I am Carl Carlson-Drexler, a doctoral candidate at the College of William &
Mary, the station assistant for the Arkansas Archeological Survey's SAU
Research Station in Magnolia, and on leave from my position as a project
archaeologist with the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center's
Construction Engineering Research Laboratory in Champaign, Illinois. Whew!
I've been in archaeology for 12 years, working in ten states and three
foreign countries.

I started out doing prehistoric Southwest archaeology through Grinnell
College, but got hooked on historical through Doug Scott and Richard Fox's
work at the Little Bighorn battlefield in Montana. I went to Nebraska for
my MA, where I worked on Pea Ridge and Wilson's Creek battlefields, writing
up some of the research on the former for my thesis. My first dissertation
project was going to be San Juan Hill in Cuba, but that encountered some
paperwork issues, so I'm doing my dissertation on a 19th century ferry
crossing in southern Arkansas that was integral to the antebellum economic
networks of the region and was significantly impacted by the Civil War.

----
Carl G. Carlson-Drexler, MA
Department of Anthropology
College of William & Mary
[log in to unmask]


On Wed, May 9, 2012 at 9:09 PM, Benjamin Carter <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Histarchers,
>
> Thanks to Anita, I have learned much about many folks on this list-serve.
> I thought I ought to repay the favor instead of just lurking.
>
> I am Ben Carter. I am a prehistoric(al) archaeologist and a newbie
> historical archaeologist. I am generally a coastal archaeologist (I gotta
> have ocean nearby!) My dissertation (Washington University in St. Louis,
> 2008) was on shell bead working on the Ecuadorian coast from c. AD 800-
> 1532. Much of that work deals with early historical reports of shell bead
> making and trading, especially of the famous "Spondylus" (hence my email
> address) also known as "mullu" or Inca Red Gold. So, my research was always
> at the edge of PreColumbian/historical archaeology, but in 2008, due to a
> serious of odd occurrences,  I ended up working on a small structure on the
> coast of Maine that was occupied between the 1760s and 1811. While my
> previous projects continue, I am completely enthralled by this particular
> project- and only partially because we eat lunch sitting on the beach with
> the mountains of Acadia National Park just across the bay. In general, the
> project revolves around understanding the "other" pioneers- the ones that
> went east (Downeast, that is deah... hopefully someone will get my Maine
> accent). Documentation is sketchy during this time period, so it is a
> perfect situation for historical archaeology.
>
> Beyond this, one of my central concerns is the appropriate use of digital
> resources. As such, I have begun to create what I like to call a digital
> ecosystem for archaeology. The purpose is to make data collection easier
> and less prone to error, for students to be able to see the use of data in
> the field, to integrate field and lab data, and to make this available to
> the public (with appropriate site location data removed). And, at the same
> time, increase efficiency and reduce errror.  I am a one-man show- the only
> archaeologist at a small liberal arts college- Muhlenberg College in
> Allentown, PA. My goal is to provide my students some of the same resources
> that you generally find only at larger research institutions. I am still in
> the early stages at this point, but this project is coalescing- due
> partially to some information that I have gleaned from this listserve (and
> others). I could provide lots more details but will stop there. If you
> would like to know more, email me off-list.
>
> Cheers,
> Ben Carter, PhD, RPA
> aka spondylus.princeps
>
>
> On 5/7/2012 6:09 PM, Anita Cohen-Williams wrote:
>
>> With so many new and old friends signing on to HISTARCH in the last few
>> weeks, I think introductions are needed. I'll start:
>>
>> I am Anita Cohen-Williams, your friendly list owner and bouncer of
>> Histarch. I have a BA in Anthropology and a Masters in Library Science. I
>> have been running Histarch since 1994 as a discussion list on historical
>> archaeology. I also run ArchaeoSeek (http://www.archaeoseek.com), an
>> archaeological network, SUB-ARCH (a discussion list for underwater
>> archaeology), and an archaeology blog, Archaeology Online (
>> http://archaeology.blogspot.**com <http://archaeology.blogspot.com>).
>>
>> My main business is search engine optimization (SEO) for websites and
>> social media management.
>>
>> Feel free to ask me any questions, as I am now a cybrarian.
>>
>>