Anthropology Faculty
Photo of Dr. Lapham
Heather A. Lapham
Curator & Associate Scientist
Center for Archaeological Investigations;
Adjunct Associate Professor of Anthropology
Faner 3479 - Mail Code 4527
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Carbondale IL 62901
Phone (618) 453-5031; Fax (618) 453-8467
Email hlapham@siu.edu

CAI Zooarchaeology Laboratory

International Council for Archaeozoology
Research interests Courses
My earliest research explores why seventeenth century Native Americans living in the southern Appalachian Highlands initially participated in the deerskin trade. Changes in deer hunting practices, deerskin production activities, and exchange patterns suggest some Native Americans altered their economic strategies to produce deerskins for commercial trade, transforming sociopolitical systems in the process. I continue to pursue my interests in culture contact in a new zooarchaeological research project in western North Carolina. More recently, my research interests have expanded into Mesoamerica where I study early village and urban economies, particularly social aspects of subsistence and differential animal resource utilization. Anth 441D: Laboratory Analysis in Archaeology-Introduction to Zooarchaeology
Anth 484: Internship-Curation of Archaeological Collections
Recent projects 
Current research projects include studies of the following: 1) Subsistence and intercultural interactions at the Contact period Catawba Indian and Spanish Fort San Juan Berry site in western North Carolina; 2) Subsistence and differential access to animal resources at the Mississippian period Carter Robinson Mound site in southwestern Virginia; 3) Subsistence and the use of domestic dogs at the Late Woodland period Broad Reach site in eastern North Carolina; 4) Early village household economies at the Pre-Classic period Mixtec Tayata site in Oaxaca, Mexico; and 5) Urban economies and rabbit utilization at the Classic period Zapotec El Palmillo site, also in Oaxaca. These studies are funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society, and other research grants.
Selected publications

In press    Lapham, H.A. Animals in Southeastern Native American Subsistence Economies. In Subsistence Economies of Indigenous North American Societies, B.D. Smith (ed.). Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, Washington, D.C.

2008    Duncan, W.N., A.K. Balkansky, K. Crawford, H.A. Lapham and N.J. Meissner. Human Cremation in Mexico 3,000 Years Ago. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105(14):5315–5320. Online at http://www.pnas.org/content/105/14/5315.full.pdf+html.

2006    Lapham, H.A. Southeast Animals. In Environment, Origins, and Population, D.H. Ubelaker (ed.), pp. 396-404. Handbook of North American Indians Vol. 3. W.C. Sturtevant, general editor. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

2005    Lapham, H.A. Hunting for Hides: Deerskins, Status, and Cultural Change in the Protohistoric Appalachians. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.

2004    Lapham, H.A. “Their complement of deer-skins and furs”: Changing patterns of white-tailed deer exploitation in the seventeenth-century southern Chesapeake and Virginia hinterlands. In Indian and European Contact in Context: The Mid-Atlantic Region, D.B. Blanton and J.A. King (eds.), pp. 172-192. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.

2004    Lapham, H.A. Zooarchaeological evidence for changing socioeconomic status within early historic Native American communities in Mid-Atlantic North America. In Behaviour Behind Bones: The Zooarchaeology of Ritual, Religion, Status and Identity, S.J. O’Day, W. Van Neer, and A. Ervynck (eds.), pp. 293-303. Oxbow Books, Oxford.>

2003    Wall, R.D. and H.A. Lapham. Material culture of the Contact period in the upper Potomac Valley: chronological and cultural implications. Archaeology of Eastern North America 31:149-175. >

2002    Lapham, H.A. and W.C. Johnson. Protohistoric Monongahela trade relations: evidence from the Foley Farm phase glass beads. Archaeology of Eastern North America 30:97-120.

2000      Lapham, H.A. More than "a few blew beads": The glass and stone beads from Jamestown Rediscovery's 1994-1997 excavations. The Journal of the Jamestown Rediscovery Center 1. Online at http://www.apva.org/resource/jjrc/vol1/hltoc.html.