Current Students
Nick Belluzzo, M.A.
Research Interests: Nick’s dissertation research investigates variation in settlement and subsistence patterns in the pre-contract Hawaiian hinterlands, with a particular focus on place-based knowledge. This research is informed by landscape approaches to the human past and leverages geospatial and geostatistical methods. Nick’s project site, the traditional land division of Manukā on Hawaiʻi Island, receives little rain or soil deposition, yet innovative adaptations allowed for centuries of settlement persistence in a remote, dryland region.
Grants:
Michael R. Halleran Dissertation Completion Fellowship, College of William & Mary
Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant (#1935468), National Science Foundation
Graduate Studies and Research Dean’s Recruitment Fellowship, College of William & Mary
Publications:
Moore, Summer and Nick Belluzzo (journal guest editors) 2020. Rethinking Hinterlands in Polynesia. Journal of Pacific Archaeology 11(1).
Belluzzo, Nick, Summer Moore, and Jennifer G. Kahn 2020. Rethinking Hinterlands in Polynesia. Journal of Pacific Archaeology 11(1): 1-9.
Claudia Escue, M.A.
Research Interests: Claudia's dissertation research focuses on sustainable and resilient taro farming in Rurutu, Austral Islands, French Polynesia. Through ethnoarchaeological research, she builds off her previous geospatial analysis of Rurutuan taro complexes, probable annual yields, and pre-contact population estimates. She is interested in how traditional Rurutuan farming practices can inform efforts towards food security and sovereignty in the present in Oceania and beyond. Claudia received her M.A. in Anthropology from William & Mary in 2022. Her M.A. is entitled Inter-Island Production Variability and Pre-Contact Population Estimates: A Geospatial Analysis of Taro Farming in Rurutu, French Polynesia
Grants:
Graduate Studies and Research Dean’s Recruitment Fellowship, College of William & Mary
Explorers Club Washington Group Exploration and Field Research Grant
Publications:
Escue, Claudia, and Jennifer G. Kahn submitted. Inter-Island Production Variability and Pre-Contact Population Estimates: A Geospatial Analysis of Taro Farming in Rurutu, French Polynesia. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology.
Kahn, Jennifer G., Abigail Buffington, Claudia Escue, and Stefani A. Crabtree 2022. Social and Ecological Factors Affect Long-Term Resilience of Voyaging Canoes in Pre-contact Eastern Polynesia: A Multiproxy Approach From the ArchaeoEcology Project. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 9:1–18.
Kahn, Jennifer G., and Claudia Escue 2021. Supplementary Materials for Society Island Human-centered Canoe-web Database. W&M ScholarWorks.
Caroline Watson, M.A.
Research Interests: For her M.A. Caroline focused on the impact of religious ideology and ontologies to settlement patterns and sociopolitical structure in the pre-contact Society Islands. She is interested in how religion and worship practices are materialized through space, place, and architecture, and how they are linked to broader sociopolitical transformations, like political centralization and the development of social inequality. Broadly, she seeks to understand how the pre-contact Mā‘ohi of the Society Islands engaged with physical landscape features to construct their social and relational worlds.
Grants:
Graduate Studies and Research Dean’s Recruitment Fellowship, College of William & Mary
Publications:
Jones, E.E., M.B. Krause. C.R. Watson, & G.N. O'Saile 2020. Economic and Social Interactions in the Piedmont Village Tradition-Mississippian Boundarylands of Southeastern North America, AD 1200-1600. American Antiquity, 85(1): 72-92.
Stephanie Barr
Research Interests: