LuAnn Wandsnider

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LuAnn Wandsnider

Professor, Associate Director School of Global Integrative Studies University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Contact

Address
OLDH 837
Lincoln NE 68588-0368
Phone
402-472-2411 On-campus 2-2411
Email
lwandsnider1@unl.edu

I am an anthropologically trained archaeologist and methodologist. I am interested in the relationship between individuals and the groups they are members of and how this dynamic unfolds under different circumstances, such as in the Hellenistic-Roman cities of southern Turkey and the historic towns of the Central Plains.

Related to this, I am interested in how individuals and groups use material culture to convey their abilities and affiliations. To explore this topic, I have assembled geospatially linked historical documents to create a laboratory for late 19th C Custer County, Nebraska. Questions currently under consideration include:

  • Which social conditions and processes affect resiliency in historic Central Plains human populations? What are the material consequences of these processes?
  • Under what conditions might individuals and groups use material culture, e.g., houses, to project identity and competency and how do these affect community formation?
  • When confronted by environmental and social challenges, what responses do we see and what are their material manifestations?

A related interest is to learn more about the local ecological knowledge that Nebraska rural producer families and communities possess. Has this knowledge fostered resiliency in the face of extreme swings in both climate and policy? How is this knowledge retained and extended? With the permission of producer families, can we use extant technologies to house this information and make it available others?

Curriculum Vitae

 

Education

  • Ph.D. University of New Mexico (Albuquerque), 1989
  • M.S. Anthropology, University of New Mexico (Albuquerque), 1981
  • B.S. Anthropology, Geology, University of Wisconsin (Madison), 1979

Research Interests

Archaeological method and theory; Pre-Columbian Archaeology of the North American Central and High Plains; Hellenistic-Roman Asia Minor; time in archaeology; costly signaling in Hellenistic-Roman Asia Minor and historic homesteading Nebraska.

Research and Current Projects

  • Northern Great Plains Rural Producer Oral History and LEK Project; with Will Stoutamire (University of Nebraska, Kearney) and Christine Haney Douglass
  • Big House on the Prairie: Domestic architecture signals settler competence in 19th C Custer County, Nebraska
  • Lidar survey of Antiochia ad Cragum (southern Turkey); with Micha Hoff, Heather Richards-Rissetto, and Richard Wood

I welcome student involvement in any of these projects.

Courses

  • ANTH 130 Anthropology of the Great Plains
  • ANTH 432/832 History and Philosophy of Archaeology
  • ANTH 434/834 Great Plains Archaeology

Selected Publications

2023 Douglass, Matthew, LuAnn Wandsnider, and Simon Holdaway
The Significance of Surface Artifact Scatters: Case Studies from Australia and North America. Advances in Archaeological Practice 11(1):29-41.

2019 Napier, Tiffany, Mathew Douglass, LuAnn Wandsnider and Ronald Goble
The Sand Hills Cultural Landscape in Response to a Fluctuating Environment during and after the Medieval Climate Anomaly. Plains Anthropologist 63(245): 46-66. (http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00320447.2017.1303104).

2017 Field, Sean, Matt Waite, and LuAnn Wandsnider
The Utility of UAVs for Archaeological Surface Survey: A Comparative Study. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 13:577-582.

2015 Wandsnider, LuAnn
On Complementarity of Practice, Scale, and Structure: Scalar Aspects of Social/Material Space in Anatolian Peri-Urban Contexts in Antiquity. Solicited as part of a dialogue on social practice theory and urban formation. Archaeological Dialogues 22(2):149-156.

2015 Wandsnider, LuAnn and Lauren Nelson
Monumental Civic Architecture Signals Group Identity, Affiliation, and Effective Collective Action: Prospects for Investigation in the Greek Cities of Late Hellenistic and Early Roman Asia Minor as Explored for Roman Aphrodisias. In Landscape and Identity, edited by Kurt Springs, pp. 55-69. Oxford, BAR International Series 2709.

2015 Wandsnider, LuAnn
“Fighting over a Shadow?”: Hellenistic Greek cities and Greco-Roman cities as Fora and Media for Multi-level Social Signaling. In Urban Dreams, Urban Realities, edited by Adam Kemezis, pp. 69-98. Leiden, Brill.