Ph.D. 2006 University of Michigan
Assistant Professor
Heroy Hall 419
(214) 768-2915
seiselt@smu.edu
- Culture contact and historical archaeology
- Hohokam and Athapaskan prehistory
- Interethnic and gendered exchange
- Ethnicity and migration
- Archaeology of childhood
- Ceramic geochemistry and archaeometry
- Tribal and community-based archaeology
- Southern Athapaskan
- Hispanic
- Pueblo and Uto-Aztecan Peoples
Courses Taught
ANTH 1321 - Freshman Seminar
ANTH 2363 - The Science of Our Past: An Introduction to Archaeology
ANTH 2380 - Contemporary Archaeology: Controversies and Ethics
ANTH 3318 - Prehistory of the American Southwest
ANTH 5681/5981 - Field Methods in Archaeology (taught at our Ft. Burgwin campus)
ANTH 6033 - Proseminar on Ethics in Archaeology
ANTH 6301 - Principles of Archaeology
ANTH 6302 - Statistics in Anthropology
ANTH 7321 - Ceramic Analysis for Archaeologists
Recent Happenings
Dr. Eiselt is currently on sabbatical and will return to teaching this summer at the Taos Field School. She will be back on the main campus this fall.
Bio
Sunday joined Southern Methodist University as a Visiting Assistant Professor after receiving her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 2006. With a specialization in Archaeology, she has studied in numerous geographic regions including Mexico, the U.S. Southwest, California, and the Great Basin. Her research interests include archaeological ceramics and pottery manufacturing, the historical archaeology of Native People of the Southwest, and the effects of Colonialism on indigenous cultural identities and traditions in the Spanish Borderlands region. Some of her other interests include Archaeic Period and Historic Period Rock Art as these relate to symbolic landscape ideologies and oral history.
Over the past nine years, she has worked with numerous micaceous potters in New Mexico to study traditional clay prospecting, harvesting, and production techniques, and she has conducted an extensive micaceous clay source survey with the help of these potters. This survey included geochemical testing of clay source and ceramic samples to reveal the complex development of New Mexico's micaceous pottery tradition from A.D. 1300 to the present, as well as the role of female labor in sustaining household economies.
This work includes a special interest in the transformation of micaceous pottery from a humble culinary ware -- traded largely between rural women during the historic era -- to its spectacular entry into the modern Art Market during the late 1990s. A special interest in ceramics and archaeology has allowed her to examine issues of multiculturalism in the Spanish borderlands including the impact of colonization on the Jicarilla Apache and other mounted horse nomads of the region from an archaeological perspective. As one of the leading experts on micaceous pottery of the northern Rio Grande, she has assisted in cases involved Pueblo rights to traditional clay pits threatened by industrial mining.
Selected Publications
B. Sunday Eiselt
Becoming White Clay: A History and Archaeology of Jicarilla Apache Enclavement University of Utah Press. (under contract)
Michelle Hegmon and B. Sunday Eiselt (eds).
2005 Engaged Anthropology: Research Essays on North American Archaeology, Ethnobotany, and Museology. Anthropological Papers No. 94. University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology, Ann Arbor.
B. Sunday Eiselt
Upland-Lowland Corridors and Historic Jicarilla Apache Settlement in the Northern Rio Grande. In, From Mountain Top to Valley Bottom: Understanding Past Land Use in the Northern Rio Grande Valley, New Mexico, edited by Bradley Vierra. University of Utah Press. (under review)
B. Sunday Eiselt and J. Andrew Darling
Vecino Economics: Gendered Economy and Micaceous Pottery Consumption in Ninetenth-Century Northern New Mexico. American Antiquity. (in press)
Margaret E. Beck, Jill Onken, B. Sunday Eiselt, J. Andrew Darling, and Jeffrey R. Ferguson
Geomorphological Setting and Native American Acquisition of Buff-firing Ceramic Clays in the Lower and Middle Gila River Valley, Arizona. Journal of Archaeological Science. (in press)
B. Sunday Eiselt, Rachel Popelka-Filcoff, J. Andrew Darling, Michael Glascock
2011 Hematite Sources and Archaeological Ochres from Hohokam and O'odham Sites in Central Arizona: An Experiment in Type Identification and Characterization. Journal of Archaeological Science Vol. 38:3019-3028.
B. Sunday Eiselt
2009 Americanist Archaeologies: 2008 in Review. American Anthropologist 111(2).
B. Sunday Eiselt
2009 The Jicarilla Apaches and the Archaeology of the Taos Region. In, Between the Mountains - Beyond the Mountains: Papers in Honor of Paul R. Williams, edited by Emily Brown, Karen Armstrong, David M. Brugge, Carol Condie. Papers of the Archaeological Society of New Mexico Vol. 35, Albuquerque.
J. Andrew Darling and B. Sunday Eiselt
2009 Trails Research in the Gila Bend Area. In Trails, Rock Features, and Homesteading in the Gila Bend Area, edited by John L. Czarzasty, Katherine Peterson, Glen E. Rice, J. Andrew Darling. Anthropological Research Papers No. 4. University of Arizona Press, Tucson Gila River Indian Community, Sacaton, Arizona.
B. Sunday Eiselt and Richard I. Ford
2007 Sangre de Cristo Micaceous Clays: Geochemical Indices for Source and Raw Material Distribution, Past and Present. Kiva, The Journal of Southwest Archaeology and History Vol. 73(2).
B. Sunday Eiselt and Richard I. Ford
2006 Analysis of Micaceous Clay Sources in the Northern Rio Grande. Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, Vol. 101.
Gary Haynes and B. Sunday Eiselt
1999 The Power of Pleistocene Hunter-Gatherers: Forward and Backward Searching for Evidence About Mammoth Extinction. In, Humans and Other Catastrophes. In Patterns and Causes of Late Quaternary Extinctions, edited by Ross MacPhee. Advances in Vertebrate Paleobiology. Plenum Press, New York.
B. Sunday Eiselt
1997 Fish Remains from the Spirit Cave Paleofecal Material: 9,400 Year Old Evidence for Great Basin Utilization of Small Fishes. Nevada Historical Quarterly 40(1): 117-139.
Memberships and Affiliations:
Research Collaborator, Gila River Indian Community, Cultural Resources Management Program
Research Affiliate, Mercyhurst College, Mercyhurst Archaeological Institute
Member: Society for American Archaeology