Active Research ProjectsSettlement Ecology of Early Rural AmericaThis research examines how and why 19th-century farmers shifted from subsistence to commercial farming and the impact that had on their lives, households, communities, and landscapes. This was a critical time in the United States, when modern social, political, and economic systems were forming in conjunction with industrialization, the abolishment of slavery, and the creation of corporation-based capitalism. Essentially, modern rural communities (and the concomitant construction of "rural America") began to form at this time. We want to provide a historically based description and explanation of this process. Solutions to the problems facing rural communities today–from economic extraction to lack of access to healthcare to poor information technology infrastructure–cannot be solved without understanding the long historical causes behind them. We too often look for simple solutions rooted in the proximate causes, and they fail as a result.
Various research projects under this umbrella are employing archaeology, historical anthroplogy, paleoepidemiology, ethnohistory, and oral history and are working with farmers and other residents of Madison County, NY. The larger goal is to examine the creation of modern "rural America", both the real and imagined aspects of this term, through an anthropological lens. See the News and Updates section below for examples of our work in both presentations and publications. In future projects, we aim to compare farming life among communities from several regions to explore how race, gender, history, environment and climate, and various crops and their ecologies impacted the establishment of what is "rural" throughout the United States. News and UpdatesApril 2024 - 3 Posters at the Society for American Archaeology MeetingsNew Orleans, LA - April 17-22
The first two posters are in the 10am-12pm morning session on Thursday, April 18th Eric Jones, Sharon DeWitte, and Catherine Livingston—Health and Mortality during the Transition to Commercial Dairy Farming in Nineteenth-Century Upstate New York Annabelle Lewis—Supplying Life and Death: General Goods stores in Nineteenth-Century Upstate New York The third poster is in the 10am-12pm morning session on Friday, April 19th: 10am - 2pm: David Hansen and Eric Jones: Death in a Time of Transition: A Spatial Analysis of Mortality in Fenner, NY, from 1850 to 1880
January 2024 - 3 Posters at the Society for Historical Archaeology Meetings
We will have three posters at the imminent 2024 SHA meetings in Oakland, CA.
The first two will be in Poster Session 2: Health, Life, and Mortuary Studies on Thursday, January 4th from 1:30-3:30pm. The first is authored by Annabelle J. Lewis (PhD student at CU-Boulder) entitled: Placing Deathcare: Mortuary Goods and Services in the Landscape of Nineteenth-Century New York State. The second is co-authored by Sharon N. DeWitte (CU Anthropology), Eric E. Jones (CU Anthropology), and Catherine Livingston (Undergraduate student at University of South Carolina) entitled, Health and Mortality in the 19th-Century Rural U.S.: the Second Epidemiological Transition in Madison County, NY. A copy of the poster can be downloaded here:
Our third poster is in Poster Session 4: Labor, Landscapes, Projects and Specialized Studies on Friday, January 5th from 1:30-3:30pm. It is co-authored by Eric E. Jones, Annabelle J. Lewis, Kelli M. Hajek (South Carolina Institute for Anthropology and Archaeology), Amber M. Wellings (S&ME), and Abagail Dietrich (undergraduate student at University of South Carolina) entitled Women's Labor and the Rise of Commercial Dairy Farming in 19th-Century Upstate New York. A copy of the poster can be downloaded here:
October 2023 - Historical Archaeology article is online!
Here is the link to the article: https://rdcu.be/dnz6M
Congratulations to first time published authors Jordan Davis, Kelli Hajek, and Amber Wellings! If you would like a PDF and cannot download from that link, feel free to email us at one of the addresses on the home page. September 2023 - upcoming Society for Historical Archaeology presentations
We will have three posters at the upcoming SHA meetings in Oakland in January 2024. The first, by PhD student Annabelle Lewis, will describe her research on the spatio-economics of mourning in Madison County, NY. The second, by Dr. Sharon DeWitte and Dr. Eric Jones, will describe their research on the second epidemiological transition in rural communities (this case, Madison County, as well). And the third, by Dr. Eric Jones, Annabelle Lewis, Kelli Hajek, Amber Wellings, and Abigail Dietrich, will describe their work investigating women's labor contribution to dairy production as this type of farming became a major commercial force in agriculture in Fenner, NY.
We'll have more details later in the fall. We hope to see you in Oakland! Upcoming Historical Archaeology articleOur article, full reference below, will be out in the second edition of 2024 in the journal. Plenty of time to build anticipation! ;)
Jones, Eric E., Jordan Davis, Amber M. Wellings, and Kelli M. Hajek 2024 The Settlement Ecology of Emerging Commercial Dairy Farming in the 19th-century Northeast. Historical Archaeology 58(2). March 2023 - SAA poster presentations
We will have two posters at this year's SAA meetings in Portland. The first, in the Thursday afternoon (1-3pm) session, is by Eric Jones, Annabelle Lewis, and Gabriella Cruz and combines townwide economic trends and ceramic analysis from two farmsteads to discuss houseware purchasing and displays of wealth and status. The second, in the Friday morning (10am-12pm) session is by Annabelle Lewis and examines commemoration and consumption through a landscape analysis of cemeteries and grave monuments. Stop by and see us, and download PDFs of each poster below!
January 2023 - upcoming publication in Historical Archaeology!
Our most recent article was accepted by Historical Archaeology! It was written by (and research done by) Eric Jones, Jordan Davis, Amber Wellings, and Kelli Hajek and examines the timing and factors behind the move to commercial farming in Fenner in the late 1800s and the impact it had on the community and landscape. A link to the online version will be coming soon!
November 2022 - SEAC Student Affairs Luncheon Panel
I will be part of this year's SAC Luncheon, Collaborative Archaeologies! I am honored to have been asked and hopefully discussions of our work on the SEERA projects can be helpful to students beginning their own community-oriented research and work journeys.
Summer 2022 - Field Research
In late June and early July, Annabelle Lewis (MA William & Mary; current PhD student at USC) and I went to NY to map cemetery features and assess the condition of the cemeteries in Fenner. We also conducted systematic surveys of two farmstead sites, focusing on domestic refuse areas. Data from both projects will be contributing to presentations at next year's SAAs (stay tuned for information on those) and projects examining the socioeconomics of farms and nearby communities in the mid-1800s.
March 2022 - Poster Presentation at SAAs
I'm going to Chicago! I will be presenting our work on social and economic landscapes in the 9-11am spot on Saturday morning. A PDF of the poster is below.
January (but really March) 2022 - Presentations at SHAs
Jordan will be presenting our poster from the January SHA meetings at the online presentation event on March 25th. If you would like a copy of our poster, you can find it right below here.
Also, at the SHA meetings, Eric collaborated with Terry Weik (also UofSC Anthropology) on a paper, "Gullah Place-making & Racial Landscapes on Hilton Head Island, SC".
October 2021 - Poster Presentations at Southeastern Archaeological Conference Meetings
We will be presenting the results of our summer and fall projects at the SEAC meetings in Durham on Monday, October 25 in the general poster session. One poster (Jones et al.) describes our work using census data to examine women's labor and roles on late 1800s farms in Fenner, NY and Broadway, SC. The other (Davis et al.) describes our work using census data, agricultural schedules, and historic maps to examine race and farm production from 1870-1880 in Fenner and Broadway. Our comparisons of these two towns is an initial step in exploring how rural life developed in the post-Civil War (North) and Reconstruction/Post-Reconstruction (South) era and established characteristics that we still see in rural life today. PDFs of our posts are below. As always, reach out via email to either Eric ([email protected]) or Jordan ([email protected]) if you have any questions or would like to discuss our work or related work you may be conducting.
September 2021 - Upcoming Publication on North Carolina Piedmont Projectile Points
Matt Capps (PhD student at UPenn; Wake Forest BA '20) and Eric have an upcoming publication in Southeastern Archaeology examining the morphological variability in triangular points at two Piedmont Siouan sites in the Yadkin River Valley. Link to online version of the article.
June 2021 - Research at UofSC
Starting in late May, the research team is working on four projects.
Stay tuned for results! Successful Honors Thesis Research! - May 2020 (WFU)
All three honors theses conducted out of the AGA Lab were successfully defended in April 2020! Congratulations to Emma Grace Sprinkle, Matthew Capps, and Garrett Toombs on all of their hard work and ingenuity! Details on their respective projects can be found in the post directly below this one
Spring 2020 Honors Thesis research in the AGA Lab - February 2020 (WFU)Honors theses are underway in the lab this spring! Emma Grace Sprinkle is using 1855 census data to calculate farm productivity. These data will be used to describe the move from self-subsistence (yeoman farming) to commercial farming that occurred in the mid-19th century. She will then examine the landscape of various farms using GIS to explore whether characteristics of the environment or social and economic landscapes impacted the decision of some farm families to start producing surplus for sale. Her work is a critical early analysis for the larger SEERA project.
Matt Capps is using flotation to examine the contents of a large sample of pit features from the Redtail site. The goal is to determine pit functions and human-plant interactions at the site. Shallow pit features are common at Woodland sites throughout the Southeast without a clear understanding of their functions to date. A goal of this work is to begin to understand why these features were so common at sites. In addition, plant use by Piedmont Village Tradition people is still not fully understood. Matt's work will add another site to the existing body of knowledge to explore commonalities and variability between communities. Garrett Toombs is reconstructing small triangular projectile points from various beginning stages (e.g. spalls, large flakes, small flakes) and comparing his flake assemblages to those found at the Redtail site. His goal is to describe the most likely point production process and the likeliest form that non-local rhyolite was entering the site. The latter question is an important part of continuing research on the economic interactions among Piedmont Village Tradition communities in the Piedmont Southeast. Three Students present at 2019 SEAC meetings - November 2019 (WFU)Alyssa Walton, Garrett Toombs, and Mathew Capps (with co-author Ellie Logan not in attendance) presented their research at the November Southeastern Archaeology meetings in Jackson Mississippi. All four students are senior Anthropology majors. Alyssa's work used ceramics to examine social interactions between communities. Garrett's work replicated triangular points to better understand the flintknapping activities that occurred at the Redtail site. And, Matt compared triangular point types between the Redtail and Porter sites to examine changes in styles over time and the potential influence of interaction with Mississippian neighbors on point production. PDFs of their posters are below.
Results from the new Settlement Ecology of Early Rural America (SEERA) project to be presented at the 2019 SAA meetings - April 2019 (WFU)On Thursday morning from 8:30-10:30, Caroline Watson and Dr. Eric Jones will presenting a poster detailing the early results from the recently started analysis of settlement and economic landscapes in Madison County, NY during the nineteenth century. This is the beginning of a long-term research project aimed at describing and explaining the changes in rural America from the mid-1800s to today using archaeology, spatial analysis, history, and ethnography. Our larger goal is to help better understand how modern social and economic landscapes of rural America were formed. Below is a PDF of our poster.
Results of collaborative research Dr. Martin Welker to be presented at 2019 SAA meetings - April 2019
On Thursday evening at 6pm, Dr. Eric Jones will be presenting a paper entitled, "Spatiotemporal Analysis of Regional and Sub-Regional Dog Size Data in Pre-Columbian North America", a collaborative research project with zooarchaeologist Dr. Martin Welker. In this research, they examine trends in dog morphology to provide new information on the roles dogs were playing in Pre-Columbian Native American societies and to what degree these characteristics and roles were shared between and within regions and societies.
Two posters presented at the Southeastern Archaeological Conference (SEAC) Meetings in Augusta, GA - November 2018
This week (11/14-17), two different research project results were presented at the SEAC meetings. Matt Capps (junior Anthropology major and Environmental Studies and Linguistics minor) and Dr. Jones presented their findings on discreet measurements of triangular projectile points from the Redtail (31Yd173) site. This research aims to understand how many different forms existed and what those forms were (i.e. different phases, different functions, access to raw material, etc.).
The second poster was the combination of lithic and ceramic research from former students Maya Krause (Vanderbilt University), Caroline Watson, and Grayson O'Saile (Wake Forest Law School) and Dr. Jones that used these findings to discuss interaction patterns between dispersed communities in the upper Yadkin River Valley. PDFs of both posters can be found below.
Three posters at the Southeastern Meetings in Tulsa, OK
This week (11/8-11/11) the Southeastern Archaeological Conference Meetings will be held in Tulsa, OK. Three posters from research being done in the AGA Lab will be presented. During the Thursday morning session from 8am-12pm, Lindsay Gilliland and Dr. Jones are presenting "Using Sediment Loss on Ignition to Identify Late Woodland Housefloors at the Redtail Site (31Yd173). Dr. Jones, Maya Krause (Vanderbilt University), and Caroline Watson are presenting "Piedmont Village Tradition Lithic Economy along the Mississippian Border". During the Friday morning session, also 8am-12pm, Brittany Ezer and Dr. Jones are presenting "Developing and Testing a Model for Settlement Types in the Piedmont Southeast based on Artifact Scatters". PDFs of all three posters can be found just below.
New publication from Dr. Jones
Jones, Eric E.
2017 Significance and Context in GIS-Based Spatial Archaeology: A Case Study from Southeastern North America. Journal of Archaeological Science 84C: 54–62. This article can be read online at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440317300729 Wrapping up Summer 2017 field researchWe wrapped up excavations at the Redtail site on July 18th (and backfilled over 25 units)! And, we conducted an extensive survey of the nearby 31Yd175 site. We attempted to survey a third site but were thwarted by 6-foot-tall corn. We were able to accomplish all of our goals for the season (listed in the preceding post), which is always a noteworthy accomplishment in any archaeological field season. The most important finds include two more potential occupation areas at Redtail. This fall and spring, we will date those strata and analyze recovered artifacts and sediments to test whether they are additional housefloors. We also collected additional lithic artifacts to continue our research into the acquisition and distribution of non-local materials by PVT communities along the edge of the Mississippian world.
The pictures below are from the research during the second half of the summer. Thank you to Maya Krause (WFU BA '17), Caroline Watson (WFU BA '17), Pierce Wright (WFU BA '15), Lindsay Gilliland, and Brittany Ezer for all of their hard work and insights this summer! Summer 2017 research update
Work at the Redtail site began on May 18th. The goals this summer were 1) to identify the boundaries of habitation at the primary locus at site; 2) test for earlier occupations below the identified occupation stratum; 3) to explore the potential for other occupation areas/locii at the site; and 4) conduct surveys at surrounding sites to examine the impact of plowing on sites and collect lithic artifacts for analysis of raw material acquisition patterns.
Work is progressing extremely well. At the halfway point of the field season, we have collected data to fulfill the first 3 goals! This will allow us to explore a few tangential questions and begin analyses during the summer. We expect to present results at upcoming SEAC (Tulsa) and SAA (Washington DC) meetings. There are pictures below of our work so far. Two students awarded Summer Research Fellowships
Two rising seniors, Brittany Ezer and Lindsay Gilliland, applied for and were awarded competitive Wake Forest Summer Research Fellowships. Both students will be engaging in a 10-week research project that will culminate with a presentation at the Wake Forest Undergraduate Research Day in October. Brittany will be examining the relationship between surface artifacts scatters and site composition/function in the upper Yadkin River Valley. Lindsay is testing the hypothesis that the Redtail site is a single occupation, single household settlement site.
Three students complete honors thesis research
Three undergraduate honors theses were completed in April 2017, using data from sites in the upper Yadkin River Valley:
Maya Krause successfully defended her project entitled, A Close Analysis of the Lithic Assemblage at a Late Woodland Upper Yadkin River Valley Site (31Yd173), which examined the technological properties and reduction spectrum across materials at the Redtail site. Melissa Pouncey successfully defended her project entitled, Ceramic Analysis on Fragments Found at Redtail (31Yd173) and Three Other Yadkin River Valley Sites, which identified several properties and potential functions of the ceramic technology found at the Redtail site. Caroline Watson successfully defended her project entitled, Non-local vs. Local Lithic Trends in the Late Woodland Upper Yadkin River Valley: Counts, Proportions, and Implications for Economic Structure, which examined the proportions of non-local lithics to the overall assemblages at several sites in the valley to examine acquisition and distribution of materials. Congratulations to Maya, Melissa, and Caroline! Recent publications from the Piedmont Settlement Ecology Project
Jones, Eric E.
2017 The Ecology of Shifting Settlement Strategies in the Upper Yadkin River Valley, AD 600–1600. In Settlement Ecology of the Ancient Americas, edited by Lucas C. Kellett and Eric E. Jones, Routledge Press, London. Jones, Eric E. and Peter Ellis 2016 Multiscalar Settlement Ecology Study Of Piedmont Village Tradition Communities In North Carolina, AD 1000–1600. Southeastern Archaeology 35(2):85–114. Jones, Eric E. 2015 The Settlement Ecology of Middle-Range Societies in the Western North Carolina Piedmont, AD 1000–1600. North Carolina Archaeology. 64:1–32. Co-authored paper by Eric Jones, Maya Krause, and Caroline Watson presented at SAA meetings in Vancouver, BC
A collaborative lithic analysis pilot project was completed by Dr. Eric Jones and two senior anthropology majors, Maya Krause and Caroline Watson. The research examined concentrations of non-local rhyolite at several sites throughout the upper Yadkin River Valley and the rhyolite and local quartz assemblage at the Redtail site. This work created a multiscalar model of lithic use to test three potential models of non-local lithic acquisition: down-the-line, direct acquisition, and gateway community. Both students were contributing data from their honors thesis research. Maya contributed research on the assemblage at Redtail, and Caroline contributed inter-site rhyolite concentration data. The resulting paper was presented in a session on toolstone research in honor of George T. Jones and Charlotte Beck, Dr. Jones's undergraduate mentors.
Students, Maya Krause and Melissa Pouncey, to present at the SEAC meetings in Athens, GA.
Dr. Eric Jones and students to present at SEAC meetings in Nashville (November 20th, 2015)
Dr. Eric Jones to present at SAA meetings in San Francisco
Dr. Eric Jones will be presenting a poster, co-authored with Peter Ellis (WFU '14) and current undergraduate K. Pierce Wright. They are presenting in a poster session on Saturday morning from 8-10am, entitled Prehistoric Archaeology of the Southeastern United States. This poster will describe their exploratory work using household archaeology at settlement sites in the upper Yadkin River valley of North Carolina. This work summarizes current information from other Piedmont settlements to help us better understand the Yadkin settlements to guide future research. A PDF of the poster is below.
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Dr. Jones and K. Pierce Wright presenting at 2014 SEAC meetings
Dr. Jones and senior anthropology major Pierce Wright are presenting at the Southeastern Archaeology Conference meetings in Greenville, SC on Friday, November 14th. Below is a PDF version of their poster. This research examines the results of excavation and spatial analyses of postmolds and features at the Redtail site (31Yd173) to examine the internal arrangement of settlements in the upper Yadkin River Valley.
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Dr. Jones awarded NSF grant for spatial archaeology research
Dr. Jones's new research project entitled " A Settlement Ecology Analysis of the Ecological Factors Influencing the Spatial Distribution of Middle-Range Communities in the North Carolina Piedmont, AD 1000-1600" was awarded an NSF research grant (Award No. BCS-1430945). Work will begin this September and the funding will support three years of research, which will be conducted out of the AGA Lab.
YRSE: Results to be presented at the 2014 SAA meetings
Results from regional spatial analyses and excavations at the 31Yd173 site will be presented at the annual Society for American Archaeology meetings in Austin. On April 24th at 9:30am, Eric Jones will present the results of a multiscalar settlement ecology analysis of sites in the North Carolina Piedmont in a session on settlement ecology research in the Americas. On April 26th in a morning session, a poster by Peter Ellis and Eric Jones will present results on the spatial analysis of features at 31Yd173 and what it tells us about the arrangement of activities at the site. A link to download a PDF version of our poster is below. The link will be available on the poster at the meetings using a QR code reader
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YRSE: Early results presented at 2013 SEAC meetings
This week at the Southeastern Archaeological Conference meetings in Tampa, FL, I will be presenting a poster detailing the early results from work at the 31Yd173 site. This will present the sedimentology results obtained in the spring as well as early patterns in feature and artifact distributions found during this last summer’s excavations. The sedimentology results give us a picture of what the microlandscape (area immediately surrounding the site) looked like during the time this area was used. The early analysis of features and artifacts suggests we may have a small settlement. However, much more work in this area is needed. Here is a link to download the poster:
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Work at the site is ongoing throughout the year, and I will be periodically posting results and pictures.
YRSE: The first season of excavations at 31Yd173
During the summer of 2013, I began, with assistance from Peter Ellis (BA 2013, Anthropology), excavations at a site in the upper Yadkin River Valley. Three previous surveys collected artifacts and sediment samples to assess the function, site formation processes, and prehistoric environment at the site. From these results, we undertook a project to better understand the small-scale settlement patterns of communities in the upper Yadkin River Valley. This builds upon earlier large-scale settlement ecology analysis conducted out of this lab (Jones et al. 2012).
Works cited:
Jones, Eric E., Madison Gattis, Andrew Wardner, Thomas C. Morrison, and Sara Frantz
2012 Exploring Prehistoric Tribal Settlement Ecology in the Southeast: A Case Study from the North Carolina
Piedmont. North American Archaeologist 33(2):157–190.
Works cited:
Jones, Eric E., Madison Gattis, Andrew Wardner, Thomas C. Morrison, and Sara Frantz
2012 Exploring Prehistoric Tribal Settlement Ecology in the Southeast: A Case Study from the North Carolina
Piedmont. North American Archaeologist 33(2):157–190.
Recent publications
Here are recent publication that have come out of projects being done in the AGA Lab.
2014 Jones, Eric E. A Spatiotemporal Analysis of Old World Disease Events in North America, AD 1517–1803. American Antiquity 79(3):487–506.
2012 Jones, Eric E., Madison Gattis, Andrew Wardner, Thomas C. Morrison, and Sara Frantz. Exploring Prehistoric Tribal Settlement Ecology in the Southeast: A Case Study from the North Carolina Piedmont. North American Archaeologist 33(2):157–190.
2012 Jones, Eric E. and James W. Wood. Using Event-History Analysis to Examine the Causes of Semi-Sedentism Among Temperate Swidden Agriculturalists: A Case Study of the Haudenosaunee, AD 1500–1700. Journal of Archaeological Science 39(8):2593–2603. Download PDF
2012 Jones, Eric E. and Sharon N. DeWitte. Spatial Analysis of Old World Disease Events among Native American Populations in Northeastern North America, AD 1616-1645. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31(1):83–92. Download PDF
2014 Jones, Eric E. A Spatiotemporal Analysis of Old World Disease Events in North America, AD 1517–1803. American Antiquity 79(3):487–506.
2012 Jones, Eric E., Madison Gattis, Andrew Wardner, Thomas C. Morrison, and Sara Frantz. Exploring Prehistoric Tribal Settlement Ecology in the Southeast: A Case Study from the North Carolina Piedmont. North American Archaeologist 33(2):157–190.
2012 Jones, Eric E. and James W. Wood. Using Event-History Analysis to Examine the Causes of Semi-Sedentism Among Temperate Swidden Agriculturalists: A Case Study of the Haudenosaunee, AD 1500–1700. Journal of Archaeological Science 39(8):2593–2603. Download PDF
2012 Jones, Eric E. and Sharon N. DeWitte. Spatial Analysis of Old World Disease Events among Native American Populations in Northeastern North America, AD 1616-1645. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31(1):83–92. Download PDF