Ìý
Meredith A. B. Ellis, Ph.D.
Office: ÌýSO185, Telephone: Ìý561-297-4768, Email: ellism@fau.edu
Associate Professor
Faculty Affiliate, Peace, Justice, and Human Rights Initiative
Faculty Affiliate, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Education:
PhD, Anthropology, with Distinction, Syracuse University, 2014, Syracuse University All-University Doctoral Prize, 2015
MA, Anthropology, Syracuse University, 2011
MA, English, University of Rochester, 2005
BA, Anthropology and English, William Smith College, 2004
Summa Cum Laude with Honors in Anthropology, Phi Beta Kappa.
Courses Taught:
ANT 4912 Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý Research Methods in Bioarchaeology
ANT 3516 Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý Human Variation
ANT 3516 Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý Human Variation Online
ANT 3586 Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý Human Evolution
ANT 4520 Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý Forensic Anthropology
ANT 4930 Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý The Anthropology of Death
ANG 6905 Ìý Ìý Ìý ÌýProposal Development and Writing
ANG 6587 Ìý Ìý Ìý ÌýIntroduction to Biological Anthropology Theory Seminar
ANT 4905 Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý Directed Independent Study
ANG 6905 Ìý Ìý Ìý ÌýDirected Independent Study
Research Interests:
Social Bioarchaeology, Bioarchaeology of Childhood, Historical Bioarchaeology, 19th Century United States
My research focuses on human skeletal remains from archaeological sites. ÌýSpecifically, I focus on historical sites, social theory and bioarchaeology, and on the remains of children (subadults). ÌýMy research asks questions about how people lived in the past, and what their bodies can tell us about their daily lives and about life in a family and a community. ÌýI am interested in the intersection of the social and the biological, and how those two come together in the human skeletal system.
My work draws on skeletal analysis, archival research, and historical archaeology to tell a story about a life in the past. ÌýI am particularly interested in nutrition and disease, and how evidence for illnesses and for dietary patterns in skeletal remains can tell us about social relationships, environmental conditions, and social norms in a time and place. ÌýThus far my research has focused on sites in the 19th century United States, including the subadults from the abolitionist in New York City, and trauma and starvation processes from the Donner Party camp in California and from the China Gulch Chinese mining camp in Montana. I am currently working on a NAGPRA compliance project.
My current project examines the skeletal remains of two individuals recorded as having died during the 1928 Lake Okeechobee Hurricane. My writing explores the creation of identity through taphnomic, historic, and memory processes all while sharing a little-remembered natural disaster event. A book is forthcoming on this topic.
By understanding life histories from skeletal remains, and by asking broad anthropological questions about life in the past, my work contributes to interdisciplinary projects that span biological anthropology, archaeology, and history.
Selected Publications:
Books
Refereed Journal Articles
2023. Ellis, Meredith A.B. ÌýWeathered Remains: Bioarchaeology, Identity, and the Landscape. American Anthropologist.
2020. Ellis, Meredith A.B. Still Life: A Bioarchaeological Portrait of Perinatal Remains Buried at the Spring Street Presbyterian Church. Historical Archaeology. 54(1).
2016. Ellis, Meredith A.B. ÌýPresence and Absence: An Exploration of Scurvy in the Commingled Subadults in the Spring Street Presbyterian Church Collection, Lower Manhattan. ÌýInternational Journal of Osteoarchaeology. 26: 759–766
2011. Ellis, Meredith A.B., Christopher W. Merritt, Shannon A. Novak, and Kelly J. Dixon. Ìý 2011 The Signature of Starvation: A Comparison of Bone Processing at a Chinese Encampment in Montana and the Donner Party Camp in California. ÌýHistorical Archaeology 45(2).
2010. Ellis, Meredith A.B. The Children of Spring Street: Life and Rickets in a Nineteenth Century Congregation. ÌýNortheast Historical Archaeology 39.
Referreed Book Chapters
2024. Ellis, Meredith A.B. Childhoods in Bioarchaeology: The Importance of Categorizing and Analyzing Age. In Historical Archaeology of Childhood and Parenting ed. Suzanne Spencer-Wood, April Kamp-Whitaker, and Jamie Devine. New York: Springer Press.
2018. Baxter, Jane Eva and Meredith A.B. Ellis. ÌýIntroduction. In J. Baxter and M. Ellis (eds.) Nineteenth Century Childhoods in Interdisciplinary and International Perspectives. Society for the Study of Childhood in the Past Monograph Series, Volume 6. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 1-14.
2014. Ellis, Meredith A.B. ÌýA Disciplined Childhood: A Social Bioarchaeology of the Subadults of the Spring Street Presbyterian Church. In Tracing Childhood: Bioarchaeological Investigations of Early Lives in Antiquity ed. Jennifer Thomson, Marta Alfonso, and John Crandall. Gainsville: University of Florida Press, 139-158.