Fraser D. Neiman


Fraser D. Neiman Lecturer Ph.D. Yale 1990 Archaeology Lab, Monticello
My current research focuses on the archaeology of the greater Chesapeake region, from its initial settlement by Europeans and Africans to the Civil War. In addition to teaching in the anthropology and architectural history departments at UVA, I am director of archaeology at Monticello, where my department is in the midst of several long-term research projects. Among them is the Monticello Plantation Archaeological Survey, a multidisciplinary initiative designed to reveal trajectories of change in settlement and land use on Thomas Jeffersons Albemarle County plantation, along with their ecological, economic, and social causes and consequences. Monticello's archaeology department is also home to the Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery, a collaborative venture that uses the web to facilitate sharing and comparative analysis of fine-grained archaeological data from sites occupied by enslaved Africans and their descendents in North America and the Caribbean. Among the topics I'm pursuing in my Chesapeake research are the implications of changing demography and labor processes for social relationships among enslaved people and slave owners. During the 18th and early-19th centuries, local ecology and the slave-based Atlantic economy pulled many Chesapeake slave owners toward economic diversification and agricultural intensification. These shifts in turn provided new possibilities for and imposed new constraints on enslaved plantation workers, affecting access to material and social resources. Patterns of change in slave housing and settlement document the strategies they invented to take advantage of the possibilities and cope with the constraints. Evolutionary approaches to human learning, cognition, and behavior provide the theoretical inspiration for much of my empirical work. Theoretical topics of particular interest include style, consumption, and cooperation. I'm also interested in quantitative techniques, particularly multivariate and spatial data analysis. Specializations Colonial North America, vernacular architecture, archaeological theory, quantitative techniques, Courses Methods in Historical Archaeology, Archaeological Perspectives on Chesapeake Slavery, Analytical Methods in Archaeology, Archaeological Method and Theory, Monticello-UVA Field School. (You can see my course syllabi on my Web Site.) Selected Publications in press - (with Ann F. Ramenofsky and Christopher D. Peirce) Measuring Time, Population, And Residential Mobility From The Surface At San Marcos Pueblo, North Central New Mexico. American Antiquity. 2008 - The lost world of Monticello: an evolutionary perspective. Journal of Anthropological Research 64 (2):161-193 2007 - (with Karen Y. Smith) Frequency seriation, correspondence analysis, and Woodland-Period ceramic assemblage variation in the Deep South. Southeastern Archaeology 26 (1):47-72. 2007 - (with James Whittenburg, Carter Hudgins, Willie Graham, and Carl Lounsbury). Inheritance and adaptation: archaeological and architectural perspective on the 17th century Chesapeake. William and Mary Quarterly 64 (3):451-520. 2000 - Coincidence or causal connection? The relationship between Thomas Jefferson’s visits to Monticello and Sally Hemings’s conceptions. William and Mary Quarterly 56(1), 198-210. 1997 - Conspicuous consumption as wasteful social advertising: A Darwinian perspective on spatial patterns in Classic Maya terminal monument dates. In Rediscovering Darwin: Evolutionary Theory in Archaeological Explanation, edited by G. Clarke and M. Barton, pp. 267-290. Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association, 7. 1995 - Stylistic variation in evolutionary perspective: Inferences from decorative diversity and inter-assemblage distance in Illinois Woodland Ceramic assemblages. American Antiquity 60(1):1-37. 1993 - Temporal patterning in house plans from the 17th-century Chesapeake. In The Archaeology of Seventeenth-Century Virginia, edited by T. Reinhart and D. Pogue, pp. 251-284. Council of Virginia Archaeologists: Archaeological Society of Virginia Special Publication 30, Richmond.

Lecturer
Ph.D. Yale 1990

Archaeology Lab, Monticello

My current research focuses on the archaeology of the greater Chesapeake region, from its initial settlement by Europeans and Africans to the Civil War. In addition to teaching in the anthropology and architectural history departments at UVA, I am director of archaeology at Monticello, where my department is in the midst of several long-term research projects. Among them is the Monticello Plantation Archaeological Survey, a multidisciplinary initiative designed to reveal trajectories of change in settlement and land use on Thomas Jeffersons Albemarle County plantation, along with their ecological, economic, and social causes and consequences. Monticello's archaeology department is also home to the Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery, a collaborative venture that uses the web to facilitate sharing and comparative analysis of fine-grained archaeological data from sites occupied by enslaved Africans and their descendents in North America and the Caribbean.

Among the topics I'm pursuing in my Chesapeake research are the implications of changing demography and labor processes for social relationships among enslaved people and slave owners. During the 18th and early-19th centuries, local ecology and the slave-based Atlantic economy pulled many Chesapeake slave owners toward economic diversification and agricultural intensification. These shifts in turn provided new possibilities for and imposed new constraints on enslaved plantation workers, affecting access to material and social resources. Patterns of change in slave housing and settlement document the strategies they invented to take advantage of the possibilities and cope with the constraints.

Evolutionary approaches to human learning, cognition, and behavior provide the theoretical inspiration for much of my empirical work. Theoretical topics of particular interest include style, consumption, and cooperation. I'm also interested in quantitative techniques, particularly multivariate and spatial data analysis.

Specializations

Colonial North America, vernacular architecture, archaeological theory, quantitative techniques,

Courses

Methods in Historical Archaeology, Archaeological Perspectives on Chesapeake Slavery, Analytical Methods in Archaeology, Archaeological Method and Theory, Monticello-UVA Field School. (You can see my course syllabi on my Web Site.)

Selected Publications

in press - (with Ann F. Ramenofsky and Christopher D. Peirce) Measuring Time, Population, And Residential Mobility From The Surface At San Marcos Pueblo, North Central New Mexico. American Antiquity.
2008 - The lost world of Monticello: an evolutionary perspective. Journal of Anthropological Research 64 (2):161-193
2007 - (with Karen Y. Smith) Frequency seriation, correspondence analysis, and Woodland-Period ceramic assemblage variation in the Deep South. Southeastern Archaeology 26 (1):47-72.
2007 - (with James Whittenburg, Carter Hudgins, Willie Graham, and Carl Lounsbury). Inheritance and adaptation: archaeological and architectural perspective on the 17th century Chesapeake. William and Mary Quarterly 64 (3):451-520.
2000 - Coincidence or causal connection? The relationship between Thomas Jefferson’s visits to Monticello and Sally Hemings’s conceptions. William and Mary Quarterly 56(1), 198-210.
1997 - Conspicuous consumption as wasteful social advertising: A Darwinian perspective on spatial patterns in Classic Maya terminal monument dates. In Rediscovering Darwin: Evolutionary Theory in Archaeological Explanation, edited by G. Clarke and M. Barton, pp. 267-290. Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association, 7.
1995 - Stylistic variation in evolutionary perspective: Inferences from decorative diversity and inter-assemblage distance in Illinois Woodland Ceramic assemblages. American Antiquity 60(1):1-37.
1993 - Temporal patterning in house plans from the 17th-century Chesapeake. In The Archaeology of Seventeenth-Century Virginia, edited by T. Reinhart and D. Pogue, pp. 251-284. Council of Virginia Archaeologists: Archaeological Society of Virginia Special Publication 30, Richmond.