Rebecca Saunders
Rebecca Saunders
Associate Professor, Department of Geography and
Anthropology
Associate Curator of Anthropology
119 Foster Hall
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge, LA 70803
Email: rsaunde@lsu.edu
Telephone: 225-578-6562
Fax: 225-578-3075
Biography
I’m a native Floridian. I received a B.A. from Florida State University in 1977. From there I departed for nearly four years of CRM fieldwork, returning to Florida, more specifically, the University of Florida, for my M.A. and Ph.D. degrees. After receiving my Ph.D. degree in 1992, I became involved in forensic archaeology, and worked sporadically in Guatemala and the former Yugoslavia. I came to the Museum of Natural Science at LSU in 1993 as the Regional Archaeologist for Southeastern Louisiana. I became Curator of Anthropology at the Museum of Natural Science in 1994, a position that also gave me adjunct status in the Department of Geography and Anthropology. In 2009, the Museum reorganized, resulting in my formal appointment to Associate Faculty status in the Department of Geography and Anthropology.
Research Interests
My research focuses on southeastern U.S. prehistoric and early historic Native American archaeology. Within this broad generalization: Archaic period coastal adaptations and the rise of cultural complexity; Early Historic Native American/European interaction and acculturation; pottery technology and style, particularly material manifestations of ethnicity and pottery symbolism as information. I also continue to mentor students in forensic archaeology.
Courses
Louisiana Archaeology, ANTH 4017
Seminar in Contact Period Archaeology and Ethnohistory, ANTH 7909
Selected Publications
2004 Early Pottery: Technology, Function, Style, and Interaction in the Lower Southeast, edited by Rebecca Saunders and Christopher T. Hays. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.
2000 Stability and Change in Guale Indian Pottery, A.D. 1300-1702. The University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.
Selected Articles/Book Chapters
Saunders, Rebecca
submitted Deep Surfaces: Pottery Decoration and Identity in the Mission Period. Cosmopolitanism and Ethnogenesis, Colonialism and Resistance: Florida in Global Perspective. Special Issue, Historical Archaeology.
Saunders, Rebecca, and Michael Russo
in press Coastal Shell Middens in Florida: a View from the Archaic. In Shell Middens as Archives of Past Environments, Human Dispersal, and Specialized Resource
Management,” Quaternary International.
Saunders, Rebecca
in press How High, How Fast, How Full: The Function of Shell Rings along the Lower
Atlantic Coast with Reference to South America and Japan. In Large Coastal Shell Mounds: A Worldwide Perspective, edited by Mirjana Roksandic, Sheilla Mendonça, Sabine Eggers, Meghan Burchell, and
Daniela Klokler, pp. xxx-xxx. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.
Saunders, Rebecca
2010 The Archaic above Choctawhatchee Bay: Hydrodynamics, Adaptation, and Abandonment.
In Trend, Tradition, and Turmoil: What Happened to the Late Archaic?, edited by David
Hurst Thomas and Matthew Sanger. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History.
Saunders, Rebecca, John Wrenn, William Krebs, and Vaughn M. Bryant
2009 Coastal Dynamics and Cultural Occupations on Choctawhatchee Bay, Florida. Palynology 33(2):135-156.
Saunders, Rebecca
2009 Stability and Ubiquity: Irene, Altamaha, and San Marcos Pottery in Time and Space.
In From Santa Elena to St. Augustine: Indigenous ceramic variability (A.D. 1400-1700),
edited by Kathleen Deagan and David Hurst Thomas. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History, Number 90, pp. 83-111.
Michael Russo, and Rebecca Saunders
2008 Quahog (Mercenaria mercenaria) seasonality at Meeting House Field. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 88(2): 715-722.
Greg Mikell, and Rebecca Saunders
2007 Coastal Archaic Sites in Southern Walton County, Florida: Implications Concerning
Estuarine Adaptation on the Northern Gulf Coast. Southeastern Archaeology 26(2):169-195.
Saunders, Rebecca
2004 Stratigraphy at the Rollins Shell Ring Site: Implications for Ring Function.
The Florida Anthropologist57(4):249-270.
Contact Us
Museum of Natural Science
119 Foster Hall
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge, LA 70803
Phone: 225-578-2855
Hours & Admissions
Admission: Free
Open: Mon - Fri, 8 a.m. - 4 p.m.*
Closed: Sat; Sun; state holidays
*Closed Fri at 2 p.m. during school year.