News from the Field 2023
Clockwise from above: Deep Dive team at Alpena High School in Michigan (left to right): Dr. Robert Reynolds (UMMAA visiting researcher), Chencheng Zhang (PhD candidate, WSU), Dr. Ashley Lemke (U Wisconsin-Milwaukee), Eric Schlueter (APHS course instructor), UMMAA curator John O’Shea, Dr. Cailen O’Shea (educational technology, NDSU); Laura Bossio organized a public outreach day for youth, Digging into the Past, at the Fort Meigs Historic site in Perrysburg, Ohio; Kimi Swisher pulls macrobotanical samples for analysis at University of Georgia’s Laboratory of Archaeology.
Doctoral Intern Fellowship. Working with staff members on archaeological outreach and engagement, Bossio organized a public outreach day for local youth titled “Digging into the Past,” which also featured archaeology graduate student volunteers. By collaborating with Fort Meigs, Bossio is hoping to increase the visibility of the archaeological past throughout the Maumee River Valley. Martin Menz defended his dissertation in April. His dissertation—Re-Assessing “Village Life” at HunterGatherer Ceremonial Centers: Occupation at Letchworth Mounds (8JE337)—investigated mobility and settlement of hunter-gatherer populations in northwestern Florida during the Woodland period (ca. AD 300–800). His research found that the transition to sedentary life in villages was uneven across the region, with some groups choosing to maintain more dispersed settlement patterns and greater mobility. Martin is looking forward to the release of his co-edited book from the University of Alabama Press, titled The Archaeology of Arcuate Communities: Spatial Patterning and Settlement in the Eastern Woodlands. Martin has started his new position as a senior archaeologist with Stantec in Chicago, Illinois. Graduate student Kimi Swisher received an NSF Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant for specialized analyses for her dissertation, entitled Migration, Mississippianization, and Community Practice in the Lower Chattahoochee River Valley, Georgia: The Averett Culture. She is using the NSF funding for the macrobotanical page 24 • Fall 2023 • www.lsa.umich.edu/ummaa
