SCIAA Personnel & Email Addresses

• Christopher F. Amer
• Joe Beatty
• Mark J. Brooks
• Charles R. Cobb
• Susan Davis
• Audrey Dawson-Croft
• Ashley Deming
• Chester B. DePratter
• Keith Derting
• J. Christopher Gillam
• Albert C. Goodyear III
• Tammy Forehand Herron
• Adam King
• Jonathan M. Leader
• Susan Lowe
• Christopher Moore
• Carl Naylor
• Sharon L. Pekrul
• Nena Powell Rice
• Steven D. Smith
• Stanley A. South
• James D. Spirek
• D. Keith Stephenson
• Christopher L. Thornock
• George Wingard

Chris Amer received his M.A. from the Nautical Archaeology Program at Texas A & M University in 1986, and currently heads the Maritime Research Division. His research interests and background include post-medieval watercraft, historic ship construction and shipyards, cultural resource management, remote sensing and GIS. Prior to joining SCIAA in 1987, Chris spent seven years with the Parks Canada's Underwater Archaeology Section excavating vessels associated with the 16th century Basque whaling industry at Red Bay, Labrador. He has consulted and worked on submerged archaeological sites throughout the US, Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. Currently Chris is spearheading a survey to discover the remains of a ship that was lost near Winyah Bay during a failed attempt by the Spanish in 1526 to colonize the southeastern North America.

Mark Brooks is Director of the Savannah River Archaeological Research Program. Mark received a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Florida in 1974, an M.A. in Anthropology from Arizona State University in 1980, and a Ph.D. in Geology from the University of South Carolina in 1996. He joined SCIAA in 1977 and moved to the SRARP in 1984. His major research area is the Quaternary Period of the Southeastern U.S. Coastal Plain. General research domains include: 1) the role of climate in landscape evolution, particularly the coevolution of Carolina bays and stream-associated eolian deposits; and 2) Late Pleistocene-Early Holocene hunter-gatherer adaptations on the South Atlantic Coastal Plain. Current research projects include investigations of: 1) archaeological site formation processes in conjunction with Carolina bay sand rim evolution; and 2) climate, environmental and landscape changes revealed through analyses of an 18 ka 14C yr B.P. sediment core obtained from a stream-head basin in the Upper Coastal Plain of South Carolina.

Charles Cobb received his BA from the University of Arizona and his PhD from Southern Illinois University Carbondale (1988). He became Director of SCIAA in 2007. His interests focus on the late prehistoric and colonial Southeast. He has published extensively on Mississippian political economy and related topics. More recently his research has turned to Native American responses to colonialism and the formation of frontiers. Ongoing projects include a study of health and warfare among Mississippian populations in the Middle Cumberland drainage; and analysis of collections from Fort Moore in South Carolina, a frontier settlement built in 1715/1716 during the Yamasee War.

Susan Davis joined SCIAA after two years as a temporary employee with USC in the Human Resources Dept. After two years with SCIAA, she still believes that she is the luckiest girl in the universe. Susan was raised in Lexington, SC, and lives now in West Columbia with her husband, son, 2 dogs, and four cats."

Audrey Dawson received a B.A. from West Virginia University, her M.A. in Anthropology from the University of South Carolina, and is currently pursuing her Ph.D from the University of South Carolina. She is the Head of the Applied Research Division. Her research interests span both prehistoric and historic topics; some of these include African Diaspora archaeology, landscape theory, CRM and Section 106 compliance, sampling strategies, the use of GIS in archaeology, and historical archaeology in the Caribbean. Ms. Dawson has worked on cultural resource management projects throughout the eastern United States in addition to academic research in France, Germany, and the French Caribbean.

Chester DePratter earned his doctoral, master's and bachelor's degrees in anthropology from the University of Georgia. He has worked on a variety of Native American sites, primarily in South Carolina and Georgia, and has written numerous articles on prehistoric archaeology, exploration routes of Spanish explorers and the early European presence in the southeastern United States. In addition, he is the author of the book "Late Prehistoric and Early Historic Chiefdoms in the Southeastern United States." Since 1989 he has focused on the 16th century Spanish site of Santa Elena and the search for the French site of Charlesfort.

J. Christopher Gillam is an archaeologist and geographer for the Savannah River Archaeological Research Program (SRARP). Chris' research interests include prehistoric hunter-gatherers and incipient agriculturists, stone tools, prehistoric settlement and migration, and archaeological applications of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). His current projects include archaeological research and GIS modeling here in South Carolina and throughout North America, and international collaborations in South America (Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay) and East Asia (Japan, Russia, S. Korea, China and Mongolia). These studies consist locally of the prehistory and history of the Savannah and Edisto rivers (SRARP, SCIAA), South Carolina Paleo-Point Survey and Southeastern Paleoamerican Survey (SCIAA), and internationally, the Neolithization and Modernization of East Asian Inland Seas (NEOMAP, Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Kyoto, Japan), the Taquara Archaeological Research Project (TARP, U. Exeter, UK and Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil), the Far East Archaeological Database (FEAD, Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Novosibirsk, Russia, and others), the Uruguay Paleoindian Survey (UPS, Servicios Arqueológicos, Montevideo), and the Paleoindian Database of the Americas (PIDBA, U. Tenn., Knoxville).

Al Goodyear received his B.A. from the University of South Florida, M.A. from the University of Arkansas, and Ph.D. from Arizona State University (1976). His research interests include Paleoindian and other early prehistoric time periods, the Pleistocene-Holocene transition, lithic technology, and geoarchaeology with a special focus on soil science applications. Dr. Goodyear is the Director of the Allendale Paleoindian Expedition, a long-term excavation project in western Allendale County South Carolina focusing on chert quarry utilization during the early Holocene. The Expedition is also a public archaeology program where interested members of the public can register to help excavate.

Tammy Forehand Herron received her BS degree from Georgia Southern University in 1991 and is the Curator of Collections for the Savannah River Archaeological Research Program. Her research interests include Prehistoric Archaeology of the Southeast, Colonial Archaeology, and Genealogical Research. Tammy has worked on archaeological sites in middle Georgia, the northeast Georgia mountains, and the sandhills of South Carolina. She is currently conducting research on the 18th-century settlement of New Windsor that was located in present-day Aiken County, South Carolina.

Adam King is a Research Associate Professor in the Research Division. His research interests center on variation in the organization of Mississippian period societies in the Deep South. He is currently pursuing projects in the Etowah River Valley of northwestern Georgia and the middle Savannah River Valley on the Georgia-South Carolina border. In the Etowah Valley, he is working on reconstructing the history of the polities associated with the famous Etowah site. Current projects include 1. creating GIS layers and a relational database to analyze the extensive mortuary data from Etowah's Mound C, 2. exploring beliefs about the sacred and their intersection with social inequality through the study of Mississippian art and iconography, and 3. investigating the layout of the Etowah site through full cover remote sensing surveys. In the Savannah Valley, he is exploring the histories of four small centers and associated polities through examination of town layout and settlement distributions.

Jonathan Leader received his Ph.D. from the University of Florida Gainesville, and currently heads the Office of the State Archaeologist. His research interests and background include the ancient Near East, Micronesia, Eastern United States pre and proto-history, submerged resources, cultural resource management, remote sensing and GIS, archaeometry, archaeometallurgy, and conservation. He teaches and lectures on a regular basis in four departments at the university. The most current research projects include the H.L. Hunley project; the SC Cannons project; The Bahamas projects; the Florence Stockade; and the SCIAA Digitized Publications project.

Susan Lowe joined the staff of SCIAA in April 2007 after moving here from the D.C area where she was employed by Loudoun County Public Schools. She received her B.A'S in Sociology and Spanish from Sam Houstoun State University in Huntsville, Texas.

Christopher Moore joined the Savannah River Archaeological Research Program staff in 2008. Chris received a B.S. in Anthropology from Appalachian State University in 1997, an M.A. in Anthropology from East Carolina University in 2000, and a Ph.D. in Coastal Resources Management (with a focus in Geoscience) from East Carolina University in 2009. Chris's research interests include geoarchaeology, luminescence (OSL) dating, hunter-gatherer archaeology, Late Quaternary climate and human adaptation, GIS, and remote sensing. Chris is currently involved in several projects that involve the interested public in archaeological research on Carolina bays within the CSRA as well as a project to locate prehistoric quarries within the South Carolina Slate Belt for geochemical analysis and sourcing. Chris is also involved in the Tar River Geoarchaeological Survey (an ongoing collaboration between the SRARP and East Carolina University). The purpose of this research is to examine linkages between paleoclimate, human adaptation, and site formation processes within shallow aeolian and fluvial landforms along the Tar River in the upper Coastal Plain of North Carolina.

Carl Naylor is a 1975 graduate of the University of South Carolina School of Journalism. He spent the next ten years as the editor of several weekly newspapers in South Carolina. In 1987, he joined the staff of the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology as an archaeological technician. His duties, in addition to issuing Hobby Diver Licenses, include conducting historic research for archaeological sites, overseeing diving operations for the Charleston Office of the MRD, and serving on the editorial board for the Institute newsletter, The Legacy.

Sharon Pekrul received a BA from Cornell University and an MA from the University of South Carolina, both degrees in anthropology with an emphasis in archaeology. She is the Curator of Collections within the Office of the State Archaeologist at SCIAA.

Nena Powell Rice received her AA in Liberal Arts from Sullins College in 1973, BA in Anthropology from Southern Methodist University in 1975, and her MA in Anthropology from the University of Denver in 1990. She has conducted archaeological field and laboratory work in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Montana, South Dakota, Wyoming, Alaska, and South Carolina. Nena has been at the Institute for 25 and a-half years and has served in several areas. Currently she is Director of Outreach/Development, South Carolina Archaeology Month Coordinator (19 years), Acting Librarian, and staff to the Archaeological Research Trust Board. She is also the editor of the SCIAA magazine, Legacy. She works closely with the Archaeological Society of South Carolina. Nena has traveled extensively and has led trips to Europe, Central and South America, the Caribbean, Middle East, and China, including several tours to Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala, two tours to Peru, a tour to the American Southwest, Costa Rica, Ecuador, two tours to Turkey, Jordan and Egypt, and Greece and Cyprus. Future tours are planned for Almafi Coast of Italy and Sicily, the Pantanaal in Southwestern Brazil, and Spain and Morocco.

Steven D. Smith has a master's degree from the University of Kentucky and his Ph.D from the University of South Carolina. He has twenty-six years professional experience in archaeology as an historical archaeologist in a private firm and on the Louisiana SHPO staff, Deputy State Archaeologist for South Carolina, and for the last ten years, an historical archaeologist/P.I. at SCIAA. His research interests military sites archaeology and military history. He also teaches Public Archaeology and African American Military History. While rocks do nothing for him, he will gladly listen to the stories made up by prehistorians, as long as they buy the beer.

Stan has received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Appalachian State University (1979), an Honorary Doctor of Humanities (H.H.D.) from the University of South Carolina Board of Trustees (1997), and the Order of the Palmetto from South Carolina Governor Jim Hodges (1999). In 2006, he received the Old North State Award from Governor Mike Easley of North Carolina. Among his most recent books are Historical Archaeology in Wachovia (1999) and Archaeological Pathways to Historic Site Development (2002). In 2002, a new paperbook edition of his very famous and influential book appeared, Method and Theory in Historical Archaeology. In 2004 he published John Bartlam: Staffordshire in Carolina, and in 2005, Archaeology on the Roanoke as well as his memoir, An Archaeological Evolution. In 2007, two books appeared with co-author Michael J. Stoner: 1670 Charles Towne: The Barbadian Connection, and The Sullivan Tabby Point Ruin: Callawassie Island, South Carolina. His book Colonial Brunswick: Archaeology of a Colonial Town, is in press with the North Carolina Division of Archives and History. He is currently working on a book entitled Talking Artifacts: The 20th Century.

Jim Spirek is an underwater archaeologist with the Maritime Research Divsion. Jim received his M.A. in Maritime History and Nautical Archaeology from East Carolina University in 1993. Jim is in charge of review and compliance for the division, and is also responsible for conducting archaeological research in the state's waterways. Research interests lie in shipbuilding and seafaring of the 16th-century, ship architecture, remote-sensing operations, and in providing public access to submerged maritime resources. Prior to working for the Institute, Jim spent three and a half years working for the Pensacola Shipwreck Survey locating and recording shipwrecks in Pensacola Bay, Florida. Two of those years were spent excavating a Spanish shipwreck most likely associated with the failed Tristan de Luna expedition of 1559. Research and contract projects have taken him to Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Bermuda to document sites ranging from a 16th-century Spanish dispatch vessel to a 370-foot Great Lakes bulk freighter.

Keith Stephenson joined the SRARP in 1990. He has a B.A. in History from University of Georgia in 1981, and an M.A. in Anthropology from University of Georgia in 1990. His main research interest are in the Woodland and Mississippian Periods.

Chris received his BA in Anthropology for Georgia Southern University in 2001 and his MA in Anthropology from the University of South Carolina in 2009. Since coming to the Savannah River Archaeological Research Program in 2002, Chris has worked on sites ranging from a Paleo site at Flamingo Bay to an industrial box factory in the former company town of Leigh, SC, but Chris's main research interests lie in the cultural landscapes, architecture, iconography, and ideology of late prehistoric peoples in the Southeast and their descendant populations. As Field Director of Cultural Resource Management at the SRARP, Chris directs the systematic archaeological survey of 300 square miles along the Savannah River and also coordinates with multiple government agencies to help them perform their functions while protecting the archaeology of the area.

George Wingard joined the Savannah River Archaeological Research Program staff in 1993 with a B.A. in Humanities from the University of South Carolina. He is now the Program Coordinator for the SRARP and oversees the budget, personnel, and vehicles. George's areas of interests are the historic towns of the Savannah River Site (SRS), the remnant cemeteries located on the SRS, and the SRS Land Plat Project. The Land Plat Project early acquisition records, compiled, copied, and scanned over a period of several years, aid the SRARP in their daily compliance related activities, as well as creating the potential for further research projects. One of the research projects George is developing, using the land-plats and photos, is a technical/popular volume on the former churches of the Savannah River Site. There were nearly fifty churches moved or disbanded during the Atomic Energy Commission's removal of the former towns and residents of the Savannah River Site. The report will focus on the history of the churches, their denomination, pertinent photos, and in some cases where they were relocated.