Archaeology Program at Sweet Briar College

Archaeology Faculty

Claudia Chang
Professor of Anthropology
Acting Coordinator of the Archaeology Program
B.A., Prescott College
M.A., Ph.D., State University of New York at Binghamton

cchang@sbc.edu Website: talgar.sbc.edu
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Professor Chang has conducted archaeological and ethnographic field research on foraging and pastoral peoples in North America, Greece, and Kazakhstan. She was a Fulbright Scholar in 1994-95 and the recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship in 1997. She taught anthropology at The Kazakh State University. She is co-editor of Pastoralists at the Periphery: Herders in a Capitalist World (University of Arizona Press, 1994). She has recently published a monograph on Bronze and Iron Age Archaeology of Southeastern Kazakhstan. In addition she has published book chapters and articles on Eurasian archaeology. In 1997 Dr. Chang received a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to conduct an archaeological project in Kazakhstan that has involved Sweet Briar students both at the site and through an internet course taught from the field.

Lynn Rainville
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
B.A., Dartmouth College
M.A., Ph.D., University of Michigan

lrainville[at]sbc.edu Website: www.faculty.sbc.edu/lrainville

Professor Rainville has conducted archaeological field research on complex societies in Turkey, Syria, India, Mexico, and North America. She has taught anthropology at the University of Michigan, Dartmouth College, and the University of Virginia. She has published articles and monographs on Mesopotamian cities and households, New England mortuary ideology, ante-bellum plantations in Virginia, and slave cemeteries. Her recent research on the Assyrian Empire and Enslaved Communities in Virginia is supported by grants from National Endownment for the Humanities, Wenner-Gren, the NSF, the American Research Institute in Turkey, and the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. Both projects involve Sweet Briar students: in identifying and analyzing 5,000 year-old animal bones (to reconstruct Mesopotamian diets) and in locating and mapping slave cabins and cemeteries on the Sweet Briar campus.

Archaeological Opportunities Abroad
Both Dr. Chang and Dr. Rainville direct archaeological projects abroad. Advanced archaeology minors should apply directly to the faculty member to be considered as a member of the team, be it on-campus (conducting research) or abroad (excavating). Please click on the images to visit their on-line research sites.
Dr. Chang directs The Kazakh-American Talgar Project on the Eurasian steppe in the Republic of Kazakhstan
Dr. Rainville is the Assistant Director of Ziyaret Tepe (an Assyrian Capital in SE Turkey)
Archaeological Opportunities in Virginia
Historic African American Mortuary Traditions
African American Heritage at Sweet Briar
Zoo-Archaeology and Taphonomic Processes
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