Faculty Talks Outside the Box: "Unsettling Archaeology and History in an American Heartland: Recollecting and Reconnecting the Past in the Miami Valley of Southwest Ohio"

Unsettling Archaeology and History in an American Heartland:

Recollecting and Reconnecting the Past in the Miami Valley of Southwest Ohio 

Presentation by Dr. Robert Cook,  Professor of Anthropology

March 29, 2022 4 PM - 5:30 PM

Virtual Faculty Talks Outside the Box Talk

This talk is free and open to the public.

REGISTER HERE

If you need accommodations, please include that information in the registration above. Requests made 2 weeks prior the event will generally allow seamless access, but OSU will make every effort to meet all requests.

The study of the past is rapidly changing. Archaeologists, historians, and scholars from related disciplines have come to recognize that their work is deeply rooted in the same set of settler/colonial narratives and assumptions that have shaped Western society more broadly. In this "Faculty Talk Outside the Box," Dr. Robert Cook will discuss his work to “decolonize” archaeological and historical research practices. His presentation will focus on his involvement in an interdisciplinary study of a particular site in southwestern Ohio--Turpin--and its goal of helping mend severed attachments to ancestral homelands. Yet this project goes further and conducts a type of archaeology of archaeology itself, studying the process as it was first practiced in the late 1800s and remedying its deficiencies through modern field and lab methods in collaboration with descendant communities and other stakeholders. Ultimately, the goal of the project is to develop a model for a decolonized archaeological research centered on collaboration between archaeologists, historians, descendant communities and the broader public.

For more information, visit The Ohio State University Newark.

• Department of Anthropology
• Dr. Robert Cook
• Miami Valley Recollections and Reconnections Facebook @MVRR.OhioArchaeology
  
• "Climate Change and Deer Consumption of Maize at the Turpin Site, ca. A.D. 700-1300"
• Robert A. Cook and Aaron R. Comstock. Ohio Archaeological Council, 2022.
• "Archaeologists Are Re-Excavating and Reconnecting Descendants of Anderson Township Site"
• Ann Thompson, 91.7 WVXU, August 16, 2021.
• "Turpin archaeological dig site hoping to recollect, reconnect history"
• Ashley Smith, Fox 19 Now, July 30, 2021.
• "Archaeological dig in Anderson Township explores ruins of ancient villages, mounds"
• WLWT5, July 15, 2021.
• "Historic Greenspace Archaeological Dig Area Opens to Public this Summer"
• Anderson Township, July 7, 2021.
• "Beyond Squier and Davis: Rediscovering Ohio's Earthworks Using Geophysical Remote Sensing"
  • Jarrod Burks and Robert A. Cook, American Antiquity, Cambridge University Press, Vol 76, Issue 4, October 2011, Page 667-689.
• Continuity and Change in the Native American Village | Multicultural Origins and Descendants of the Fort Ancient Culture
  • Cambridge University Press. 2017.
• Harvard Peabody Museum Collections
  • Dr. Robert Cook, "Ohio archaeological collections, which are currently being cataloged to support the work of visiting researcher and professor Dr. Robert Cook of the Ohio State University."
• Sunwatch: Fort Ancient Development in the Mississippian World
  • The University of Alabama Press. 2007.