The Rice Anthropology department has a long history of research, teaching, and student field experiences in multiple parts of Africa, and more recently in southeastern Texas and the Caribbean. Rice archaeologists have led research on complex and urban societies in West Africa (Mali, Senegal) and coastal eastern Africa (Kenya, Tanzania); deep-time human origins and the origins of African foodways such as pastoralism (Kenya, Tanzania); and patterns of settlement, mobility, and language shifts (Tanzania, Zambia). Rice faculty have been invested in protecting African cultural heritage and fighting illicit antiquities trafficking in Africa. In the Caribbean, Rice research focuses on the transition from slavery to freedom on the island of Dominica, exploring the intersection of race, slavery, and capitalism. Closer to home, Rice archaeologists are engaged in community-based and antiracist archaeology and the history of African-American experiences, with past projects focusing on Freedman’s Town (Houston’s Fourth Ward), and on Texas plantations such as Patton Place and Lake Jackson Plantation (Brazoria County). The African Diaspora work of our faculty includes collaboration with the Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery.
Training in the program prepares students for the practical work of the archaeologist, with specialized courses in ceramics and zooarchaeology that take advantage of the Rice Archaeology Learning Laboratory. Students learn to excavate through a field techniques course centering on community-based archaeology, most recently at the Varner-Hogg Plantation. Students can also learn field techniques through Rice’s summer field school, held in alternating locations in Africa.
The archaeology program has close ties to the Center for African and African American Studies (CAAAS) at Rice, and forms a key component of the interdisciplinary Museums and Cultural Heritage (MUCH) program. Many archaeology students also find opportunities for research in collaboration with the Texas Historical Commission and the Houston Archeological Society.