My research is focused on several aspects of human biology. One of these areas is the health and disease of past human populations. I approach health as a process that is influenced by biology, behavior, ecology, and environment.  The dynamic interplay of those variables acts to create dynamic disease environments that have shifted through time and space, and are continuing to shift.  Although I focus on past populations and on the human skeleton for much of my data, I am very interested in contemporary global health issues.

For several years now, I have been involved in examining several major transitions in human lifeway of New World populations that include the transition to agriculture, the arrival of Europeans, and the rise of complex societies. My investigations have been primarily confined to the southeastern United States (Florida and Georgia), the Middle Atlantic (North Carolina), and Bolivia.

Most recently, I examined several issues of coastal adaptation in the mid-Atlantic and southeastern United States.  I  compared coastal foragers in North Carolina and Gulf coast Florida with other coastal foragers in the Southeast and with interior populations in an effort to assess similarities and differences in the transition to agriculture and overall nutrition and health.

Finally, in my role as a forensic anthropologist I have served as a consultant on several occasions to law enforcement officials.  Those experiences have been supplemented by replication experiments designed to facilitate our knowledge of how bone responds to certain types of growth and/or damage.  With my graduate and undergraduate students, I have investigated sharp metal weapon and blunt weapon trauma, as well as methods of age and sex estimation.
 
 

Selected Publications:

2006   Regional, Social, and Evolutionary Perspectives on Treponemal Infection in the Southeastern United States.  American Journal of Physical Anthropology 129:544-558. (with Rebecca Richman).

2006   Nutrition and Health at Contact in Late Prehistoric Central Gulf Coast Florida.  American Journal of Physical Anthropology 129:375-386 (with Lynette Norr).

2004  Bioarchaeology of the Florida Gulf Coast: Adaptation, Conflict, and Change.  University Press of Florida.

2002 Foraging, Farming, and Biocultural Adaptation in Late Prehistoric North Carolina.  University Press of Florida.

2002 Pelvic Age Estimation Using Actual Specimens and Remote Ages.  Journal of Forensic Science  46:1224-1227 (with Katherine Russell).

2002 Microscopic Characteristics of Hacking Trauma.  Journal of Forensic Science 46:234-240 (with Bree K. Tucker, M.F.G. Gilliland, Thomas M. Charles, Hal J. Daniel, and Linda D. Wolfe).

2001 Correlates of Contact: Epidemic Disease in Archaeological Context.  Historical Archaeology 35:58-72 (with Jeffrey M. Mitchem).

2002 Macroscopic Characteristics of Hacking Trauma.  Journal of Forensic Science 46:223-233 (with Josh Humphrey).

2000 Conquistadors, Excavators, or Rodents: What Damaged the King Site Skeletons?  American Antiquity 65:355-363 (with George R. Milner, Clark Spencer Larsen, Matthew A. Williamson, and Dorothy A. Humpf).

1999 Physical Anthropology Laboratory Textbook, fifth edition.  Contemorary Publishing, Raleigh (with Linda D. Wolfe and Leslie Lieberman).

1998 Regional Variation in the Pattern of Maize Adoption and Use in Florida and Georgia. American Antiquity 63:397-416 (with Clark Spencer Larsen, Margaret J. Schoeninger, and Lynette Norr).

1997 Stressed to the Max': physiological perturbation in the Krapina Neandertals. Current Anthropology 38:904-914. (with Clark Spencer Larsen and Inui Choi).

1997 A Reevaluation of the Cold Water Etiology of External Auditory Exostoses. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 103:417-422. (with Hal J. Daniel, Christopher B. Denise, and Gerhard Kalmus)

1996 Brief Encounters: Tatham Mound and the Evidence for Spanish and Native American Confrontation. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 6:51-65.

1993 Treponematosis in Regional and Chronological Perspective from Central Gulf Coast Florida. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 92:249-261.

1991 Stature- and Age Related Bias in Self-Reported Stature. Journal of Forensic Science 36:756-780 (with Eugene Giles)
 

Courses Taught at UNC

Anth 43.                Human Evolution and Adaptation

Anth 48.                Human Origins

Anth 114              Human Osteology

Anth 116               Bioarchaeology

Anth 119.             Global Health (listed also as International Studies 119)

Anth 327 , 328    Graduate Seminar
 

Course LInks, Syllabii and Handouts

Guides for Requests and Submissions

Links to Human Osteology and Bioarchaeology Resources