Dr. Terry J. Martin joined the MSU Department of Anthropology as an Adjunct Professor in 2016 shortly after his retirement from the Illinois State Museum where he had been a Curator for 31 years. He completed his PhD. in archaeology from MSU in 1986 under the direction of Dr. Charles Cleland. A Michigan native, Dr. Martin’s interest in archaeology was sparked in junior high school when he visited his first archaeological excavation at a plantation over summer break. The interest that would one day become his career continued through high school, his undergraduate years at Grand Valley State University, and his graduate years at Western Michigan University. The opportunities afforded him at Michigan State University gave him the methods and museum experience that formed the foundation for his diverse career in anthropological archaeology and archaeozoology.
Although he has worked at many sites around the Midwest, Dr. Martin considers his most important work to be the years spent working on the archaeology of African-American sites in Illinois, some of which functioned in the Underground Railroad. He was co-director of the New Philadelphia project in Pike County, Illinois from 2002-2011; the principle investigator for the Jameson Jenkins Lot in the Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield, Illinois from 2013-2015; and currently works on the Springfield Railroad Relocation Project examining city lots of African American homes destroyed in the Springfield Race Riot of 1908. He and his wife Clair enjoy sharing these projects with the public at venues such as The Springfield and Central Illinois African American History Museum and the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D. C.
Over the past thirty years as a zooarchaeologist, Dr. Martin has focused on the historic uses of animals throughout the Midwest, particularly late prehistoric and early historic Native American and eighteenth-century French colonial archaeological sites. These sites provide unique perspectives on diverse topics such as the history of Lake Sturgeon within cultures of the Great Lakes people. This fish’s common appearance in prehistoric sites ignited his curiosity about the current conservation status of these ancient fish as well as their economic and spiritual significance to Native American populations around the Upper Great Lakes. While this work sparked his interest in the natural history of sturgeon, his interdisciplinary methods allowed him to work with fisheries biologists in the Muskegon River to learn firsthand about these magnificent, endangered, ancient creatures.
Now, as Curator Emeritus for Illinois State Museum and Adjunct in Anthropology at MSU, Terry has a great deal more flexibility when establishing his own priorities, such as traveling. He is currently enjoying working with Dr. O’Gorman and graduate students at the Morton Village Archeological project in central Illinois and working once again with the MSU Museum to re-establish and expand their zooarchaeological reference collection. Currently, he is working on three manuscripts and a book about the importance of zooarchaeology within anthropological archaeology. We look forward to the continued and expanding relationship between Dr. Terry Martin and the department.
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I first became interested in anthropology as an undergraduate at the University of California, Riverside. A class with Dr. Robin Nelson introduced me to topics related to parent-child interactions. I had recently become a mother and I was extremely interested in those topics. Dr. Nelson’s class also assured me that even though biological anthropology had a dark history of institutional racism, new scholars are actively changing the discipline to be more inclusive. Hence, pursuing a degree in anthropology would allow me to ask challenging questions that would be relevant for marginalized communities. Dr. Nelson also gave me the opportunity to discuss with her research articles I would find outside of class. After reading the work of Dr. Fujita, I was attracted to the idea of studying breast milk components from a biocultural perspective.
Dr. Beth Drexler has been very research active recently, thanks to an American Institute for Indonesian Studies Luce Fellowship (2014-2016) and a Fulbright (2015-2017). Her current project explores human rights and memories of violence in the aftermath of authoritarian rule in Indonesia and Timor-Leste (known as East Timor during its occupation by Indonesia). Her next book, tentatively titled “Human Rights, Transitional Justice and History in Indonesia,” analyzes the process of producing and circulating knowledge about past human rights violations in and through public culture, film, fiction, art, courtrooms, documents, and efforts to write new histories. She’s conducted archival research, interviews, and participant observation in relation to the past, and is also working with organizations to explore new issues in the democratic present.
Art Crime at the University of Glasgow’s Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research to campus for a week. During this time, she visited archaeology classes, met with faculty and students, gave a public lecture, and offered a graduate workshop. Over 90 people attended her lecture from campuses and cities across the state and over two dozen watched it streaming online. The fund provided the lecture with the foundational funding to secure co-sponsors for the event. Needless to say, it was an enormous success and we are excited to be in the planning stages for our next annual lecture.
Welcome to the Spring 2017 newsletter! As usual, there is a lot going on at this time of the year. I am happy to announce that we have hired Dr. Fredy Rodriguez as our new teaching professor. He will be an important link to new undergraduate majors, mentor teaching assistants, and bring a strong interest in cutting-edge pedagogies to our faculty. While serving as the interim undergraduate advisor this past year, Dr. Rodriguez initiated an Anthropology Showcase that will highlight work that undergraduates have produced in different anthropology classes and lab experiences. We will host our first showcase this coming fall, open to the public. This will be a great way to celebrate our students’ accomplishments and highlight Anthropology.
In 2011 Dr. Masako Fujita founded the Biomarker Laboratory for Anthropological Research, where she and her students could conduct cutting edge anthropology research using biomarkers: measurable biochemical substances in bodies that can indicate various aspects of health. Recent grants from the Wenner-Gren Foundation and the National Science Foundation are funding two separate projects that together will address how variations in the beneficial contents of human milk, like antibodies and vitamins, relate to maternal health and the sex of the infant. There are substantial disparities in child mortality related to household income and sex of the infant, particularly in places in the world where gender discrimination and malnutrition are common. One contributing factor may be the level of protection that children receive from their mothers’ milk. One of the components now being measured in the lab is milk sIgA, an antibody that helps with immune protection for infants.
First Place “Stone Skipping in Matemwe“
Second Place “Fishing Boat on the Zambezi”
