Research Laboratories of Archaeology


Biographical Sketch: R. P. Stephen Davis, Jr.


R. P. Stephen Davis, Jr. (A.B., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 1974; M.A., University of Calgary 1976; Ph.D., University of Tennessee 1986) is currently Research Archaeologist and Associate Director of the Research Laboratories of Archaeology and Adjunct Professor of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is editor of the North Carolina Archaeological Society’s journal North Carolina Archaeology, and he has served as editor of the scholarly journal Southeastern Archaeology (1991-1993), as chairman of the North Carolina Archaeological Council, and on several other professional boards and committees. His archaeological research interests focus on early Native American history of the American South, the impact of European colonization on the native peoples of North Carolina, settlement systems and man-land relationships, and digital visualization and analysis in archaeology. Dr. Davis has authored or co-authored numerous articles, monographs, books, and other works related to these interests, including Aboriginal Settlement Patterns in the Little Tennessee River Valley (Tennessee Valley Authority, 1991), Indian Communities in the North Carolina Piedmont, A.D. 1000-1700 (co-authored with H. Trawick Ward, Research Laboratories of Archaeology, 1993), Excavating Occaneechi Town: Archaeology of an Eighteenth-Century Indian Village in North Carolina (CD-ROM co-edited with Patrick C. Livingood, H. Trawick Ward, and Vincas P. Steponaitis, University of North Carolina Press, 1998), Time Before History: The Archaeology of North Carolina (co-authored with H. Trawick Ward, University of North Carolina Press, 1999), Archaeology at Ayers Town, An Early Federal Period Community in the Catawba Nation (co-authored with Brett H. Riggs and David J. Cranford, Research Laboratories of Archaeology, 2015), and Archaeology at Ashe Ferry, Late Woodland and Middle Mississippian Period Occupations in the Lower Catawba River Valley, York County, South Carolina (co-authored with Brett H. Riggs and Mary Elizabeth Fitts, Research Laboratories of Archaeology, 2015). He has been a principal investigator on research grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society, the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, and the South Carolina Department of Transportation.


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