Anthropology News Archive | 2023

Dr. Conlee is a co-author on a paper titled "Assembling the early expansionary state: Wari and the southern Peruvian coast" that was given the 2022 Annual Selection award from the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology for the article that "most compellingly combined a contemporary use of theory and a robust set of archaeological data to forge new ideas in anthropological archaeology." The article is now Open Access through ScienceDirect. 

Anthropology Section Fellow, Dr. Kate Spradley, is the recipient of the first American Academy of Forensic Sciences Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion Award for her efforts to create positive change. Kate served as the AAFS Diversity Outreach Committee Chair from 2020-23.

Dr. Taylor was featured in a "Texas State Enlighten Me" Podcast titled: "Without a Trace: The Ghosting Phenomenon." 

You can listen here:

• Spotify
• Apple

Thinking about graduate school in Anthropology?  Get anthropology-specific advice and guidance at the Anthropology Graduate School Workshop! 

Event Date | Thursday, November 16, 2023  
Event Time | 4:00 – 5:00 p.m.

Target Audience | Current Texas State Undergraduate Anthropology majors and minors that are interested in the anthropology master’s program at Texas State.

Contact Dr. Augustine Agwuele with any questions.  

Registration Required

The Department of Anthropology at Texas State invites students and other attendees of the TAS Annual Meeting to a reception to honor student research! This event will provide an opportunity to socialize and tour the newly constructed Laboratory for Archaeological Research. The reception will offer light refreshments, a short presentation on student research at TXST, and an opportunity to celebrate student contributions to archaeological research in Texas. 

Date/Time | Friday, October 6, 2023 | 5:00 - 6:30 pm  
Location | 1921 Old Ranch Road 12, San Marcos, TX 78666

Join us for the Meet the Professors lunch!  

Get to know your faculty, find out about research and opportunities in the department, learn about class options for the Spring, and most importantly, eat some tasty free pizza!  

Friday, September 29 | 12:00 pm  
ELA 245

The Anthropology Department will host their annual Graduate Student Open House on Friday, October 13, 2023 from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm.

Students interested in pursuing a Master's or Ph.D. at Texas State should attend to learn more about our graduate degree programs, course offerings, subdisciplines, academic Centers, and more.  

Registration information and a schedule of events can be found on the Graduate Open House page. 

Please join us in congratulating Amy Reid who recently received an award from the Texas Department of Transportation tilted “TxDOT Curation Services for NTP VIII: Curation preparation for 14 Collections and Curation Preparation and Final Curation for Several Testing and Data Recovery Projects” in the amount of $32,681 and was awarded $299,979 for the upcoming FY24 Veterans Curation Program that will employ and train student veterans who are working to rehabilitate archaeological collections and records for long-term curation and future research.

Congratulations to Dr. Jill Pruetz who has received a grant from the Leaky Foundation entitled “Fongoli Savanna Chimpanzee Project – Long-term Research” in the amount of $24,992.

Congratulations to Dr. Aimee Villarreal who, over the summer, received an award from Carleton University (Ottawa, Canada) entitled “Unsettled Refuge: Sovereignty and Sanctuary in North America” for $3359.  As part of the project, she will be giving a talk and a graduate student workshop this November.

Manar Naser, an MA student in Cultural Anthropology, has been awarded a fellowship with the New Songs Rising Initiative. This organization aims to address that funding gap and resource Indigenous girls and their communities with abundance and intention. This 18-month fellowship for Native American and Globally-Indigenous girls, femmes, and gender-expansive youth will focus on skill-building, community building, deepening fellows’ feelings of identity and self, participatory grantmaking, and mentorship.

The Fongoli, Senegal chimpanzees studied by Pruetz since 2001 will be featured in two episodes (Earth & Heat) of an upcoming documentary called 'Evolution Earth', which will air on PBS/NOVA. Episode One airs on September 6 on the Austin PBS station. Previews and clips of the chimpanzees and Pruetz can be watched on the PBS website. 

After 31 years with The Department of Anthropology, Dr. Kent Reilly has announced his retirement. Dr. Reilly has left an indelible impression on countless students, peers, and cohorts. We wish him all the best!

In July, Professors Bousman and Pruetz presented an invited lecture for Department of Zoology and Entomology’s Lecture Series at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, South Africa. The presentation discussed their recent research on landscape patterns of chimpanzee tool use at Fongoli, Senegal. These results have important implications for early hominin landscape use and for understanding the biases in the early hominin archaeological record. This research was funded by the Research Accelerator Program at Texas State University.

Applied Anthropology PhD candidate Molly Kaplan was recently interviewed by the New York Times on a piece titled “Scorching Heat Is Contributing to Migrant Deaths.”  

After graduating with her MA in anthropology, Kayli Lord took her research on the experiences of students who had experienced foster care to Education Reach for Texans a non-profit that facilitates the establishment of programs for foster care transitions.

Paper Abstract: Texas has been a leader in creating policies and programs to support students in higher education who have experienced foster care (SEFC). The state has a tuition and fee waiver, extended foster care, and a state-wide collaborative devoted to improving higher education outcomes of SEFC. In 2015 the state passed innovative legislation requiring every college and university to identify a campus liaison for SEFC. The present study is a process evaluation to assess the implementation of the liaison legislation. We conducted in-depth interviews with SEFC, a content analysis of campus websites, and a survey of campus liaisons. Results reveal that students do want a single point of contact and when connected with a liaison, see that relationship as essential to their success. However, half of all campuses (49%) have not complied with the legislative requirement to identify the liaison on their websites, making it difficult for SEFC to know who to contact at these institutions. In addition, liaisons that responded to our survey report that they want to serve SEFC, but lack the training, time, and resources to fulfill their designated role. Conclusions are that legislated policies for SEFC can affect change, but require sufficient investment in order to adequately support the students they are designed to serve.

Dr. Augustine Agwuele was invited to The Centre for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Leipzig in Germany as senior research fellow with the ‘Kolleg-Forschungruppe multiple secularities’. During his residency, he will be exploring the “Religionization and Secularization of communicative gestures among Yoruba people.” As part of this research, he spent 3 weeks conducting fieldwork in Ibadan and Lagos, Nigeria.

European Conference on African Studies (ECAS 2023)

May 31-June 4, together with Thomas Widlok, Dr. Agwuele co-convened a panel session titled: “The shared future of Afropean lifeworld” at the European Conference on African Studies which held at the University of Cologne, Germany.  

In attendance at the conference was Ms Caroline Story, who graduated in 2021 from our program and is now pursuing graduate work in Linguistics, and African Studies at the University of Cologne. She wrote and published her honor’s thesis in phonetics.

Dr. Conlee has been working this summer with colleagues Dr. Marcela Poirier and Dr. Corina Kellner on a public education project in Peru. The after school archaeology workshops are for kids aged 5-10 and include an introduction to archaeology, a site visit to nearby Huaca del Loro where Dr. Conlee has led excavations, a workshop on ceramics (what archaeologists can learn from them and how to make them), and a workshop on burial practices. 

After several years of delay due to the pandemic, The Center for Arts and Symbolism in Ancient America (CASAA) held the long-awaited Hopewell conference where many expectational Mississippian and Hopewell scholars gathered to discuss and propose new ideas about the Hopewell Culture. Following the success of this conference, future meetings are predicted to be held in the near future.

The Anthropology Department was contacted by Ph.D. student and Kilby Fellow, Katie Gerstner, to thank and update the department on how the Fellowship is helping with her dissertation research.  

From Katie -

With the support of the Kilby Fellowship, I am currently starting the data collection for my dissertation research on wild chimpanzee gut microbiomes in southeastern Senegal. I am at Fongoli, the largest and driest savanna chimpanzee habitat and it is on the edge of their species’ range. Here are photos of me and a chimpanzee, Lupin, by the Gambia River, one of the largest rivers in West Africa. In a few weeks, I will be visiting Nikolo Koba National Park to collect samples from another chimpanzee community, called Assirik. Nikolo Koba was deemed a world heritage site in 2008. My research involving these two communities will be the most comprehensive dataset of savanna chimpanzee gut microbiome samples to date.

Congratulations to Katie on her research!  If you're interested in following her work you can find her on Twitter and Instagram.

Professor Britt Bousman gave an invited seminar lecture at the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana in Burgos, Spain on Thursday, June 5. He discussed his long-term research in the Modder River basin in South Africa where he has excavated Middle Stone Age, Later Stone Age and Pleistocene faunal sites in terrace deposits.

Congratulations to Dr. Sophia Mavroudas for being the first graduate of our Applied Anthropology Ph.D. program!  Dr. Mavroudas' dissertation was entitled: An exploration of histological variation in the human rib: applications for age estimation methods in applied anthropology, where she used a diverse sample of midthoracic ribs from the US and Mexico to explore microscopic variation in human rib bone.

Congratulations to Drs. Todd Ahlman, Jodi Jacobson, and the rest CAS staff and students for their work on an archaeological project in Big Bend that was recently featured in the TXST News. 

Congratulations to Dr. Danny Wescott who just received a National Institute of Justice grant of $1,807,985 for a project titled Forensic Fire Death Investigation: Investigating the Effects of Body Mass and Decomposition Sequence on Fire Burn Speed and Patterns and the Development of Performance Standard.

Congratulations to doctoral student Elisabeth Cuerrier-Richer, advisor Kate Spradley, who was awarded a Doctoral Fellowship from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) of Canada for her doctoral work on a dissertation titled "Hispanic Cranial Morphometric Variation to Aid in the Identification of Deceased Migrants Along the US-Mexico Border.” The fellowship is $20,000 per year, renewable for a total of four years.

Ray Vagell recently received a grant from Duke Lemur Center Director's fund for research he will conduct at Center for his doctoral research on cognitive enrichment in the endangered ruffed lemur, entitled "Are Cognitive Tests Enriching or Stressful? Using Salivary Cortisol to Measure Stress in Varecia spp. After Cognitive Testing".

Katie Gerstner was named a finalist in the inaugural Camille Goblet Foundation Fellowship. Katie was one of only six finalists interviewed for the award, and she was the only anthropologist or primatologist. She has been encouraged to apply again next year, when the Foundation hopes to be able to make more than one $10,000 award. Katie's doctoral research will examine the influences that seasonality and anthropogenic disturbance has on Critically Endangered wild West African chimpanzees in Senegal.

Congratulations to Amy Reid, CAS Curator and doctoral student, who was given the E. Mott Davis Award for Excellence in Public Outreach by the Council of Texas Archaeologists. The award was for her children’s book Maybe You’ll be an Archaeologist. The award recognizes outstanding efforts to advance public awareness and appreciation of archaeology and to foster support for the preservation and protection of archeological resources. 

Congratulations to Anthropology Ph.D. student, Kaelyn Dobson (mentor Jill Pruetz) who won the Top Poster Award out of 67 entries, at the Graduate Student Research Conference.

Her poster was: 
“Multi-species housing impacts: overlapping microbiomes – preliminary data” 
Kaelyn Dobson (Ph.D. in Applied Anthropology, Texas State), Christina Burges (San Antonio Zoo), Patti Clark (Austin Zoo), Dr. Camila Carlos-Shanley (Biology, Texas State)

Congratulations to graduate students Petra Banks, mentor Nick Herrmann, and Emilie Wiedenmeyer, mentor Michelle Hamilton, for both being awarded a P.E.O Scholar Award. The awards are each for $20,000 and are given by the International Chapter of the P.E.O. Sisterhood. The awards are "one-time, competitive, merit-based awards intended to recognize and encourage academic excellence and achievement by women in doctoral-level programs. These awards provide partial support for study and research."

Congratulations to Anthropology graduate student, Keegan Beane, mentor Nick Herrmann, who received a Fulbright research award for the Republic of Georgia to work on the Georgian Recovery, Documentation, and Identification Project (GRDIP) with the Georgian Association of Forensic Anthropology (GAFA).

Julia Quintero, an MA student in cultural anthropology, won the Human Rights Defender Award at the Society for Applied Anthropology annual meeting this past week in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Julia's research centers on the experience of women who died/disappeared crossing the US-Mexico border. The goal of her project is to enable the families of these women to provide testimonios to speak their truth and offer resistance against the dehumanizing policies responsible for migrants' deaths along the US-Mexico border.

Dr. Nicole Taylor and co-author Mimi Nichter explore the many kinds of labor involved in maintaining different digital selves across online spaces on the CASTAC (Committee on the Anthropology of Science, Technology and Computing) Blog.

The Anthropology Department is holding their annual Anthropology Student Research Conference on Friday, April 14, 2023. 

The conference features paper and poster sessions, a keynote presentation, catered lunch, and a concluding reception with food and drinks. 

Presentations are accepted in all sub-fields and styles of anthropology, and cash prizes are available to winners!

• 1st place | $100
• 2nd place | $50
• 3rd place | $25

To submit a paper or poster email your title and abstract (150-200 words) to Drs. Smith and Warms by Sunday, April 2, 11:59 pm. 

Join the Department of Anthropology for our 2023 Career Workshop.  Students are invited to explore job prospects and career options with an Anthropology Degree. 

The workshop will consist of a 65 minute program featuring both faculty presentations a question and answer session.  Advanced registration is required.

Date | Thursday, April 6th, 2023 
Time | 4:30pm – 5:30 p.m. 
Target Audience | Current TXST UG Anthropology majors and minors

Please contact Dr. Augustine Agwuele with any questions.

Visit the Career Workshop Page for the workshop schedule and registration.

Krysten Cruz, a doctoral student in biological anthropology, receives a William Sanders Scarborough Fellowship from the American School of Classical Studies at Athens for the fall 2023. The fellowship supports Krysten's dissertation research efforts on the early Mycenaean burial sample from Ancient Eleon in central Greece and provides funding for transportation, housing, and research at the school this fall.

At the American Academy of Forensic Sciences meeting in February 2023, Dr. Nick Herrmann was awarded the Outstanding Mentorship Award for the Anthropology section. He was nominated by current and former students from Texas State University and beyond. Per the AAFS Anthropology Section call for nominations, "The award is designed to honor mentors who exemplify extraordinary selflessness as they support and contribute to the career development and advancement of students, colleagues, and the discipline of forensic anthropology. This award recognizes an individual who has excelled at mentoring others in achieving their educational and career objectives through moral, social, and intellectual support."

The 2023 Archaeological Field School will take place during the Summer I semester, from May 30-June 30, 2023, and will be located right here in San Marcos, Texas. We will learn survey and excavation techniques at two archaeological sites on TXST campus: The Freeman Ranch and Spring Lake sites, so you can gain a real field experience in an accredited field school almost in your own backyard. If you are not already in San Marcos, come on down and join us in June to make it your backyard. Our survey and excavation methodology will allow students to learn practical skills used in Cultural Resource Management (CRM) and other applied fieldwork settings, and will include geoarchaeological techniques, paleoenvironmental sampling, digital data recording, and remote sensing with equipment such as ground penetrating radar (GPR). Our research questions driving the projects will allow students to gain experience in the region’s cultural history and archaeological signatures to prepare them to be professionals in Texas and other regions of North America. Enrollment is limited and there is an application process.

Congratulations to doctoral students Petra Banks, Justin Goldstein, and Emilie Wiedenmeyer who each received a $10,000 Phi Kappa Phi Dissertation Fellowship. Only fifteen of these awards are given annually and are to support students in the dissertation writing phase. This is really an accomplishment. Thanks to mentors Drs. Hamilton, Herrmann, and Gocha, and to The Graduate College funding specialists Drs. Hilkovitz and Smith for their support.

Last spring (2022) PhD students in ANTH 7352 conducted an applied, public history project for the College of Liberal Arts. The project, titled "Our COVID Experience" is now on display on the second floor of Alkek Library.

The exhibit features photos and captions from Texas State Students chronicling their experience with COVID-19. It also includes opportunities for viewers to contribute their own photos online and to participate in a shared discussion on what recovery from the pandemic should look like.

Stop by and see the exhibit today!

In early January, Ashley McKeown and Todd Ahlman attended the Society for Historical Archaeology's Conference on Historical and Underwater Archaeology in Lisbon, Portugal. Todd Ahlman and his colleague Gerald Schroedl presented a paper entitled "Shared Landscapes and Contested Spaces: The Military Landscapes of St. Kitts and St. Eustatius" in the invited symposium "Colonial Forts in Comparative, Global, and Contemporary Perspective." Ashley McKeown presented a paper entitled "Hiding on Maroon Ridge: The Search for Maroon Settlements on St. Croix, US Virgin Islands" that was co-authored with Todd Ahlman, Texas State graduate student Kallista Karastamatis, and volunteer Kathryn Ahlman. This research was funded by a Texas State Research Enhancement Program grant.

In Maverick County, 26 bodies pulled from the Rio Grande were buried, some without attempts to identify them. Teams of Texas State students are trying to learn their names so their families can be notified.

This Texas Tribune article features descriptions and quotes from our MA and PhD students.

Dr. Spradley was interviewed on MSNBC Jose Diaz-Balart Reports about Operation Identification and recent exhumations with students in Eagle Pass, Texas.

Dr. VandenBroek recently published an article in Journal of Business Anthropology (Open Access). 

VandenBroek, Angela Kristin. 2022. “Like Clockwork: Experts and Expertise in Stockholm’s Startup and Innovation Ecosystem.” Journal of Business Anthropology 11 (2). https://doi.org/10.22439/jba.v11i2.6780.

Abstract 
SthlmTech, Stockholm’s startup ecosystem, is famous for being an innovation hub that produces more billion-dollar startups per capita than anywhere else except Silicon Valley. This success, people within the community say, is down to the ecosystem of organizations and experts that facilitate the creation and growth of startups via a well-organized curriculum that guides entrepreneurs through the “business” of starting-up. In this article, I examine this understanding of the ecosystem as a neutral, smooth, and ordered apparatus for maximizing the speed and efficiency of innovation. Specifically, I challenge how this popular conception of the ecosystem conceptualizes expertise and experts as mechanistic components ready to be deployed along the path of entrepreneurs training. By analyzing the expertise of ecosystem experts in practice, this paper aims to demonstrate what the ecosystem curriculum foregrounds and what it obscures and how the ideas behind this curriculum shape much more than routine business procedure.

President Kelly Damphousse toured CAS on 1/19/2023 to learn about the archaeological research, curation activities, and student mentoring that takes place through the center.  His visit was also featured in the president’s monthly newsletter The Current and is on his top ten moments of January 2023.