Archaeology
The program in archaeology emphasizes research and training in the archaeology of the Americas. Faculty research employs a variety of methodological and theoretical approaches. Students gain practical experience in methods through a group of laboratory training courses unique to WSU and are exposed to Indigenous research methods and archaeological method and theory through a series of required courses.
Archaeology Faculty
John Blong
Interests: Hunter-gatherer adaptations and landscape use, peopling of the Americas, precontact history of Alaska, the Great Basin, and the Columbia Plateau, environmental archaeology, geoarchaeology, paleoethnobotany, lithic analysis.
Email: john.blong@wsu.edu
Andrew Duff
Interests: American Southwest; community formation; organizational transitions associated with increasing population consolidation; social and ethnic identity and migration.
Email: duff@wsu.edu
Sam Fladd
Interests: American Southwest; social identity; gender; architecture; deposition; museum anthropology; NAGPRA; decolonial museum practices; community-engaged research.
Email: samantha.fladd@wsu.edu
Colin Grier
Interests: Pacific Northwest Coast, complex hunter-gatherers, faunal analysis.
Email: cgrier@wsu.edu
Rachel A. Horowitz
Interests: Organization of technology, lithic technology, Mesoamerica, Maya, economic organization, political economy, lithic sourcing, experimental archaeology.
Email: rachel.horowitz@wsu.edu
Erin Thornton
Interests: New world societies; zooarchaeology, human osteology and stable isotope analysis.
Email: erin.thornton@wsu.edu
Emily Van Alst
Interests: Indigenous archeology, rock art, gender, ethics, ontology, community-based research, landscape, traditional ecological knowledge, ethnobotany, Native American art, Northern Plains of the United States
Email: emily.vanalst@wsu.edu
Contact Information
Main office: (509) 335-3441
Graduate Coordinator
Dr. Erin Thornton
Erin Thornton (erin.thornton@wsu.edu)
(509) 335-3441
Student Representative
Additional Information
- Archaeology MA graduate job placement
- Archaeology PhD graduate job placement
- Archaeology graduate students residing in WICHE member states, territories, and freely associated states may qualify for reduced tuition. See WICHE reduced tuition information.