I have heard that Leland Ferguson, professor emeritus,
Anthropology/Archaeology at the University of South Carolina, has passed
away, yesterday, 15 March 2023. I have no further details at this time.
Leland was a founder of the archaeology of African-American life in the
American south. He recieved the 2017 J. C. Harrington Award for lifetime
scholarship from the Society for Historical Archaeology. His 1992 book,
"Uncommon Ground: Archaeology and Early African America, 1650-1800," based
upon study of African and African-American sites on the rice plantations of
the South Carolina low country, stands alongside the work of Stan South,
Jim Deetz and Ivor Noel-Hume in pioneering a major area in American
Historical Archaeology. His work documented the persistence and evolution
of African-American life in the face of the comprehensive evil of racist
enslavement, and showed how the human spirit can persist in the face of
grinding oppression, simply through the process of living everyday life. He
did so much to bring forth and make visible the lives of people who were,
wrongly, excluded from American history. Leland's work is even more
relevant today, as we see a resurgence of many forms of bigotry in American
politics, society and culture. It is work that should inform, and inspire,
every American archaeologist, and every American.
Leland was also one of the great teachers and mentors in American
archaeology. His many students, myself included, owe our intellectual
development as archaeologists to his teaching, and to his gentle example of
a life of kind, wise and rigorous scholarship. His example inspires so many
to continue to follow his example of life-long inquiry.
He will be missed, forever.
David W. Babson.
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