Department of Anthropology

Penn State University

Lee Newsom

Associate Professor of Archaeological Anthropology

Faculty Image Office: 316 Carpenter Building
Telephone: (814) 865-4346 Fax: (814) 863-1474
Email: lan12@psu.edu
Curriculum Vitae
 

Macarthur Fellow

EDUCATION:

  • B.A., University of Florida, 1982
  • M.A., University of Florida, 1986
  • Ph.D, University of Florida, 1993

AREA OF SPECIALIZATION:

Caribbean and lowland South America, eastern North America, environmental archaeology, paleoethnobotany.

RESEARCH ACTIVITIES AND INTERESTS:  

I am an archaeologist, paleoethnobotanist, and wood anatomist.  My research involves work with preserved plant remains from archaeological and paleontological sites, and is generally directed toward trying to unravel some of the deep history and inter-complexities of human- environmental dynamics.  I work primarily with plant macroremains, including wood, seeds, and other organs, and in a variety of preservation states (carbonized, waterlogged, desiccated).  I employ these data sets to explore details of ancient environments and past biodiversity, and use that as a basis on which to focus on human use of biotic resources, emphasizing subsistence systems, resource selection and sustainability, and the domestication of plant species, as a general approach to understanding the environmental, demographic, and social impacts of prehistoric and historic subsistence economies, the emergence of an agricultural way of life, and more.  I work primarily in the Caribbean islands where I have identified the presence of ancient races of maize, manioc, potential hallucinogens, and other taxa, along with evidence for some of the negative consequences of sustained land use such as deforestation. Island biogeographic factors have considerable relevance and inform much of my research.  In general, the sites and material with which I have worked in recent years range in age from 1.5 million years ago to well into the post-Columbian era in the Americas. In collaboration with geologists, paleontologists and other archaeologists, other interesting topics that I have been able to explore include Late Pleistocene to Middle Holocene sea level history, climate change, and floristic dynamics, not to mention mastodon diets and their foraging patterns; Eastern North American Paleoindian and Archaic Period use of biotic resources, including details of some of the earliest domesticated taxa in the Eastern Woodlands. The extended record of fuelwood use as a proxy for the effects of long-term human extraction pressure on forest structure and successional dynamics, the development of crop systems, and some of the impacts of the European conquest in the neotropics are all topics that remain central to my ongoing research.

Currently, the primary projects with which I am involved include a series of Caribbean Indian settlements in the Greater Antilles and Northern Lesser Antilles, in collaboration with archaeologists at Leiden University, Netherlands, and University College London, and a separate collaboration with researchers at the University of Florida focused on long term human-environment dynamics in the Amazon.

RECENT FIELD WORK:

Dr. Newsom is involved with several interdisciplinary projects focused on the emergence of social complexity and chiefdom settlement dynamics in the Caribbean and the Amazon.  These are supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society, The Heinz Family Foundation, and the Consejo para la Protección del Patrimonio Arqueológico Terrestre de Puerto Rico.

COURSES TAUGHT

NEWSOM LAB:

BOOKS:

RECENT PUBLICATIONS:

  • Selected Publications (years 1990 & forward)
    1990a G. Doran, D. Dickell, and L. Newsom. A 7,290-year-old bottle gourd from the Windover Site, Florida. American Antiquity 55(2):354-360.
  • 1993a -and S.D. Webb, and J.S. Dunbar. History and geographic distribution of Cucurbita pepo gourds in Florida. Journal of Ethnobiology 13(1):75-97.
  • 1993b Plants and people: cultural, biological, and ecological responses to wood exploitation. Pp. 115-137 in Foraging and Farming in the Eastern Woodlands (C.M. Scarry, ed.), University Presses of Florida, Gainesville.
  • 1994a -and K.A. Deagan. Zea mays in the West Indies: the archaeological and early historic
    record. Pp. 203-217 in Corn and Culture in the Prehistoric New World (C.A. Hastorf and S. Johannessen, eds.). Westview Press, Boulder, Co.
  • 1994b N. Tuross, M.L. Fogel, L. Newsom, and G.H. Doran. Subsistence in the Florida Archaic:
    the stable isotope and archaeobotanical evidence from the Windover Site. American Antiquity 59(2):288-303.
  • 1995a S.D. deFrance, W.F. Keegan, and L.A. Newsom. The archaeobotanical, bone isotope, and
    zooarchaeological records from Caribbean sites in comparative perspective. Pp. 289-304 in Case Studies in Environmental Archaeology (E.Reitz, L.Newsom, and S.Scudder, eds.). Plenum Press, New York.
  • 1995b F.J. Rich, and L.A. Newsom. Preliminary Palynological and macrobotancial report for the Leisey Shell Pits, Hillsborough County, Florida. Bulletin, Florida Museum of Natural History 37(4):117-126.
  • 1996 E. J. Reitz, L.A. Newsom, & S.J. Scudder (editors) Case Studies in Environmental
    Archaeology. Plenum Press, New York.
  • 1998 Mangroves and Root Crops: Archaeobotanical Record from En Bas Saline, Haiti. Pp. 52-66 in Proceedings of the 16th International Congress for Caribbean Archaeology (G. Richard, ed.). Conseil Regional de la Guadeloupe, Basse Terre.
  • 1999 –and J. Molengraaff. Paleoethnobotanical analysis of Ceramic Age deposits from Hope Estate, St. Martin. Pp. 229-247 in The Archaeology of Hope Estate, St. Martin/St. Maarten (C. Hofman and M. Hoogland, eds.). Institute for Prehistory, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands.
  • 2000 F.J. Rich, A. Semratedu, J. Elzea, and L. Newsom. Palynology and paleoecology of a
    wood-bearing clay deposit from Deepstep, Georgia. Southeastern Geology 39 (2):71-80.
  • 2001 Zayac, T., F.J. Rich, and L. Newsom. The paleoecology and depositional environments of the McClelland Sandpit Site, Douglas, Georgia. Southeastern Geology 40(4):1-14.
  • 2002a Concerning North America (invited editorial). Antiquity 76(292):287-310.
  • 2002b Törnqvist, T.E., J.L. González, L.A. Newsom, K. Van der Borg, and A.F.M. De Jong.
    Reconstructing “background” rates of sea-level rise as a tool for forecasting coastal wetland loss in the Mississippi Delta. EOS (Newsletter of the AGU) 83(46):525-531.
  • 2002a S.R. Teixeira, J. B. Dixon, G. N. White, and L.A. Newsom. Charcoal in soils: a preliminary view. Pp. 819-830 in Environmental Soil Mineralogy (J.B. Dixon, ed.). Soil Science Society of America, Inc., Madison, Wisconsin.
  • 2002b The paleoethnobotany of the Archaic mortuary pond. Pp. 191-210 in Windover: Multidisciplinary Investigations of an Early Archaic Florida Cemetery (G. Doran, ed.). University Presses of Florida, Gainesville.
  • 2003 Törnqvist, T.E., J.L. González, L.A. Newsom, K. Van der Borg, and A.F.M. De Jong. Reconciling Holocene Sea-level History on the US Gulf Coast: Is the Mississippi Delta the Rosetta Stone? XVI INQUA Congress Abstracts #93-21, p. 242.
  • 2003a -and D. Pearsall. Temporal and spatial trends indicated by a survey of Archaic- and Ceramic-Age archaeobotanical data from the Caribbean islands. Pp. 347-412 in People and Plants in Ancient Eastern North America (P. Minnis, ed.). Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C.
  • 2003b -and L.A. Curet. Biodiversity and Natural Capital: Toward Understanding the Ecological Economics of the Tibes Archaeological Site. Proceedings of the XIX International Congress
    for Caribbean Archaeology (Museum Arqueological Aruba, Volume 9) 1:156-167, Oranjestad.
  • 2003c Curet, L.A., L.A. Newsom, and D. Welch. Space and Time in the Civic-ceremonial Center of Tibes, Ponce, Puerto Rico. Proceedings of the XIX International Congress for Caribbean Archaeology (Museum Arqueological Aruba, Volume 9) 1:142-155, Oranjestad.
  • 2004a -and E.S. Wing, On Land and Sea: Native American Uses of Biological Resources in the West Indies. The University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.
  • 2004b Baas, P., N. Blokhina, T. Fujii, P. Gasson, D. Grosser, I. Heinz, J. Ilic, J. Xiaomei, R. Miller, L.A. Newsom, S. Noshiro, H.G. Richter, M. Suzuki, T. Terrazas, E. Wheeler, A. Wiedenhoeft. IAWA List of Microscopic Features for Softwood Identification, edited by H.G. Richter, D. Grosser, I. Heinz, and P.E. Gasson. IAWA Journal 25(1):1-70.
  • 2004c Törnqvist, T.E., J.L. González, L.A. Newsom, K. Van der Borg, A.F.M. De Jong, and C.
    Kurnik. Reconciling Holocene Sea-level History on the US Gulf Coast: Is the Mississippi Delta the Rosetta Stone? Geological Society of America Bulletin 116(7/8):1026-1039.
  • 2005a S. DeFrance, and L.A. Newsom. The status of paleoethnobiological research on Puerto Rico and adjacent islands. Pp. 122-184 in Ancient Borinquen: Archaeology and Ethnohistory of Native Puerto Rico (P. E. Siegel, ed.). University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.
  • 2006a L.A. Curet, L.A. Newsom, and S. deFrance. Prehispanic social and cultural changes at Tibes, Puerto Rico. Journal of Field Archaeology 31(1):23-39.
  • 2006a Caribbean maize. Pp. 325-335 in Histories of Maize: Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Prehistory, Biogeography, Domestication, and Evolution of Maize ( J. Staller, R. Tykot, and B. Benz, eds.). Elsevier, San Diego, CA.
  • 2006b -and M.H. Mihlbachler. Mastodon (Mammut americanum) diet and foraging patterns based on paleofecal material from Page/Ladson (8JE581), Jefferson County, Florida. Chapter 15 in First Floridians and Last Mastodons: The Page-Ladson Site on the Aucilla River ( S.D. Webb ed.). Plenum Press, New York (in press).
  • 2006c The paleoecological implications of macrophytic data from the Page-Ladson site. Chapter 9 in First Floridians and Last Mastodons: The Page-Ladson Site on the Aucilla River (S.D. Webb., ed.). Plenum Press, New York (in press).
  • 2006d – and D.H. Trieu. Old meets new: European crop introductions in Native North America, a cultural process. In The Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 3 (B. Smith, ed.). Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. (submitted 2005; in press)
  • 2007a Caribbean paleoethnobotany: present status and new horizons (understanding the evolution of an indigenous ethnobotany). In New Methods and Techniques in the Study of Material Culture in the Caribbean (C. Hofman, ed.). The University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa (submitted 2006; in press).
  • 2007c -and C.M. Scarry. Homegardens and Mangrove Swamps: Archaeobotanical Research at the Pineland Site Complex, Lee County, Florida. In The Archaeology of Pineland: a Coastal Southwest Florida Village Complex, A.D. 100-1600, K. Walker/W. Marquardt (eds.). Inst. of Archaeology & Paleoenvironmental Studies Monograph 3 (FlaMNH) (submitted 2002; remains in production).
  • 2007d -and R. Brown, and W. Natt. From the forests: wood and fiber industries at Pineland, Florida. In The Archaeology of Pineland: a Coastal Southwest Florida Village Complex, A.D. 100-1600, K. Walker and W.H. Marquardt (eds.). Inst. of Archaeology & Paleoenvironmental Studies, Monograph 3 (FlaMNH) (submitted 2003; remains in production).