Recorded Seminars Available On-Demand

Kimberly Wooten received her BA in anthropology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1990. She has been a working archaeologist since then, shifting her focus from pre-contact to the fields of post-contact and contemporary archaeology. The potential to explore plastic as an archaeological issue came to her attention in 2018, when she had the opportunity to sail with an all-women crew to research microplastics in the North Atlantic. Kimberly writes and presents on plastic waste, microplastics, and how climate change and other environmental issues can be addressed by the discipline of archaeology. Most recently, she has been teaching about historic-era plastics in the archaeological record, tying those workshops to contemporary archaeology and activism. Ms. Wooten is a recognized expert in the growing field of plastic archaeology. She currently works for the California Department of Transportation as an archaeologist and a climate change specialist.

Julia Huddleson, California Department of Transportation

Julia Huddleson is an historical archaeologist with the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) where she is the statewide manager of a GIS application and integrated database that tracks cultural resources and projects across California. She has a BA in anthropology from the University of California, Santa Cruz (1991), MS in education from University of Southern California (1991) and an MA in Cultural Resources Management from Sonoma State University (2003). She developed a love of historical archaeology from the post-contact period early in her career and, and since 1997, for Caltrans. Key accomplishments at Caltrans include publication of archaeological research designs for agriculture, mining, townsites, and work camp properties developed with an interdisciplinary team. While working for the Forest Service and Caltrans, she had the opportunity to develop training programs to teach identification of ceramics and other material types from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Most recently, she collaborated with Ms. Wooten to develop a training for identifying plastic types found in the archaeological record.

Meta F. Janowitz, Ph.D.

Dr. Meta Fayden Janowitz has over forty-five years’ experience in historical archaeology, with an emphasis on the study of material culture, in particular ceramics. Her main research interests are ceramics made or used in the Middle Atlantic region from the 17th through the mid-20th centuries. The majority of her work has been with public archaeology/cultural resource management projects throughout the Northeast and Midwest. As part of this work, she has analyzed and written about artifacts from many archaeological sites in Manhattan, including the Stadt Huys Block (the site of New Amsterdam’s City Hall) and the New York African Burial Ground; sites from Philadelphia and other urban and rural areas in the Mid-Atlantic region; and the Caribbean; and she has been a primary or contributing author on numerous archaeological reports. She has published articles in various peer-reviewed periodicals, including the American Ceramic Circle, Ceramics in America, the Journal of the Society for Historical Archaeology, the Journal of the council for Northeast Historical Archaeology, and New Jersey History. She has taught students at the School of Visual Arts, the Cooper Union, and New York University about the archaeology of New York City as a faculty and adjunct faculty member.

Ryan Seidemann, J.D., Ph.D., RPA, Arizona State University, University of New Orleans, The Water Institute, Southern University Law Center

Ryan has been studying cemeteries and biological anthropology for over 30 years. He holds a BA (Florida State) and an MA (Louisiana State) in anthropology and a Ph.D. (Univ. of New Orleans) in urban studies/urban anthropology. Ryan also holds two law degrees (Louisiana State) and has been a licensed lawyer for over 20 years (Louisiana and Vermont). Ryan's legal, anthropological, and academic pursuits have been guided by studying the intersections of law and archaeology, including historic and archaeological preservation, human remains law, and shipwreck law. As a lawyer for the State of Louisiana for 20 years, Ryan policed the illicit trade in human remains in that state and collaborated with other states and federal agencies engaged in such endeavors. At the same time, Ryan authored or coauthored the laws that today make Louisiana's cemetery site protections the strongest in the United States. In addition, Ryan regularly teaches CRM, historic preservation, property law, and the anthropology of death and burial through adjunct appointments at the University of New Orleans, Southern University Law Center, and Arizona State University.

Sergio Bernardes, PhD, Center for Geospatial Research, University of Georgia

Sergio Bernardes is the Associate Director for the Center for Geospatial Research and an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Georgia. He holds a PhD in Geography, a MS in Remote Sensing and a BS in Agriculture Engineering. Since 1989, Dr. Bernardes has worked at the forefront of geospatial applications and software development, with expertise spanning geography, software engineering, and the implementation of large-scale geospatial projects for government, industry, and academia. An FAA-certified remote pilot, he has been pioneering the use of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) for remote sensing since 2013. He contributes to digital humanities and cultural heritage preservation through digital documentation, 3D reconstruction, and visualization of sites and objects of historical significance.

Katherine L. Chiou, PhD, RPA, University of Alabama

Katherine (Katie) Chiou is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Alabama. Her research spans foodways past and present, social inequality, plant domestication, applied ethics, and responsible conduct of research. Her current ethics project, funded by the NSF Ethical and Responsible Research Program, probes the effectiveness of case-study-based training in developing ethical decision-making competencies and works to diversify ethics education. Since 2017, she has served on the SAA Committee on Ethics, organizing the SAA Ethics Bowl. She also serves as the current Chair of the RPA Ethics Committee.

David Leslie, PhD, RPA, TerraSearch Geophysical, Heritage Consultants, LLC.

Dr. Leslie is a geoarchaeologist and lithic specialist, whose work focuses on the pre-contact and historical period archaeology of Northeastern North America. While much of his archaeological work has included a focus on southern New England pre-contact archaeology, he also regularly conducts geophysical and remote sensing archaeological investigations throughout the United States. In addition to his work with TerraSearch Geophysical, where he is the Principal and co-owner, Dr. Leslie is also the Director of Archaeological Research at Heritage Consultants, LLC, a Principal Investigator with R. Christopher Goodwin & Associates, and a Research Scientist with the Department of Anthropology at the University of Connecticut. Through this work in Cultural Resource Management, and with academic partners, Dr. Leslie's work includes numerous cemetery investigations, as well as magnetometry, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV or drone) surveys, soil coring, and geochemical applications to historic preservation projects.

In this seminar, participants will learn the basics of ground–penetrating radar and how this survey method has been applied to archaeological contexts. We will explore the physical requirements for a successful GPR survey, and briefly cover some of the more common technical processing techniques to transform raw GPR data into useful maps of cultural or geologic features. The second half of the presentation will discuss several case studies where GPR analyses were highly successful in characterizing archaeological sites, including historical cemeteries, as well as historical and pre-contact period archaeological sites.

1. Participants will broadly understand GPR technology and how it has been applied to archaeological sites.
2.  Participants will learn appropriate methods of GPR survey, and sediments/field conditions amenable to survey.
3.  Participants will gain understanding of various archaeological and geological features that can be imaged through GPR survey.

Arianne Boileau, PhD, RPA, Mount Royal University

Arianne Boileau is an Assistant Professor of Anthropological Archaeology at Mount Royal University. She holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Florida, an M.A. in Anthropology from Trent University, and a B.A. in Archaeology from Université Laval. With over 12 years of experience as a zooarchaeologist, Dr. Boileau has conducted research in Belize, Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, France, and the United States. Her research focuses on understanding how and why Indigenous peoples procured, used, and discarded animal resources in the pre-Columbian and post-European contact Mesoamerica. Her current project investigates the sustainability of Indigenous practices related to freshwater turtles in Mesoamerica, employing zooarchaeology, ancient DNA analysis, isotope analysis, and ethnohistory. Her broader research interests include quantification methods in zooarchaeology, the development of socio-political complexity, and the resilience of socio-ecological systems.

This seminar is intended for archaeologists at any career stage who want to learn the fundamentals of zooarchaeological identification and how to incorporate zooarchaeology into broader research projects. While faunal identifications can vary by region, we will cover the basics of identifying major animal classes—such as mammals, reptiles, birds, and fish—in ways that can be applied across different contexts. We will also discuss key distinctions between human and non-human animal remains. The seminar will provide an overview of the main research questions that zooarchaeology can address and offer guidance on integrating zooarchaeological methods into larger projects. This will include a review of excavation and laboratory procedures that ensure the effective recovery and analysis of animal remains.

1. Understand the principles of zooarchaeological research.
2.  Distinguish among the main classes of animal skeletons.
3.  Integrate zooarchaeology into the design of a larger archaeological project.