Katherine Parker

Assistant Professor, University of Mary Washington

Biography

Preferred pronouns: she/her

Subdiscipline: Archaeology

Katherine Parker was born and raised near Greenville, South Carolina, where she graduated from the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities with a concentration in Creative Writing in 2011. She completed her B.A. in Anthropology with distinction in Archaeology at the University of South Carolina in 2014. Her undergraduate thesis research examined the effect of intrasite development and performance of power on the evolution of Mississippian ceremonial mound function through time. As an undergraduate, Katherine worked for both for the university as a teaching assistant as well as the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology (SCIAA) as a field, lab, and conservation lab technician. Katherine later worked professionally in cultural resource management (CRM) across the Southeastern United States for four years following the completion of her undergraduate degree, where she gained experience in writing and producing technical reports, conducting archival research, overseeing field and lab projects to completion, and supervising the implementation of an archaeological curation standard for recovered metal artifacts. She has supervisory and technician experience across all phases of contract archaeological survey in Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Virginia, and Indiana for both public and private sector entities.

Katherine began her graduate studies at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville in 2018 under the direction of Dr. Barbara Heath. Her dissertation research explores the relationship between moonshine production and plantation power dynamics in the Postbellum South Carolina Lowcountry through the intersection of identity, memory, heritage, and landscape. Using archaeological investigation, archival records, and spatial analysis, she examines the political economy of clandestine distillers who turn to moonshining following the collapse of the industrial plantation system and the role of moonshine in naturalizing White heritage and identity constructs. Her other ongoing research projects include using GPR to collaborate with community cemetery documentation efforts and critical studies of archaeological modeling and practice.

 

Curriculum Vitae

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Research

Historical Archaeology, Southeastern US, Mid-Atlantic Region, Landscapes, Heritage Studies, Historical Memory, Political Economy, African Diaspora, Archaeology of the New South, Conflict Archaeology, Clandestine Economies, Moonshine, Spatial Analysis and Patterning, Remote Sensing, Archaeological Geophysics, Archaeological Practice and Ethics, Cemetery Documentation, Climate Change

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Education

B.A., University of South Carolina. Anthropology. 2014.

• Distinction in Archaeology
• Magna Cum Laude

Ph.D., University of Tennessee, Anthropology. 2023

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Professional Service

American Anthropological Association, Society for Historical Archaeology, Society for American Archaeology, The Southern Historical Association, Southeastern Archaeological Conference, Middle Atlantic Archaeological Conference, Archaeological Society of South Carolina

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Awards and Recognitions

2022 Society for Historical Archaeology Jamie C. Brandon Student Paper Prize Runner-Up (lead author)

2020 DAACS Material Culture Training and Fellowship Awardee (postponed due to COVID-19 pandemic)

6th Annual Society for Historical Archaeology Ethics Bowl Championship Team

2013 University of South Carolina Dirty Trowel Award

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Publications

Peer-Reviewed Articles and Manuscripts

Parker, Katherine G.

(In Review)      The Dirt Ceiling: An Overview of Gender Disparities in South Carolina Cultural Resource Management Reporting. Submitted to Southeastern Archaeology.

 

*Cochran, Lindsey E., Sarah E. Miller, Heather Wholey, Katherine G. Parker, Steven Filoromo, Meg Gaillard, Emily Jane Murray, Allyson Ropp, Carole Nash, Karen Y. Smith, Sara Ayers-Rigsby, Ramie A. Gougeon, McKenna Litynski, William Lees, David G. Anderson, Laura Seifert, Nicholas Arnhold, Lori Lee, Rachel Kangas, and Nicole Grinnan

(In Review)      Building a Foundation to Unify the Language of Climate Change in Historical Archaeology. Submitted to Historical Archaeology Thematic Issue: Historical Archaeology’s Response to the Climate Crisis.

 

*Parker, Katherine G., Jordan Schaefer, Brigid J. Ogden, and Rebecca R. Webster

(In Review)      Climate Change and the Consequences of Underrepresentation in the Archaeological Record. Submitted to Historical Archaeology Thematic Issue: Historical Archaeology’s Response to the Climate Crisis.

Non-Refereed Articles and Manuscripts

*Parker, Katherine G.

(In Review)      Excavating Moonshine in Hell Hole Swamp: An Overview of the FMNF Still Sites Project. Submitted to South Carolina Antiquities.

 

Znachko, Caroline, Armando Anzellini, Katherine G. Parker, and Christa Hicks

2022     Climate Change: Anthropological Perspectives and Human Responses. University of Tennessee Department of Anthropology Visiting Lecture Research Series 1.

 

Heath, Barbara J., Rebecca J. Webster, and Katherine G. Parker

2020     Discovering a Palisade: Indigenous-Anglo Interactions In the Seventeenth-Century Northern Neck. The Bulletin of the Northumberland County Historical Society 57:5-23.

 

Carter, Katherine G.

2015     Review of A Guide to Confederate Monuments in South Carolina: Passing the Silent Cup by Robert S. Seigler. South Carolina Antiquities 47:84-85.

 

Carter, Katherine G.

2014     The Temple Mound: Re-envisioning Chronology and Function of Mound F on the Angel Site (12VG1). Undergraduate thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of South Carolina, Columbia. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.20909.74726