IUP Anthropology was ubiquitous at the recent Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology annual meeting in DuBois, Pennsylvania. Eight current students and faculty and eight alumni presented their work to approximately 100 professional and avocational colleagues, including many alumni.
Amanda Filmyer (MA ’22), the DCNR Heritage Resource Team principal investigator, based at IUP, organized the Pennsylvania Archaeological Council symposium on “New Perspectives and Research on Native American Lifeways in the Upper Ohio Valley (1050–1630 AD). Heidi Hepburn presented her recent thesis research on “Subsistence, Settlement, and Legacy Collections: Reevaluating the Mary Rinn Site (36IN29) Through Fired-Cracked Rock and Paleoethnobotanical Analysis.” Alumni Filmyer, Katherine Thorwart (MA ’21), and Professor Emeritus Sarah Neusius also presented in this symposium.
The SPA annual meeting included presentations by alumni Kristina Gaugler (MA ’20), Cherilyn Gilligan (MA ’18), Angela Jaillet-Wentling (MA ‘11), Kate Peresolak (MA ’17), and Stephanie Zellers (MA ’23), continuing their work in Pennsylvania archaeology. Recent graduate Laura Broughton (MA ’25) presented on her thesis project, “Pittsburgh’s Chinatown: A Study of Chinese Diaspora Archaeology in Pittsburgh, PA.”
Current students and faculty presented the following papers and posters:
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James Duke: The John and Julia Hopkins House: Excavating in Gettysburg’s Third Ward
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Ben Ford: Lake Erie Submerged Landscape Survey, 20924 and 2025 (with Jessi Halligan and David George-Shongo)
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David Hay: An Archaeological Investigation of a 19th-Century Mill
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Abigail Hutchins and Lara Homsey-Messer: Embedding Watershed Context Statements into Graduate Education at Indiana University of Pennsylvania
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Abdul Jones: 2025 Summer Fieldwork Recap for the DCNR Heritage Resource Team
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Eva Miller: Using PA-SHARE for Creating Watershed Context Statements, focusing on Watershed 17B, the Lower Clarion River
David Hay won the Student Poster Prize competition, and James Duke was awarded second place.
The SPA conference offers an excellent opportunity to connect alumni and current students across the decades of IUP archaeology, all while learning about the most recent research in the state.