Eric Jones is anthropological archaeologist whose research interests include settlement patterns, ecology, and demography with a focus on pre-Columbian cultures of eastern North America. He is currently conducting research on the population trends and settlement ecology of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and the settlement ecology of Siouan-speaking societies in the North Carolina Piedmont from 800-1600 CE. Dr. Jones uses geographic information systems (GIS) extensively in his research and is interested in the methods and theory of spatial analyses in anthropological research. His teaching reflects his research specialties and also expands to include historic and modern Native American cultures and social issues, contact and colonialism in the Americas, and conflict and warfare in cultural contexts
2016 Jones, Eric E. Refining Our Understanding of Haudenosaunee Settlement Location Choices. In Process and Meaning in Spatial Archaeology: Investigations into Pre-Columbian Iroquoian Space and Place, edited by Eric E. Jones and John L. Creese, pp. 145–170, University Press Colorado, Boulder.
- This course surveys the archaeology of North America, excluding Mesoamerica. We will trace the archaeological history of Native American societies from their origins in Eurasia over 15,000 years ago to contact with Europeans. The objectives of the course are to familiarize students with the wide range of human adaptations that prevailed over time and space, to link the evolution of those adaptations to the historically known and modern surviving descendant native cultures of North America, and to provide students with a framework for understanding the archaeological methods and theories that provide this information.
ANT 390: Student-Faculty Seminar
- This capstone course is designed with 3 main goals for our majors: 1) synthesize, 2) reflect upon, and 3) operationalize their entire anthropological education to this point with the ultimate goal of preparing them for their post-graduate life. We focus on the research process and associated necessary skills. Students bring together their diverse educational experiences to explore the research process and to complete an original research project of their own.
ANT 381 & 382: Summer Archaeology Field Program in North Carolina
- These courses together instruct students on archaeological field methods as well as the prehistory and history of North Carolina. Students learn survey, excavation, mapping and recording, artifact preparation, and analysis techniques while working at various archaeological sites in the North Carolina Piedmont.
FYS: Wide World of Sport
- This first-year seminar critically examines sports from an anthropological and cross-cultural perspective. The overarching theme is how sports interact with and reflect other aspects of culture, such as politics, economics, race, class, gender, conflict, and identity. We will explore these topics by examining the role of sports in other cultures, such as the Ancient Maya and Aztec, Iroquois, Cherokee, Trobriand Islanders, Dominican, as well as our own. Information will be presented from archaeological, historic, ethnographic, and modern media sources.
Mentored Student Research
- Grayson O’Saile, 2018, “The Social Interaction Patterns of the Upper Yadkin River Valley: A Brainerd-Robinson Comparison of Ceramic Assemblages”
- Maya Krause, 2017, “A Close Analysis of the Lithic Assemblage at a Late Woodland Upper Yadkin River Valley Site (31Yd173)”
- Melissa Pouncey, 2017, ” Ceramic Analysis on Fragments Found at Redtail (31Yd173) and Three Other Yadkin River Valley Sites”
- Caroline Watson, 2017, “Non-local vs. Local Lithic Trends in the Late Woodland Upper Yadkin River Valley: Counts, Proportions, and Implications for Economic Structure”
- Hadley Scharer, 2016, Identifying Housefloors in the upper Yadkin River Valley through Analysis of Sediment Organic Content
- Charlotte Gable, 2015, “Settlement Pattern Analysis through Examination of Pit Features at Redtail Site (31Yd173), North Carolina”
Peter Ellis, 2014, “Settlement Ecology in the North Carolina Piedmont: An Investigation of the Regional, Inter-Valley, and Intra-Valley Settlement Patterns of the Piedmont Village Tradition, AD 1100-1600.
- Samantha Yaussy, 2013, “Levees, Sediments, and the Late Woodland in the North Carolina Piedmont: A Case Study of an Upper Yadkin River Site”
- Alexandra Landuyt, 2012, “Re-examining Cultural Mortuary Rituals within Living Social Structures: A Study of the Wendat Feast of the Dead”
Summer Research Fellows
- Brittany Ezer, 2017, “Creating a model for household numbers from surface site size and density”
- Lindsay Gilliland, 2017, “Examining the number of households at the Redtail site (31Yd173)”
- Hadley Scharer, 2015, “Searching for Housefloors at the Redtail site (31Yd173): An Analysis of the Spatial Distribution of Ceramic Artifacts”
- K. Pierce Wright, 2014, “Structure in the Sediment: an analysis of postmold distribution at a prehistoric site”
- Peter Ellis, 2013, “Settlement and Subsistence at a Late Woodland Village in the North Carolina Piedmont”
- Samantha Yaussy, 2012, “An Interdisciplinary Approach to Modeling Past Environments in the North Carolina Piedmont”
- Andrew Wardner, 2011, “An Archaeological Examination of the Relationship Between Late Woodland (AD 1000-1600) Settlement Size and Environmental Setting in the North Carolina
- Madison Gattis, 2010, “An Analysis of Factors Influencing the Settlement of Late Woodland Settlements in the North Carolina Piedmont”
- Jason Chinuntdet, 2016, Archaeology during Political Conflict
Charlotte Gable, 2015, Environmental Archaeology of the Southeastern US
Jacob Daunais, 2015, Lithic Classification and Archaic Stone Tool Technology of North Carolina
- Kimberly Paiz, 2013, “Conquest, Culture, and Conversion: Colonial America in the Northeast and Southwest”
- Andrew Wardner, 2013, “Visible Trends in Changing Site Preference: A Spatial Analysis of the Archaic-Woodland Transition in the American Bottom”
- Thomas Morrison, 2011, “Determining Occupation Episodes from Ceramic Surface Finds”
- Sara Frantz, 2011, “Expanding the Analysis of Factors Influencing the Settlement of Late Woodland”