Contributors: Michelle Rathgaber, Alex Barker, John Samuelsen, Tim Mulvihill, Tom Green, Fred Limp, George Sabo III, Deb Weddle
Congratulations to Dr. Jami Lockhart on his retirement from the Arkansas Archeological Survey after 39 years of service! Jami was our Computer Services Program Coordinator as well our Director of Archaeogeophysical Research. He has conducted research in all parts of Arkansas in collaboration with our Research Station Archeologists as well as Arkansas State Parks, cemetery researchers, historical associations, and the Archeological Conservancy. He also conducted research at major archaeological sites in Arkansas such as Parkin, Plum Bayou Mounds, Carden Bottoms, and Menard-Hodges among many others as well as at sites in surrounding states, such as Spiro Mounds in eastern Oklahoma.
Jami started off in city planning, but we stole him away to be an archeologist. Starting in the mid-1980s, Jami played an important role in the development of cartographic applications for the leading open-source geographic information system then in wide use – called GRASS. He then continued to be an innovative practitioner, particularly as it applied to archeology and geophysics. Jami joined the Survey in 1985 after completing his MA in the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville’s Geography Department. His thesis was titled, “The influence of color combination on type legibility for maps viewed on computer monitors,” which was an imminent and growing problem with the use of computers and computer mapping becoming more common and widespread in the late 1900s. His first position at ARAS was as the Geographic Information Systems Coordinator and he was instrumental in the maintenance and growth of the Automated Management of Archeological Site Data in Arkansas (AMASDA) database, the statewide database of archeological sites and projects. In this role, he incorporated a lot more project information into AMASDA, which had only included site data up until that point.
Jami built an advanced archaeogeophysical program at the Arkansas Archeological Survey, allowing Arkansas archaeologists to investigate the contents and organization of ancient sites without having to dig beneath the ground. The Survey’s investment of over $100,000 in archaeogeophysical equipment in 1998 was quickly put to good use when Jami completed remote sensing work all over the state for all of the Survey’s research stations, as well as Los Adeas in Louisiana, and worked with the Caddo and Quapaw Nations to locate unmarked graves in their cemeteries. Jami was promoted to the Director of Archaeogeophysical Research and received his PhD in Environmental Dynamics at the University of Arkansas in 2007. His dissertation is titled, “Prehistoric Caddo of Arkansas: a multiscalar examination of past cultural landscapes.” It is a study of settlement patterns in the Caddo region of Southwest Arkansas based on mound sites and their surrounding geological features at multiple scales. In the dissertation, Lockhart points out an atypical Caddo settlement pattern in the Blackland Prairie, which also features different environmental characteristics than other parts of the Caddo region in the study.
Jami served as Research Faculty in the Anthropology Department and as Cooperating Faculty in the Environmental Dynamics Program at the University of Arkansas, where he served on master’s and doctoral committees to train the next generation of archeologists and GIS and Remote Sensing specialists. In recent years, in addition to his work with Survey colleagues around the state, he has worked with Northwest Arkansas Black Heritage Association and the University of Arkansas Community Design Center on the creation of a Black Historic District in Fayetteville. He also does research about the Civil War in Northwest Arkansas, and in Fayetteville specifically. He was granted Emeritus status by the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees upon his retirement on December 31, 2024. Thank you, Jami, for your years of service to Arkansas archeology. Enjoy your retirement!
