During Black History Month, the Department of Archaeology will be regularly releasing a news item relating to the life and work of a black archaeologist. Watch this space for more articles as they are released.
Theresa A. Singleton
1952-
Dr Singleton is a professor of anthropology at Syracuse University in upstate New York. She received her doctoral degree from the University of Florida, and her dissertation was focused on the comparative experiences of enslaved individuals from a rice plantation to that of a cotton plantation on St. Simon's Island. She is widely published, and her work spans from the archaeology of slavery in the Americas to the wider reception and questions surrounding public archaeology as it relates to the African American experience.
Dr Singleton was the Pitt Professor of American History and Institutions, at the University of Cambridge, 2021-22, and curator of historical archaeology at the Smithsonian Institute from 1988-2000. She was awarded the J.C. Harrington Medal in Historial Archaeology in 2014.
Learn more using the links below:
Theresa A. Singleton – Syracuse University
J. C. Harrington Medal in Historical Archaeology – Theresa A. Singleton
The worlds the enslaved created or forced to endure. Balancing archaeological narratives of slavery
Contributed by Katie Chin-Quee
Vivian A. Laughlin
Dr. Vivian A. Laughlin is an early career researcher in the archaeology of ancient West Asia and Egypt, with a research focus on the cults of Serapis and Isis in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, the focus of her PhD. Her forthcoming publications include a book on this topic and articles on broader issues including EDI in archaeology. Dr. Laughlin came to archaeology as a second career after over 16 years as a paralegal, with a BA in Business Management and Psychology from DePaul University, Chicago. She gained an MA in Intercultural Religious and Cross-Cultural Studies with a minor in Biblical Studies from Catholic Theological Union, Chicago, and her PhD in Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology and Anthropology with a minor in Early Church History from Andrews University, Michigan in 2019.
Dr. Laughlin was awarded a Fullbright Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2019 to conduct further research on the cults of Isis and Serapis in the Levant (during the outbreak of the pandemic) and in 2021 was made Andrew W. Mellon/Humanities in Leadership Learning Series (HILLS) Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Religious Studies at Case Western Reserve University. She is Chair of the Ancient Near Eastern Interest Group of the Archaeological Institute of America and sits on their Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity and Digital Technology Committees. As well as her research on Hellenistic and Roman religion, she is the principle investigator of two digital archaeology and heritage projects on Aqaba and Tell Nimrin.
womenalsoknowhistory.com - Vivian A. Laughlin
Academia.edu - Vivian A. Laughlin
Cheikh Anta Diop
1923-1986
Cheikh Anta Diop was a polymath Senegalese scholar, who was a political activist, physicist, historian and archaeologist. He is best known for his work on pre-Colonial pan-African culture and Afrocentrist approach to history. After completing doctoral studies at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1960, he returned to Senegal and the University of Dakar, where he was appointed as a research fellow in the Institut Fondamental d'Afrique Noire. Here in 1965 he founded and ran what was the second radiocarbon dating laboratory in Africa, and is now the longest running one in the continent. The laboratory has contributed to improving the chronology of prehistoric cultures across west Africa.
Cheikh Anta Diop as a university student in Paris in the late 1940s [Public domain]
Diop published widely in French and Wolof, including historical and archaeological works, but always with a focus on African self-empowerment and identity. In 1980 he was appointed professor of ancient history at Dakar University. He died in 1986, and Dakar University was renamed Cheikh Anta Diop University in his honour in 1987.
Diop’s sample preparation apparatus at the Dakar Radiocarbon Laboratory. [Andrew Millard]
Contributed by Dr. Andrew Millard.
Shadreck Chirikure
1978-
Shadreck Chirikure is a professor of archaeology at the University of Oxford. He received his BA from the University of Zimbabwe, and MA and PhD (2005) from UCL (Institute of Archaeology). He directed the Archaeological Material Laboratory at the University of Capetown, with research specialisms in mining, metallurgy, pyrotechnology and society in sub-Saharan Africa. He has published monographs on that topic and has edited larger volumes on African archaeology and the history of technology. Embedded in his work is the conceptualisation of technologies in Africa and how this frames Africa and its role in world history and current global dynamics. He is currently working on two World Heritage Sites: The Great Zimbabwe and Mapungubwe.
View of the Great Enclosure and valley at the Great Zimbabwe site.
Among other honours, Prof. Chirikure has held a Mandela-Harvard Fellowship (2012) and a Commonwealth Universities Fellowship, Oxford (2017). He currently holds a British Academy Global Professorship at Oxford, and he is an Honorary Research Associate at the McDonald Institute for Archaeology Research, Cambridge. He has twice won the Antiquity prize for his publications.
The British Academy: Shadreck Chirikure
University of Oxford: Shadreck Chirikure
Podcast - Why is contemporary Africa poor: Insights from archaeology and deep history
Maria Franklin
Maria Franklin is a Professor at the University of Texas, Austin, in the Department of Anthropology and the Center for African and African-American Studies. Her research has been pioneering in blending feminist and civil rights theory and activism, exploring Black history and the role of Black women enslaved in the USA. She has published widely on topics including the households of enslaved people in Colonial Williamsburg, broader essays on approach and practice in archaeology, and on her major project at a key post-emancipation African American freedman-owned farm in Texas.
Professor Franklin is a member of the editorial board of American Antiquity. She is an important member of a ground-breaking generation of Black archaeologists that can be credited with raising up a new generation now pushing boundaries through the Society of Black Archaeologists, and took part in the phenomenon that was the Archaeology in the Time of Black Lives Matter Webinar Panel in June of 2020.
Researchgate: Maria Franklin
Preserving the voices of the Antioch Colony
Ransom and Sarah Williams Farmstead Excavation
John Wesley Gilbert
1863-1923
John Wesley Gilbert was an African American Classical Archaeologist, who made significant contributions to the discovery and mapping of the Greek city-state of Eretria on the island of Euboea. He earned his Masters degree from Brown University in 1891 at the age of 28, the first Black person to earn such a degree from the institution. He was also the first Black person to be a student at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens. He spent his career subsequently teaching ancient languages and ministering in the Methodist church.
Wesley was in his time and is now considered by some to be a controversial figure who adopted the culture and trappings of White supremacy, while others see him as an inspiration, and others both. In October 2020, the Trustees of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens dedicated a Student Centre in his name.
Lee, J.W.I 2022, The First Black Archaeologist. A Life of John Wesley Gilbert. OUP.
Archaeologists you should know: John Wesley Gilbert
The John Wesley Gilbert Room
Black past: John Wesley Gilbert
Where are the black archaeologists?
