Meet Erin
Dr. Erin Nelson, originally from Albany, MO, is a specialist in the pre-contact archaeology of the southeastern United States. She received her B.A., Anthropology, University of Missouri (2001), her M.A., Anthropology, University of Mississippi (2006), & her Ph.D., Anthropology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2016). Her dissertation focused on the archaeology of Parchman Place, in Coahoma County, Mississippi. Her research examines the material remains of foodways, ceramics, monumental and domestic architecture, and the organization of space to understand how past people negotiated issues of kinship, group identity, leadership, and worldview in the context of their communities. Nelson is the author of Authority, Autonomy, and the Archaeology of a Mississippian Community (University Press of Florida, 2020), and is the 2023 recipient of the Southeastern Archaeology Conference’s Rising Scholar Award.
Alumni Spotlight
What are your primary research interests?
I'm interested in the ways people in the past built community through everyday practices as well as special, non-everyday events. What people eat and drink, how they organize space, how they build and modify landscapes, and what they make and throw away says a lot about the kind of communities people live in, now and in the past.
I'm interested in the ways people in the past built community through everyday practices as well as special, non-everyday events. What people eat and drink, how they organize space, how they build and modify landscapes, and what they make and throw away says a lot about the kind of communities people live in, now and in the past.
What motivated you to become an archaeologist or how did you become an archaeologist?
It was totally accidental! I was casting about for a major during my sophomore year of college after deciding I didn't want to be a doctor after all. I enrolled in an anthropology course, which forever changed my perspective on what it means to be human. Among other things, it gave me a long-term historical perspective on being human I'd never gotten from another class. I signed up for a field school that summer and was immediately hooked - I loved working outside and I loved the intellectual challenge of trying to understand someone's way of life from the small bits of things they left behind.
It was totally accidental! I was casting about for a major during my sophomore year of college after deciding I didn't want to be a doctor after all. I enrolled in an anthropology course, which forever changed my perspective on what it means to be human. Among other things, it gave me a long-term historical perspective on being human I'd never gotten from another class. I signed up for a field school that summer and was immediately hooked - I loved working outside and I loved the intellectual challenge of trying to understand someone's way of life from the small bits of things they left behind.
What is the most interesting archaeological site on which you’ve worked?
That's a hard question to answer because every site is unique, and they all have something to say. I do find that the longer I work at a site, the more invested I become in telling the stories of the people who once lived there. In that sense, Parchman Place (in the Yazoo Basin of Mississippi) and Feltus (in the Natchez Bluffs; also, in Mississippi) are really interesting and important to me. Both sites are organized with earthen mounds arranged around a plaza, but the way people used them couldn't have been more different. Parchman Place was a Mississippian town where people lived and worked together year-round. Feltus was a place where Coles Creek people gathered at certain times of the year to eat and drink together, bury their dead, and practice religious ceremonies. The sites look so similar to one another that you'd never know how different their stories are without spending a lot of time doing archaeology! I have plans to begin work soon at two mound sites in lower Alabama - Bottle Creek and Dauphin Island - that are key for understanding Mississippian lifeways on the Gulf Coast and I can't wait to tell their stories as well.
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That's a hard question to answer because every site is unique, and they all have something to say. I do find that the longer I work at a site, the more invested I become in telling the stories of the people who once lived there. In that sense, Parchman Place (in the Yazoo Basin of Mississippi) and Feltus (in the Natchez Bluffs; also, in Mississippi) are really interesting and important to me. Both sites are organized with earthen mounds arranged around a plaza, but the way people used them couldn't have been more different. Parchman Place was a Mississippian town where people lived and worked together year-round. Feltus was a place where Coles Creek people gathered at certain times of the year to eat and drink together, bury their dead, and practice religious ceremonies. The sites look so similar to one another that you'd never know how different their stories are without spending a lot of time doing archaeology! I have plans to begin work soon at two mound sites in lower Alabama - Bottle Creek and Dauphin Island - that are key for understanding Mississippian lifeways on the Gulf Coast and I can't wait to tell their stories as well.
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What is your favorite thing about being an archaeologist?
I really like the fact that every archaeological site presents a new and different challenge for interpretation. I once overheard a veteran archaeologist tell a field school student, "I've never seen the same thing twice," and it's true! And because every situation is different, everyone from students to volunteers to experienced archaeologists can contribute to understanding a site. Where the experienced person might try to fit what they see into their existing framework, a novice sees the same thing with fresh eyes, which may be just what is needed in order to understand it better. And archaeology is inherently social - it's great to be part of a team working toward a common goal in the field or the lab.
I really like the fact that every archaeological site presents a new and different challenge for interpretation. I once overheard a veteran archaeologist tell a field school student, "I've never seen the same thing twice," and it's true! And because every situation is different, everyone from students to volunteers to experienced archaeologists can contribute to understanding a site. Where the experienced person might try to fit what they see into their existing framework, a novice sees the same thing with fresh eyes, which may be just what is needed in order to understand it better. And archaeology is inherently social - it's great to be part of a team working toward a common goal in the field or the lab.
Do you have advice for people who want to pursue a career in archaeology?
Fieldwork, fieldwork, fieldwork. Get as much fieldwork as you can under your belt at as many different sites, in as many different time periods, and in as many different places as you can.
Fieldwork, fieldwork, fieldwork. Get as much fieldwork as you can under your belt at as many different sites, in as many different time periods, and in as many different places as you can.