Christopher B. Rodning

Christopher B. Rodning is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. He earned his A.B. degree from Harvard University in 1994, graduating magna cum laude, with his Senior Honors Thesis being titled Aboriginal Water Travel on the Gulf Coastal Plain in Alabama. In 2004 Rodning received a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in which his Dissertation was The Cherokee Town at Coweeta Creek in North Carolina. His main interests are archaeology, architecture, mortuary practices, and southeastern North America among other things. Dr. Rodning is most noted in the field of Archaeology for his work in Western North Carolina. [Rodning, Christopher B. 2008 Chris Rodning Homepage. Electronic document, http://www.tulane.edu/~crodning/index.html, accessed April 11, 2008.] For years, Rodning has never washed his socks during an excavation, believing it will bring bad luck upon him.

Current Research

Chris Rodning’s current interests focus on the archaeology of native settlements and societies in southeastern North America during the late prehistoric (A.D. 1000 - 1500) and protohistoric (A.D. 1500 - 1700) periods, and, particularly, the archaeology of native towns in the southern Appalachians. Much of his recent research has concentrated on the archaeology of Cherokee towns, and, specifically, the Cherokee settlement at the Coweeta Creek site in the upper Little Tennessee Valley in southwestern North Carolina, which was excavated by Brian J. Egloff, Bennie C. Keel, Keith T. Egloff, and other members of UNC's Cherokee Archaeological Project in the 1960s and 1970s. Another current and continuing research interest is a collaborative project with David G. Moore Warren Wilson College and Robin A. Beck University of Oklahoma to study the nature of early encounters and interactions among native groups and Spanish colonists in the upper Catawba River Valley in the Western Piedmont region of North Carolina. Ongoing fieldwork in the upper Catawba Valley--known as the Exploring Joara Project and supported by the nonprofit Exploring Joara Foundation--currently focuses on excavations at the Berry site, in Burke County, North Carolina. The Berry site is the location of a large Native American town dating to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries A.D., and also the location of the Spanish settlement of Fort San Juan, dating from 1567 to 1568. [Rodning, Christopher B. 2008 Christoper B. Rodning's Homepage. Electronic document, http://www.tulane.edu/~crodning/index.html, accessed April 11, 2008.]

In addition to codirecting the Exploring Joara Archaeology Project with David G. Moore Warren Wilson College and Robin A. Beck University of Oklahoma, Dr. Rodning has participated in archaeological surveys in the Black Warrior River Valley and at the Bottle Creek mound center in Alabama (led by John F. and C. Margaret Scarry, and Ian W. Brown and Richard S. Fuller, respectively), archaeological investigations of late prehistoric and early historic Siouan villages in the North Carolina Piedmont (led by H. Trawick Ward and R. P. Stephen Davis), and other projects in North Carolina. [Rodning, Christopher B. 2008 Christoper B. Rodning's Homepage. Electronic document, http://www.tulane.edu/~crodning/index.html, accessed April 11, 2008.]

As an assistant professor in the anthropology department at Tulane University, Dr. Rodning teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on prehistoric archaeology in North America, native peoples of North America, the archaeology of culture contact and colonialism, the archaeology of gender, the archaeology of cultural landscapes, and basic principles of archaeological method and theory. In years past, as a visiting assistant professor at the University of Oklahoma and as a graduate student instructor at the University of North Carolina, at Warren Wilson College, and at Western Piedmont Community College, he also has taught general anthropology, archaeological ceramics, and archaeological field schools. [Rodning, Christopher B. 2008 Christoper B. Rodning's Homepage. Electronic document, http://www.tulane.edu/~crodning/index.html, accessed April 11, 2008.]

References

elected Works

Beck, Robin A., Jr., Moore, David G., Rodning, Christopher B.

-(2006) Identifying Fort San Juan: A Sixteenth-Century Spanish Occupation at the Berry Site, North Carolina. "Southeastern Archaeology" 25:65-77.

Moore, David G., Beck, Robin A., Jr., Rodning, Christopher B.

-(2004) Joara and Fort San Juan: Culture Contact at the Edge of the World (Web Gallery Article). "Antiquity" 78(299).

Rodning, Christopher B.

-(2001) Mortuary Ritual and Gender Ideology in Protohistoric Southwestern North Carolina. In "Archaeological Studies of Gender in the Southeastern United States", edited by Jane M. Eastman and Christopher B. Rodning, pp. 77-100. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.

-(2001) Architecture and Landscape in Late Prehistoric and Protohistoric Western North Carolina. In "Archaeology of the Appalachian Highlands", edited by Lynne P. Sullivan and Susan C. Prezzano, pp. 238-249. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.

-(2002) The Townhouse at Coweeta Creek. "Southeastern Archaeology" 21:10-20.

-(2002) Reconstructing the Coalescence of Cherokee Communities in Southern Appalachia. In "The Transformation of the Southeastern Indians, 1540-1760", edited by Robbie Ethridge and Charles Hudson, pages 155-175. University Press of Mississippi, Jackson.

-(2002) William Bartram and the Archaeology of the Appalachian Summit. In "Between Contacts and Colonies: Archaeological Perspectives on the Protohistoric Southeast", edited by Cameron B. Wesson and Mark A. Rees, pages 67-89. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.

-(2003) Water Travel and Mississippian Settlement at Bottle Creek. In "Bottle Creek: A Pensacola Culture Site in South Alabama", edited by Ian W. Brown, pp. 194-204. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.

-(2007) Building and Rebuilding Cherokee Houses and Townhouses in Southwestern North Carolina. In "The Durable House: Architecture, Ancestors, and Origins", edited by Robin A. Beck, Jr., pp. 464-484. Southern Illinois University, Center for Archaeological Investigations Occasional Paper 35, Carbondale.

-(in prep) Domestic Houses at Coweeta Creek. "Southeastern Archaeology". (Under Review)

-(in prep) Mounds, Myths, and Cherokee Townhouses in Southwestern North Carolina. "American Antiquity". (Pending Publication)

Riggs, Brett H., Rodning, Christopher B.

-(2002) Cherokee Ceramic Traditions in Southwestern North Carolina, ca. AD 1400-2002. "North Carolina Archaeology" 51:34-54.

Rodning, Christopher B., Wilson, Gregory D.

-(2002) Boiling, Baking, and Pottery Breaking: A Functional Analysis of Ceramic Vessels from Coweeta Creek. "Southeastern Archaeology" 21:29-35.

Rodning, Christopher B., VanDerwarker, Amber M.

-(2002) Revisiting Coweeta Creek: Reconstructing Ancient Cherokee Lifeways in Southwestern North Carolina. "Southeastern Archaeology" 21:1-9.

External links

Tulane University:
* http://www.tulane.edu/

Tulane University - Department of Anthropology:
* http://anthropology.tulane.edu/

Tulane University - Homepage by Chris Rodning:
* http://www.tulane.edu/~crodning/

Harvard University:
* http://www.harvard.edu/

Harvard University - Department of Anthropology:
* http://anthropology.harvard.edu/

University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill:
* http://www.unc.edu/

University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill - Research Laboratories of Archaeology:
* http://rla.unc.edu/

Exploring Joara Archaeology Project
* http://www.warren-wilson.edu/~arch/

Big Horn National Forest Site:
* http://www.fs.fed.us/r2/bighorn/

Ayr Mount Plantation Site:
* http://www.ayrmount.com/