and cultural resource management in the United States, where I have directed numerous archaeological field projects focused on resource identification, evaluation, and data recovery. I have two ongoing research projects in Europe: the “Landscape of Ancestors” project and the “Lower Bavaria Survey.”

Landscape of Ancestors

In 1999, I began collaborating with Professor Bettina Arnold (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) on the “Landscape of Ancestors” project, which involves the excavation and analysis of early Iron Age burial monuments in the Hohmichele mound group near the Heuneburg hillfort at Hundersingen in southwestern Germany (see http://www.uwm.edu/~barnold/arch/). In 1999/2000 and 2002, we excavated two large burial mounds, recovering and documenting the remains of at least 26 graves. Fieldwork was supported by grants from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the National Geographic Society.

By late 2012, all finds from the Landscape of Ancestors project have been documented and restored in state archaeology labs in Tübingen and Esslingen, Germany. Restorators used our discoveries to pioneer the application of computer tomography for the documentation of en bloc materials, such as fragile bronze belts and hair ornaments that were recovered within a block of soil (see www.aid-magazin.de/Neue-Technologien-Blockbergungen-und-3D.788.0.html). On September 15, 2012, two of the graves went on display as part of the state exhibition “Die Welt der Kelten” (“The World of the Celts”) in Stuttgart, Germany (see www.kelten-stuttgart.de). We are preparing the project monograph for publication by Konrad Theiss Verlag (Stuttgart) in the series Forschungen und Berichte zur Vor- und Frühgeschichte in Baden-Württemberg.

Lower Bavarian Survey

In 2005, after several years of archival research and logistical planning, I initiated an ongoing archaeological reconnaissance and survey project in Lower Bavaria in the heart of southeastern Germany. This project is a multifaceted exploration of a portion of the Loess Hills physiographic region between the Danube and Isar rivers.

The primary goal of the project is the exploration of prehistoric and early historic use of the Loess Hills, in particular changes in site distributions and land-use associated with significant cultural transformations during later prehistory (5500 BC to AD 50). The project area offers a useful laboratory for the examination of processes and events relating to several important periods: 1) colonization of the landscape by early farmers; 2) expansive settlement of developed farming communities; 3) Bronze Age elites and the concentration of power; 4) coalescence of late Iron Age communities; and 5) Roman conquest and cultural hegemony. Project results provide information on taphonomic processes and survey bias in the collection and interpretation of surface archaeological data. I also project data to develop methods of assessing elements of the “folk landscape” that facilitate the discovery and interpretation of archaeological remains.

Since 2009, our work has primarily focused on upland locations and watershed boundaries in the hills. In particular, we are engaged in a micro-landscape investigation around the village of Hohenthann (Landshut County), which is perched on some of the highest terrain in the project area at the boundary between the Danube and Isar watersheds. Here, we discovered a long sequence of prehistoric activity that began with a Neolithic occupation that is notably early (middle phase of the Linear Pottery Culture) for the Loess Hills region.

Fieldwork for the project has been supported by grants from the University of Mississippi and the National Geographic Society (in collaboration with Peter S. Wells, University of Minnesota). Project personnel work in close cooperation with regional and local organizations including the Bavarian Landesamt für Denkmalpflege, the Gesellschaft for Archäologie in Bayern, and the Verein für Archäologie in Stadt und Landkreis Landshut. The project offers undergraduate and graduate students an opportunity to conduct archaeological field research in a rich archaeological and cultural environment.

Selected publications

Murray, Matthew L.
(forthcoming) Recycled Memories: The Past and the Present in Early Iron Age Landscapes of Southern Germany. In Working with the Past: Strategies for Crisis or Intentional Incorporation? Towards an Archaeology of Recycling, edited by Dragos Gheorghiu and Phil Mason. Archaeopress, Oxford.

Murray, Matthew L.
(forthcoming) Landscapes of Ancestors? The Structuring of Space around Iron Age Funerary Monuments in Central Europe. In The Archaeology of Ancestors, edited by Erica Hill and Jon Hageman.

Murray, Matthew L.
2006 Place Names and Folk Landscapes in Southern Germany as Archaeological Resources. In Landscape Ideologies, edited by Thomas Maier, pp. 155-173. Archaeolingua, Budapest.

Murray, Matthew L.
2003 Ritual Sites: Viereckschanzen. In Ancient Europe, 8000 B.C. to A.D. 1000: An Encyclopedia of the Barbarian World, edited by Peter Bogucki and Pamela J. Crabtree, pp. 174-178. Scribner’s, New York.

Arnold, Bettina, Matthew L. Murray, and Seth A. Schneider
2003 Untersuchungen an einem zweiten hallstattzeitlichen Grabhügel der Hohmichele-Gruppe im “Speckhau,” Markung Heiligkreuztal, Gde. Altheim, Kreis Biberach. Archäologische Ausgrabungen in Baden-Württemberg 2002, pp. 80-83. Konrad Theiss, Stuttgart.

Arnold, Betttina and Matthew L. Murray
2002 A Landscape of Ancestors in Southwest Germany. Antiquity 76:321-322.

Murray, Matthew L.
2001 West-Central European Late Bronze Age Tradition. In Encyclopedia of Prehistory, Volume 4: Europe, edited by Peter N. Peregrine and Marvin Ember, pp. 415-435. Human Relations Area Files, Kluwer Academic and Plenum Publishers, New York.

Arnold, Bettina, Matthew L. Murray, and Seth A. Schneider
2001 Abschließende Untersuchungen an einem hallstattzeitlichen Grabhügel der Hohmichele-Gruppe im “Speckhau,” Markung Heiligkreuztal, Gde. Altheim, Kreis Biberach. Archäologische Ausgrabungen in Baden-Württemberg 2000, pp. 67-70. Konrad Theiss, Stuttgart.

Arnold, Bettina, Matthew L. Murray, and Seth A. Schneider
2000 Untersuchungen an einem hallstattzeitlichen Grabhügel der Hohmichele-Gruppe im “Speckhau,” Markung Heiligkreuztal, Gemeinde Altheim, Landkreis Biberach. Archäologische Ausgrabungen in Baden-Württemberg 1999, pp. 64-68. Konrad Theiss, Stuttgart.

Murray, Matthew L.
1997 Archäologische Landesaufnahmen und Survey im Raum Kelheim: Die Entwicklung einer Kulturlandschaft der frühen Kelten. In Von Keltenkriegern und Kirchenmäusen – Archäologische Forschungen im Landkreis Kelheim 1994-96, edited and translated by Michael Rind, pp. 142-146. Buchverlag der Mittelbayerischen Zeitung, Regensburg.

Murray, Matthew L.
1996 Viereckschanzen and Feasting: Socio-Political Ritual in Iron Age Central Europe. Journal of European Archaeology 3/2:125-151.

Murray, Matthew L.
1996 Socio-Political Complexity in Iron Age Temperate Europe: A Dialectical Landscape Approach. In Debating Complexity, edited by Daniel A. Meyer, Peter C. Dawson, and Donald T. Hanna, pp. 406-414. University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta.  Link to pdf

Murray, Mathew L.
1993 The Landscape Survey, 1990-1991. In Settlement, Economy and Cultural Change at the End of the European Iron Age: Excavations at Kelheim in Bavaria, 1987-1991, edited by Peter S. Wells, pp. 96-134. International Monographs in Prehistory, Ann Arbor. Link to pdf

Murray, Matthew L.
1992 The Archaeology of Mystification: Ideology, Dominance, and the Urnfields of Southern Germany. In Ancient Images, Ancient Thought: The Archaeology of Ideology, edited by A. Sean Goldsmith, Sandra Garvie, David Selin, and Jeannette Smith, pp. 97-104. University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta.  Link to pdf

Moore, Kate M., Matthew L. Murray, and Margaret J. Schoeninger 1989 Dietary Reconstruction from Bones Treated with Preservatives. Journal of Archaeological Science 16:437-446. Link to pdf

Schoeninger, Margaret J., Katherine M. Moore. Matthew L. Murray, and John D. Kingston 1989 Detection of Bone Preservation in Archaeological and Fossil Samples. Applied Geochemistry 4:281-292. Link to pdf

Murray, Matthew L. and Margaret J. Schoeninger
1988 Diet, Status, and Complex Social Structure in Iron Age Central Europe: Some Contributions of Bone Chemistry. In Tribe and Polity in Late Prehistoric Europe: Demography, Production and Exchange in the Evolution of Complex Social Systems, edited by D. Blair Gibson and Michael N. Geselowitz, pp. 155-176. Plenum Press, New York. Link to pdf

Teaching
ANTH 101: Introductory Cultural Anthropology
ANTH 305: Archaeology
ANTH 306: Archaeology of the Ancient Celts
ANTH 408:  Laboratory Methods in Archaeology
ANTH 507: The Archaeology of Landscape
GEOG 101: Introduction to Geography (Principles of Geography)
LIBA 102: Celts, National Identity, and Cultural Constructions
LIBA 102: Perceptions of the Past: Archaeology in the Public Eye

Professor of Anthropology
Director of the Center for Archaeological Research
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
P.O. Box 1848
University, MS 38677-1848

Phone: 662-915-7339
Office: Leavell 211
E-mail: sajay@olemiss.edu

Biography
As the result of a childhood spent reading National Geographic Magazines, I have been interested in archaeology for most of my life. When I signed up for an introductory anthropology course as a freshman at Florida State in the mid 1960s, I was amazed and pleased to find that you could actually take courses in archaeology. My plans to be a math major were quickly abandoned. F.S.U. was a great place to be as an undergraduate anthro major at that time. Fieldwork opportunities were plentiful and I got a good deal of experience in Southeastern archaeology. By the time I arrived at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale for graduate study, I had decided to specialize in Mayan archaeology. Three seasons of work in Mesoamerica and a dissertation on the stone tools from the Classic Maya site of Palenque which was finished in 1976 prepared me for a job market that was less than encouraging. I came to Ole Miss to direct the analysis of a large collection of stone tools recovered during the excavation of several prehistoric sites in northeastern Mississippi and, obviously, I was able to stay. While maintaining my research interest in stone tools, I have taken advantage of some very fruitful collaboration with research scientists working at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in southwestern Mississippi to develop a specialty in remote sensing and geographic information systems analysis. More recently, I have had the opportunity to collaborate with archaeologists, a physical anthropologist, and an ethnohistorian from Ole Miss and three other universities in the region to study the Chickasaws during the early colonial period in Mississippi.

Research Interests
Lithic analysis relies on the mechanics of the way that stone fractures which is, of course, constant, allowing me to study stone tools from different cultures with a minimum of background research. The majority of my analyses has, however, focused on prehistoric and early historic artifacts from Mississippi. Likewise, my remote sensing research has dealt with data recovered from Mississippi and surrounding states. Because the large, late prehistoric mound centers of northwestern Mississippi respond so well to remote sensing survey, I have used external funding and field school students to explore these sites. This has led to an interest in understanding the internal organization of the societies that built these mounds. The relatively recent (since about 1990) interest in the archaeology of the Chickasaw was much enhanced when Robbie Ethridge came to Ole Miss, bringing with her an expertise in the study of early documents relating to the colonial period in the Southeast. Finally, as the Director of the Center for Archaeological Research, I find myself working on the broad range of projects that is dictated by Federal and State funding for archaeology done in preparation for major construction projects. This external funding provides research opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students as well as thesis topics for graduate students.

Publications
My primary emphasis has been on journal articles but three edited books represent my research interests pretty well. What is missing is a volume on Chickasaw archaeology and that is in the works.

The Organization of Core Technology (Co-edited with Carol A. Morrow). Westview Press, Boulder, (out of print). 1987

The Development of Southeastern Archaeology (edited volume). University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa. 1993

Remote Sensing in Archaeology:
An Explicitly North American Perspective (edited volume). University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa. 2006

Teaching
Because my appointment is half research and half teaching, I am able to offer only a reduced range of classes. I regularly offer Anth 572/Soc 501, a basic statistic course designed for preparing both sociology and anthropology graduate students to use quantitative methods. I also teach Anth 409/Anth 601 in which the major theories of anthropology from the mid 19th century until the present are reviewed with senior level undergraduate and first year graduate students. I have recently inherited the graduate seminar in archaeological theory, Anth 608. I also teach the summer field school in archaeology, Anth 335/Anth 605 for both graduates and undergraduates. In recent years, Bryan Haley, a research associate with the Center for Archaeological Research, and I have taught a course of geophysical remote sensing techniques in archaeology when there are enough students who are interested in this topic.

Associate Professor of Anthropology
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
P.O. Box 1848
University, MS 38677-1848

Phone: 662-915-7340
Office: Leavell 111
E-mail: saford@olemiss.edu

Biography
Born and raised in Vicksburg, Ms., I received my B.A. from Ole Miss and my Ph.D. from Tulane.

Research
My research has mainly involved prehistoric Southeastern United States cultures. My main emphasis has been on ceramics of the Woodland and Mississippian periods.

Publications
Monographs
1980 Exploitative Floral Potential of the Yellow Creek Power Plant Area. Appendix (pp. 291-339) to Lithic Procurement and Utilization Trajectories: Archaeological Survey and Excavations, Yellow Creek Nuclear Power Plant Site, Tishomingo County, Mississippi. Archaeological Papers of the Center for Archaeological Research No. 7 by Robert M. Thorne, Bettye J. Broyles, and Jay K. Johnson.

1972 Investigation of Destruction to Prehistoric Sites Due to Agricultural Practices in Southeast Arkansas 1970-1971 with M. A. Rolingson, in Site Destruction Due to Agricultural Practices, Arkansas Archeological Survey, Publications on Archeology, Research Series No. 3.

Articles
1996 Preliminary Impressions from the Batesville Mound Group. Mississippi Archaeology 31(1):56-67.

1992 Introduction to re-issue of Archeology of Mississippi by Calvin S. Brown. University Press of Mississippi.

1991 The Tchula Connection: Early Woodland Culture and Burial Mounds in North Mississippi. Southeastern Archaeology 9(2):103-115.

1989 Time and Temper Meets Trend and Tradition. Mississippi Archaeology 24(1):1-16.

1988 Alexander Mound Ceremonialism? Southeastern Archaeology 7(1):49-52. .

1988 An Examination of the Twin Lakes Phase. In Middle Woodland Settlement and Ceremonialism in the Midsouth, ed. by R. C. Mainfort, Jr. Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Archaeological Report 22:61-67.

1987 Calvin Brown and the Archeology of Mississippi. Mississippi Archaeology 22(2):63-70..

1981 Time and Temper in the North Central Hills of Mississippi. Journal of Alabama Archaeology 27(1):57-71.

1980 Floral Exploitation and Location of Winter Sites in the Yocona Basin. Southeastern Archaeological Conference Bulletin 23:41-44.

1980 Alas, Poor Womack. Mississippi Archaeology XV(2):26-32.

Teaching
Indians of Mississippi and the South (Anth 309)
Studies of prehistoric and historic societies in the area

Peoples of the Pacific (Anth 310)
Ethnographic sketches of the native groups of Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia

Indians of North America (Anth 323)
Descriptions of example groups of the various culture areas as close to the time of contact as possible.

Indians of South America (Anth 327)
Sketches of the aboriginal lifestyles of the indigines.

Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries (Anth 341)
Introduction of the scientific method and it’s application to critical thinking about pseudoscientific explanations of archaeological frauds, myths, and “mysteries.” around the world.

Robbie Ethridge
Professor of Anthropology
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
P.O. Box 1848
University, MS 38677-1848

Phone: 662-915-7317
Office: Leavell 214
E-mail: rethridg@olemiss.edu

Biography
I received my Ph.D. from the University of Georgia in 1996 and took a position at the University of Mississippi the following year. My areas of expertise are historical anthropology and environmental anthropology, with an area focus on the Indians of the Southern United States. I have been interested in American Indians for most of my life, but I did not discover anthropology until my freshman undergraduate year. From that moment, I have been devoted to the study of American Indians and other indigenous people, and especially to the study of their colonial experiences. After receiving my B.S. and M.A. in anthropology, I worked as a field archeologist for many years. It was during this time that I began to understand the full importance of interdisciplinary work, and especially the need to combine archaeology, history, and anthropology in researching and writing histories of the American Indians.

Research interest
As mentioned above, my primary area of interest is the ethnohistory of the Southern Indians. In particular, I am interested in the intersections between Native peoples and capitalist economics within the colonial context. In addition to several articles and chapters in books, I have co-edited three collections of essays (see below) and two monographs: a 2003 publication entitled Creek Country: The Creek Indians and Their World, which is a social, environmental, and economic history of the Creek Indians during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and a 2010 publication entitled From Chicaza to Chickasaw: The European Invasion and the Transformation of the Mississippian World, 1540-1715, which is a case study of the Chickasaws during the first 150 years of colonization set within a broad regional framework and the collapse of the pre-contact Mississippian world and the subsequent restructuring of Native life. I am currently engaged in researching more closely the contours of the collapse of the pre-contact Mississippian chiefdoms following the European invasion by working to reconstruct the late Mississippian world and then following each instance of collapse and restructuring across the American South.

Native South
I am also Co-Editor-in-Chief of Native South, a new journal launched in 2008 by the University of Nebraska Press. Co-editors are Greg O’Brien and James Carson. Anyone interested in submtting an article can contact me at rethridg@olemiss.edu.

Recent publications

From Chicaza to Chickasaw: The European Invasion and the Transformation of the Mississippian World, 1540-1715, University of North Carolina Press 2010.

Mapping the Mississippian Shatter Zone: The Colonial Indian Slave Trade and Regional Instability in the American South. University of Nebraska Press, 2009.

Light on the Path: The Anthropology and History of the Southeastern Indians, University of Alabama Press, 2006.

Creek Country: The Creek Indians and Their World, University of North Carolina Press, 2003.

The Transformation of the Southeastern Indians, 1540-1760, co-edited with Charles Hudson, University Press of Mississippi, 2002.