Drs. John Arthur (Ph.D. University of Florida, 2000) and Kathryn Weedman (PhD University of Florida, 2000) are Assistant Professors in the Anthropology Program at USF St. Petersburg. They study present-day and historic intra-cultural diversity among the Gamo peoples of southern Ethiopia. In 2005 funded by USFSP and USF New Researcher grants, Dr. Arthur located 26 historical archaeological sites in the Gamo region through oral histories. In 2006, Drs. Arthur and Weedman received National Science Foundation funding to return to the Gamo region to map and test several of the historical sites located by Arthur in 2005, to collect more oral histories in the region, and to begin cultural studies documenting the location and types of households, burials, public spaces, and material culture of the living Gamo people. |
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"Our goal is to combine ethnographic, oral history, and archaeological information to potentially reveal the development of this complex caste society in southern Ethiopia." This year they were awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to further their research in the Gamo region for the next two years. Drs. Arthur and Weedman were able to take two undergraduate students in 2006 for training in anthropological field methods and plan to continue to offer this opportunity for students in 2007 and following years. |
Kathryn Weedman’s anthropological research exposes intra-group diversity (such as caste, kinship, and gender groups) bringing to the forefront social groups who tend to be ignored. For the last 15 years, she has worked on ethnographic, historic, and prehistoric studies in Africa (Ethiopia, Botswana, and the People's Republic of the Congo). Weedman’s PhD research, funded by a National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement grant, Leakey Foundation Dissertation grant, and a J. William Fulbright Dissertation Scholarship, focused on one of the last remaining cultures in the world to continue to manufacture and use stone tools on a daily basis. |
John Arthur’s present research focuses on interpreting social stratification from African archaeological and living contexts. However, before working in Africa, Arthur worked in the American Southwest studying the development of prehistoric agriculture (Early Pithouse Villages of the Mimbres Valley and Beyond, edited by Michael W. Diehl and Steven A. LeBlanc, Peabody Museum, Harvard University). Beginning with his acceptance as a Ph.D. student at the University of Florida, he changed his research to the Horn of Africa. Here, his Ph.D. research was funded by a National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement grant, allowing him to look at social and economic differences based on household ceramic assemblages. Arthur’s use of the life-cycle approach (i.e., production to discard), to view the many contexts that ceramics can undergo in a complex stratified society, revealed that household ceramics are an excellent indicator of household social stratification. This research is the focus of an upcoming book to be published in December 2006 by the University of Utah Press Foundations of Archaeological Inquiry Series and is titled, Living with Pottery: Ethnoarchaeology among the Gamo of southwest Ethiopia. Arthur’s studies in Ethiopia also indicated that beer production is visible in the form of residues on archaeological ceramics, and as a consequence beer producing elite households can be distinguished from non-beer producing commoner households, (Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 2002 and World Archaeology 2003). |
Her work outlines that variation in stone tool form can be a result of stage in the stone tool production process (upcoming in the Journal of Archaeological Science with Dr. Michael Shott), the skill and age of the hideworker (published in American Antiquity 2002) and/or an individuals constant rearticulation of their relationship with the environment and their social-political position (Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 2006). After completing her PhD, Weedman received a National Science Foundation grant to support an international research team to complete a two year study of women stone tool makers living in southern Ethiopia. Her study demonstrates that women are sophisticated stone tool makers and should not be ignored in favor of male tool makers in archaeological reconstructions of the past. This work has been featured in Archaeology magazine (2001), in Weedman’s recently co-edited book with Lisa Frink titled Gender and Hide Production (2005 AltaMira Press), and in a soon to be released film titled The Konso Hideworkers (Left Coast Press). |
College of Arts and Sciences | Weedman
