Jun Sunseri

Special Interests

Colonialism, Foodways, Landscapes, Historical and Contemporary Archaeology, Preservation and Heritage, Southwest US and Northern South Africa

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Research

 My research focuses on colonialism, foodways, landscapes, historical archaeology, preservation and heritage in the western US and northern South Africa. Members of my research cluster bring together complementary lines of evidence of varied types and spatial scales, including analysis of archaeological ceramic and faunal assemblages related to domestic foodways and GIS analysis of remote sensing, geophysical survey, and excavation data to reveal tactical, engineering, and ritual patterning of cultural landscapes. By placing these suites of data in dialogue with each other, we seek more robust explanations of the ways that communities expressed various aspects of their identities in different contexts and scales of social performance. Related to these research foci are the relationships between colonization and the historical transformation of indigenous landscapes, foodways, and identities.


As an archaeologist, I am especially interested in the potential for examining these issues through the analysis of material culture and technology but I think it is vitally important to approach research projects as multidimensional processes that are both archaeological and contemporary.  Close collaboration with living communities in the narrative building process and as full partners in research design and implementation is central to the work of our research cluster. Towards this end, I am committed to research with community partners and agencies in Rio Arriba County, New Mexico, Mono County, California, and Tshimbupfe Musanda in Limpopo Province.  I answer to the communities who trace their heritage to the sites where we work. As a guest, I value my partnerships with descendants, residents, and teachers interested in including ethnohistory and archaeological science in political recognition, local curriculum, and land and water rights struggles.

Representative Publications

BOOK

2018 ”Situational Identities along the Raiding Frontier of Colonial New Mexico,” University of Nebraska Press, ISBN: 978-0-8032-9639-8

REFEREED ARTICLES

2017    “Site Interiography and Geophysical Scanning: Interpreting the Texture and Form of Archaeological Deposits with Ground-Penetrating Radar,” Sunseri, J. and Byram S., Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 24(4), p. 1400-1424

2017 “Grazing to Gravy: Faunal Remains and Indications of Genízaro Foodways on the Spanish Colonial Frontier of New Mexico,”International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 21(3), p.577-597

2015 “GIS Modeling of Equine Travel Along the Raiding Frontier of Colonial Northern New Mexico,” Historical Archaeology

2015 (Jun Sunseri and Isabel Trujillo) “The Berkeley-Abiquiú Collaborative Archaeology (BACA) Project as a Model for Genízaro Archaeology”, Kiva

2014 (Anthony D. Barnosky, Michael Holmes, Renske Kirchholtes, Emily Lindsey, Kaitlin C. Maguire, Ashley W. Poust, M. Allison Stegner,Jun Sunseri, Brian Swartz, Jillian Swift, Natalia A. Villavicencio, Guinevere Wogan) “Prelude To The Anthropocene: Two New North American Land Mammal Ages (NALMAs),” Anthropocene Review

 PEER-REVIEWED CHAPTERS

2015 “Pobladores of New Mexico’s Final Colonial Frontier,” In Barbara Mills, Severin Fowles (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the American Southwest, Oxford University Press

2014 “Hiding in Plain Sight: Engineered colonial landscape and indigenous Reinvention on the New Mexican Frontier,” In Neal Ferris,Rodney Harrison, and Michael Wilcox (eds.), RethinkingColonial Pasts through Archaeology, Oxford University Press

2010 “(Re)Constructing la Tierra de Guerra: Indo-Hispano Gendered Landscapes oN the Rito Colorado Frontier of Spanish Colonial New Mexico,” In Sherene Baugher, Suzanne Spencer-Wood (eds.), Introduction to the Archaeology and Preservation of North American Gendered Landscapes, Springer Academic.