Staff News - Arkansas Archeological Survey

Anthony Clay Newton (B.A., Southern Arkansas University, 2004) is the Archeological Assistant at the Arkansas Archeological Survey’s research station at Henderson State University in Arkadelphia. He has worked as a professional archeological technician for various cultural resource management companies, the USDA Forest Service, and the Survey. He has worked in nine states and on numerous projects on private, state, federal, and municipal property. Newton is interested in the archeology and history of southwestern Arkansas and the Ark-La-Tex region, photography, and historical archeology. He is from Magnolia and an active Life member of the Arkansas Archeological Society.

Brittney Bostian (B.A., University of Arkansas at Monticello, 2023) will be joining the Survey in April as the Station Assistant at our University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff station. Brittney’s passion for the past began with her undergraduate research, which focused on changing patterns of land use among Arkansas’s early settlers. After earning her B.A., she worked as a project assistant with Dr. Matthew Rooney at UAM where she restored collections, archived and digitized data, and transcribed census records detailing the lives of descendants of enslaved African Americans who migrated to southeast Arkansas. Brittney is now pursuing her Master’s in Library and Information Science with an Archival emphasis. She believes that preserving historic records and ensuring public access to them is essential for understanding our past and building a better future.

Congratulations to Kathy Cande on her retirement from the Arkansas Archeological Survey after 37 years of service! Kathy started with the Survey in 1987 as a Project Archeologist for the Sponsored Research Program (SRP) which dealt with archeological contract projects usually associated with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. Throughout her career, she consulted and worked with multiple outside agencies on research and historic preservation, including Arkansas State Parks. She authored educational flyers for the Survey and authored or co-authored web articles for the Survey’s 50 Moments series and the Encyclopedia of Arkansas. She has given many public presentations on Arkansas archeology/history and provided tours of the archeological lab to visiting scholars, schoolchildren, and other groups.

Kathy Cande Retirement

Halee Mills was recently hired as the new Archeological Assistant at the Parkin Archeological State Park Research Station. She will be starting on March 1, 2025. Halee is currently pursuing a master’s degree in public history at Arkansas State University. She received a bachelor’s degree in history from Williams Baptist University in May 2023. Her primary interest is Native American history, with her capstone project focusing on the memorialization of the Tongva (Gabrielino) in California. She enjoys the outdoors, thrifting and hanging out with her black lab, Bear, in her free time. She lives by a simple motto in her academic pursuits, "Educate, advocate and preserve."

Ashley Hansen (BA, University of Central Arkansas, 2023) will be joining the Survey in June as Research Assistant at our Winthrop Rockefeller Institute station on Petit Jean Mountain. Her undergraduate research focused on the archeological landscapes of the Civilian Conservation Corps in Arkansas and how these landscapes are remembered and interacted with today. After earning her BA, she worked as a seasonal interpreter for Arkansas State Parks, where she further developed her passions for public outreach and the pre-colonial history of Arkansas. She believes that if Arkansans understand their state's past, they can be more empowered to love and care for the land on which they live.

Tim Mulvihill, (ARAS-UAFS) has recently agreed to take over the ARAS Geophysical Prospection position previously held by Dr. Jami Lockhart (ARAS-Emeritus)! In this position, Tim will work with all of the ARAS Research Stations, as well as community and research partners, to conduct remote sensing research at archeological sites across Arkansas. This is important work as it narrows down the boundaries of archeological sites and allows researchers to get an idea of what might be under the surface in different areas of a site before any excavation commences. This allows archeologists to target areas of sites most likely to result in excellent research and analysis potential. Tim has worked for the ARAS in various capacities and at different locations across the state for 36 years and will bring his vast knowledge of the archeology of Arkansas to this new position. Congratulations, Tim!

Matthew Rooney, our station archeologist at UAM, was awarded two small grants to jumpstart his new research project: "European Material Goods in Indigenous Arkansas Contexts, 1500-1830." The project is a collaboration with the historical archaeology lab at the Florida Museum of Natural History and will bring out Charles R. Cobb, who is the James E. Lockwood, Jr. Professor in Florida and Caribbean Archaeology and Curator of Historical Archaeology, on two separate visits to Arkansas in 2025 to work together with Rooney on fieldwork in Desha and Lincoln counties. Cobb and Rooney previously recovered medieval European artifacts from protohistoric sites in Alabama, and Cobb has been one of the chief developers of a metal detecting technique that has successfully identified such objects in multiple U.S. states throughout the southeast.

The first award was a $1,500 faculty research grant awarded by the University of Arkansas at Monticello (UAM), and the second was a $4,000 Franklin research grant awarded by the American Philosophical Society. Together, the grants will support travel and lodging for our colleagues visiting from Florida as well as support the purchasing of equipment needed for fieldwork. During one of his visits, Cobb will give a lecture at UAM related to the project entitled: "Hernando de Soto East and West of the Mississippi River." The lecture will be open to the public on March 18, 2025 at the Fred J. Taylor Library and Technology Center in Conference Room A beginning at 6:00 p.m.

Dr. Jami Lockhart retired on December 31, 2024 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, the National Park Service, cemetery researchers, historical associations, and the Archeological Conservancy. He also conducted research at major archeological 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. He was instrumental in the growth of the Automated Management of Archeological Site Data in Arkansas (AMASDA) database, and built an advanced archaeogeophysical program at the Arkansas Archeological Survey.

Dr. Jami Lockhart Retires

Michelle Rathgaber, ARAS Educational Outreach Coordinator, was elected as the Social Media Editor/Webmaster for the Southeastern Archaeological Conference (SEAC) in November. She will serve one year as Social Media Editor elect, learning about the position from the current Social Media Editor and will then serve in the role for three years. The SEAC Social Media Editor does all of the social media postings on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn; and updates and maintains the SEAC website. SEAC is an organization that promotes interest in the archaeology of the southeastern United States and neighboring areas, serves as a bond among those interested in this and related subjects, publishes data and reports, advocates for the conservation of archaeological sites, collections, and data, and encourages an appreciation and support of archaeological research.

Alex W. Barker, Director of the Arkansas Archeological Survey, has been elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries London, a royal learned society founded in and receiving its royal charter in the eighteenth century, and housed with the Royal Astronomical Society, the Linnaean Society, and the Royal Academy of Arts in Bulington House, London.

Fellows are elected in accordance with the Society’s 1751 Royal Charter on the basis that they are ‘excelling in the knowledge of the antiquities and history of this and other nations.’ Fellows must be sponsored by five or more elected Fellows (a process called “taking out a Blue Paper”) and must be elected by a two-third majority of the existing Fellows.

Fellows are distinguished archaeologists, historians, anthropologists and art historians, and their total number is limited by statute. Election is recognition by existing Fellows of an individual’s achievements in a particular field of antiquarian activity. Those elected are called ‘Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries’ (or ‘Fellows’ for short) and use the post-nominal initials ‘FSA’.

On September 26, 2024, Arkansas archeology, and indeed Central Mississippi Valley, southeastern and midwestern, and all of American archeology, lost a great colleague and scholar earlier this week, Dan F. Morse. Dan had conducted archeology in many states, and made important discoveries at a lot of well-known sites, some made more so because of his work and prolific writings on those sites, including Etowah, Cahokia, Steuben, Pinson, Nodena, Parkin, Brand, Sloan, Zebree, and many, many more.

Dan F. Morse

The passing of Mary Lynn Kennedy on August 19, 2023, touched many of us who were her colleagues here at the Arkansas Archeological Survey with sadness but also fond memories. Mary Lynn retired from the Survey back in 2006, after 31 years as editor for the publications program. During those 31 years she brought to print 52 volumes of the ARAS Research Series, two Popular Series books, 11 Technical Papers, and 32 Research Reports. Learn more about Mary Lynn's life and contributions to the Survey.

Honoring Mary Lynn Kennedy