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Charles, Douglas K.


Chair, Archaeology Program
Archaeology Program
860.685.3266
Exley Science Center 301

Director of Collections, Archaeology Program
Archaeology Program
860.685.3266
Exley Science Center 301

Professor of Anthropology
Anthropology Department
860.685.3266
Anthropology 21

Professor, Archaeology Program
Archaeology Program
860.685.3266
Exley Science Center 301

BA University of Chicago
MA Northwestern University
PHD Northwestern University
EMAIL:
dcharles@wesleyan.edu
WESLEYAN PO BOX:
 Anthropology Department
COURSES TAUGHT THIS SEMESTER:
ANTH202 - 01
ANTH110 - 01
RESEARCH INTERESTS:
My primary research interest is the development of complexity among foraging/gardening populations, with a geographic focus on Eastern North American, particularly the Illinois River valley in western Illinois. An early interest in the Archaic period (ca. 6000-3000 bp) has given way to a concentration on Middle Woodland "Hopewellian" cultures (ca. 2050-1550 bp). Much of our understanding of social and political life in this period comes from the analysis of mounds and linear earthworks concentrated at "ceremonial" gathering sites, which create a landscape of communities (consisting of shifting networks of differing size and composition) and were an integral part the complex social world of a population otherwise dispersed in small hamlets. A complete political economy of Middle Woodland societies requires investigation of the hamlets as well, and I am currently analyzing the material recovered during the ca. 1980 Smiling Dan site CRM excavation by the Center for American Archeology.

A set of secondary interests--human evolution and skeletal biology--stem from my concentration on biological anthropology in graduate school. My first academic appointment was as lecturer in the Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy in the Medical School at Northwestern University. Following that, and before coming to Wesleyan, I was the Leverhulme Visiting Fellow in the Department of Archaeology and Prehistory at the University of Sheffield, where I taught courses on mortuary archaeology and paleopathology. I am also interested in the history and theory of archaeology.
OFFICE HOURS:
Tuesdays 3-5 pm
PUBLICATIONS:
http://www.wesleyan.edu/archprog/DCcv.html