Current research and applied projects in NAU Anthropology constitute a wide range of scholarship and applied activities. The following projects constitute departmental and educational resources that include undergraduates and graduate students in faculty research and applied anthropological work. The project descriptions cover long-term and in-progress projects in Archaeology, Cultural Anthropology, and Linguistic Anthropology.
Dr. Gumerman and Ms. Joelle Clark recently completed their three-year professional development program for Hopi educators. Across the Colorado Plateau, abundant archaeological sites provide a stimulating arena for cultivating an understanding of past cultural traditions that are linked to today’s Hopi people. Hopi oral history discusses these archaeological sites telling the story of Hopi migrations across much of the Colorado Plateau. Referred to as their footprints, the archaeological sites and the oral history surrounding them connect the past to the present. Interaction of elders and archaeologists provide a powerful force for teachers to bring together knowledge that surprisingly corroborate each other. Our culturally appropriate professional development and curriculum will enable Hopi youth to connect to their cultural history and thereby facilitate student learning.
The goal of this project is to improve classroom teaching practice while creating a standards-based Hopi culture curriculum in CD-ROM and web site formats. The project is a collaboration among the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office, educators, elders, tribal cultural professionals, anthropologists, and archaeologists, who worked together to develop a curriculum focusing on culture education, technology integration, and action research in classrooms. The key components of the project include summer institutes, intensive school site visits throughout the academic year, and follow-up Saturday sessions for project participants. The CD-ROM and web site provide resources for teachers and students, including digital video, audio, maps, and lesson plans.
The project recently was awarded a three year National Endowment for the Humanities Grant to expand the project to Hopi high school students.
This multi-year project in northern coastal
A focus on the food system—the manner in which food is prepared, distributed, consumed, and discarded—provides an innovative avenue that leads to a detailed understanding of Moche culture. Food and cooking are intrinsically social and the study of foodways provides valuable insights into a culture.
Student research (both undergraduate and graduate) has been integral to the project. Eight MA theses and one internship have resulted from the project. In addition several undergraduate students have received funding to conduct analyses and fieldwork.
The Interactive Archaeology of the Grand Canyon: Multicultural Perspectives
George Gumerman IV, Joelle Clark, Linda Neff, and Geraldine Hongeva have designed an educational CD-ROM that uses the archaeology of the
For thousands of years Native Americans have lived in and traversed across the Colorado Plateau and
The project, with the assistance of Hopi, Zuni, and Hualapai partners, utilizes the
Learners will use the hands on, problem-based CD-ROM and accompanying web site to explore archaeology as a science, while conducting virtual archaeological research and learning Hopi, Zuni, and Hualapai views of their ancestral sites. Their mission is to create a virtual museum exhibit by exploring who lived in the
The project exposes students to different knowledge systems while also developing their respect for cultural diversity, values, and a sense of stewardship for archaeological resources. Learners become competent at understanding the prehistory of the Colorado Plateau and
Dr. Andrea A. Hunter's involvement with the Repatriation Review Committee of the Smithsonian Institution provides a means to work with tribes on a national scale in the process of creating bridges and new relationships to rectify what has happened in the name of science for the past 150 years. The experience and knowledge gained from this position are carried into the classroom. For example, in her Introduction to Archaeology class, she commits two weeks to discussions on state and federal repatriation laws and case studies giving both the scientific and indigenous perspectives. In addition, she created two new undergraduate/graduate courses on "Indigenous Perspectives in Cultural Resource Management" and “Applied Indigenous Cultural Resource Management.” With indigenous consultations mandated by the NMAI Act, NAGPRA, ARPA, and NHPA, the course provides students with knowledge from indigenous communities across the country on their perspectives concerning cultural and natural resources. Our non-indigenous and indigenous students need this type of background information as they enter the professional work force. They need to recognize the importance of this information and hopefully come to some kind of an understanding of diverse worldviews.
The Colorado Plateau Agricultural Origins Project, directed by Dr. Francis Smiley, is in its tenth year of archaeological investigations in the
Dr. Veronica Perez Rodriguez project focuses on a broad regional study of terrace farming, its importance to the emergence of Mixtec civilization, and its relevance in addressing current environmental and socio-economic challenges facing Oaxaqueños and campesinos today. Archaeological data suggest that agricultural terraces (known as lama-bordos) were in use early in the Prehispanic sequence and that Mixtec societies owed much of their survival to this mode of production. Terracing was well-suited for the Mixtec environment because it kept erosion in check while creating highly productive lands that fed thousands of people for over a thousand years. Since European contact these agricultural terraces have been abandoned. And yet, we still find that many abandoned terraces have survived and that a few families are farming them.
This program of research will integrate multiple disciplines and graduate student researchers in all stages of the project. It includes collaboration with socio-cultural anthropologists interested in agrarian and environmental issues, archaeologists interested in agriculture and landscape approaches, agronomy and soil science students focused on geomorphology and erosion, and ethnohistorians working on
In addition, Dr. Perez Rodriguez is an academic advisor for the Pueblo Viejo de Teposcolula Project, which is an INAH-run project funded by the Sicarú foundation and the National Geographic Society. The project studies the late Prehispanic urban capital of Teposcolula, which consists of hundreds of residential and agricultural terraces, a central monumental core comprised of several mound groups, a ball court, plazas, access-ways, surrounding walls and cave-like features. As part of the Pueblo Viejo project my work focuses on the excavation of lama-bordo (agricultural) terraces and nearby areas to learn about their construction and the nature of associated occupations and architecture. Excavation efforts are ongoing and should continue for the next two years.
At the Museum of Northern Arizona (MNA), Dr. Hays-Gilpin directs the Hopi Iconography Project, a collaboration between the museum and the Hopi Tribe’s cultural preservation office. They are exploring Hopi cultural continuity through pottery, rock art, mural painting, and fiber perishables, including baskets and textiles. Archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, and art historians are working together with Hopi artists, language specialists, archaeologists, and other cultural specialists to study nearly two thousand years of Hopi history, values, aesthetics, technology, subsistence, and artistic expression. Archaeologists usually study the past for its own sake, but they are trying to understand the meanings of the past in the present, and how distinctively Hopi ways of thinking about ecology, health, and community values have been expressed in material culture over centuries if not millennia. Most important, they want to explore ways that Hopi traditions can help shape a sustainable future for Hopi communities and beyond, through subsistence farming, craft production, public health programs, and cultural revitalization. In some ways, it’s more important to Hays-Gilpin that ancient objects do have significance for contemporary indigenous people, and less important what the exact meanings of ancient symbols are—so it’s less about reading the past like a text, and more about having a conversation in the present about ancestors, sacred places, and making aesthetic and emotional connections between past and present. It’s about being able to hear messages from the past that help us live better lives today—whether it’s how to grow food in the desert, how to have a healthy diabetes-resistant diet, how to deal with drought, how to continue one’s cultural heritage in new artforms, or how to help outsiders understand and appreciate one’s art heritage. Thus far, Dr. Hays-Gilpin’s research with project has resulted in four scholarly articles and book chapters and two issues of MNA’s Plateau magazine.
Dr. Hays-Gilpin also directs traditional archaeological research on pottery traditions in the northern Southwest, in collaboration with our national parks, forests, and other agencies, tribes, and museums. Graduate student service projects that she has directed include a web-based field identification manual for Pueblo IV period decorated pottery from the
The Anthropology Laboratory conducts several dozen individual archaeological projects per year. These projects range in spatial extent from less than an acre to over 2,000 contiguous acres. Most field projects are surface inventory surveys, with the remainder testing or excavation. The Laboratory also contracts with a number of organizations to perform specialized analyses of artifacts and other archaeological materials.
Project budgets have ranged from about a few hundred to over 200,000 dollars. Most have been carried out in northern
The projects and laboratory operations are facilitated by numerous cooperative agreements, including formal agreements with the Hopi Tribe, the National Park Service, and the
In addition to the individual reports on these specific projects, our recent work in
A recent special emphasis of the Anthropology Laboratory has been Ruins Preservation Training, involving several of our Hopi undergraduate and graduate students. We are the only program in the nation offering this type of training experience, and we feel that all of our students – Hopi and non-Hopi – benefit from the University-tribal collaborations involved. Several of our graduates of these programs have gone on to important management positions within tribal and NPS settings.
We have also been active in archaeological site monitoring and preservation, working cooperatively with the U.S. National Park Service at
Dr. Wilce’s current research projects focus on language and emotion. He is currently analyzing language and emotion in a small body of recordings he has collected. Examples include: 1) publicly circulating laments by Shia Muslims, 2) video footage collected during two trips to Finland (summers of 2003 and 2005), when he participated in a Finnish lament workshop and collected a professional DVD produced by a participant in a similar workshop, and 3) videotapes of a UCLA-approved research project, of an assertiveness training/conflict prevention program for elementary school children. Wilce is analyzing the last set of tapes in collaboration with his graduate students in the newly created course, Linguistic Anthropology Lab. Analysis of the
Wilce is beginning a new research project that extends his long-term work on lament—spontaneous improvised crying songs—a topic on which he is one of the world’s recognized experts (see his December 2006 Current Anthropology article), and links it to a vision of culture as something conscious and intentionally manipulable rather than unconsciously inherited. The project centers on the revival of lament in
Dr. Robert T. Trotter developed and launched a program (RARE and I-RARE) that provides tools for the rapid assessment of HIV and drug intervention programs. Dr. Trotter’s research efforts have resulted in the capture numerous research grants and in the employment and training of numerous graduate and undergraduate students. He has conducted workshops (both national and international) for the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health. He has recently conducted rapid ethnographic training workshops for the ministries of health in
Beginning in 1970, Dr. James Sexton began his Guatemalan field school and research project. The initial field experience in
Based on his field research, he has published articles on his research dealing with development modernization, and culture change in such journals as the Reviews in Anthropology, American Ethnologist, Human Organization, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, and the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. Dr. Sexton published the following books: Education and Innovation in a Guatemalan Community (UCLA Latin American Center, 1972), Son of Tecun (University of Arizona Press, 1981, and Waveland Press, 1990), Campesino (University of Arizona Press, 1985), Ignacio (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992), Mayan Folktales (Doubleday Anchor, 1992, and University of New Mexico Press, 1999), Heart of Heaven, Heart of Earth (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1999), and Joseno (University of New Mexico Press, 2001).
Dr. Small’s lifelong ethnographic work has been in the South Pacific, and she continues to be involved in research and scholarship in this area. Her book Voyages is used by more than 100 universities, and was the recent “forum” selection by Pacific Studies for scholarly review by three scholars with author response. She is active in reviewing grants and manuscripts (Museum Studies, Contemporary Pacific, American Ethnologist, National Science Foundation) in Pacific studies and wrote two of the recent reference works on Pacific Islanders (in Harvard University Press, The New Americans, 2007 and the Tongan Profile for Migration Information Source in 2004).
In 2002, on her sabbatical, Dr. Small enrolled in her own university as a freshman, moving into the dorms and taking a full load of classes. The ethnography, describing “undergraduate culture,” that came out of her freshman experience (published by Cornell University Press in 2005, and then by Penguin in 2006) has received wide attention in both national and international circles and in public and professional media (including features in the Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York Times, Newsweek, and USA today, Talk of the Nation, Associated Press, CNN and guest talks on more than 40 radio talk shows).
The public attention has provided a vehicle for making applications of her ethnographic insights in higher education. Dr. Small is on partial release to speak at educational conferences and universities across the country about improving teaching and realigning university structures. In 2006-7 alone, she accepted invitations as keynote speaker or presenter/consultant at more than 30 universities and conferences in the
In 1997, Dr. Cathy Small was awarded a National Science Foundation grant for 1998 and 1999 to model and simulate Polynesian social systems. This modeling work has culminated in an invitation to the Santa Fe Institute as part of a global team of scientists working on modeling issues. The
Her modeling efforts have opened new teaching avenues for her, including the development of a graduate course in computer modeling, her participation as the invited workshop director at the 1998 and 2001 AAA meetings (sponsored by NAPA) to introduce anthropology professionals to computer modeling and simulation, and her invitation by the French government’s Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales as a scholar-in-residence to conduct a two-week modeling course in the University of Provence in Marseilles, France in 1999.
Dr. Cathy Small began Pipeline NAU, a program with the support of university administration and the help of committed faculty members. The Pipeline is a cooperative venture of NAU, the
In the past few years Dr. Vasquez has been a Trainer, Evaluator, and Project Analyst for different programs of the RARE (Rapid Assessment Response and Evaluation) Project, working with minority communities in 15 U.S. cities to reduce HIV/AIDS risk factors. This work, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health, has helped to significantly reduce the number of new HIV/AIDS in African American and Latino communities.
Dr. Trotter has been working closely with colleagues at the General Motors Research and Development facility over the past four years to investigate several aspects of corporate culture including a) collaborative research programs between industry and universities and institutes, b) development of an ideal plant culture model for changing manufacturing collaborative designs, and recently, c) designing a medical anthropology study of GM's new health care initiative for both current employees and retirees. The research has resulted in 1) internships and research assistantships for NAU graduate students, 2) publications, 3) a patent application for a cultural model of collaborative research program design, and 4) a set of tools (training packages) for improving cooperation and quality of life within GM plant culture.
Dr. Walter Vannette has completed a series of eight
As an applied anthropologist at NAU, Dr. Miguel Vasquez has emphasized reciprocity between NAU and the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office (HCPO) to strengthen both local community cultural assets and the educational experience for both native and non-native students. The NAU-HCPO Memorandum of Agreement exists as an outgrowth of this work. Collaboration between villagers and NAU anthropologists began with the Bacavi Terrace Project, which involved physical restoration of 700 year old terrace gardens, as well as documentation and education of local youth in traditional ecological knowledge. The project has given rise to several other Hopi agricultural projects and annual planting and harvesting with elderly Hopi farmers. As ties between the department and the HCPO have developed, so have other projects. Together with other NAU faculty, the HCPO, the National Park Service, and the Hopi Foundation, Vasquez helped to develop a Ruins Preservation Training Workshop for unemployed Hopi youth, which has generated careers in cultural preservation and a new interest in the relevance of anthropology for the Hopi. NAU students in collaboration with the HCPO, have transcribed tapes for tribal archives, developed a cultural curriculum with the Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals, conducted research in cultural affiliation, developed media materials on health and nutrition for the
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