Program Information

Dr. Adovasio is the director of the Mercyhurst Archaeological Institute. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Utah and D.Sc. from Washington and Jefferson University. Dr. Adovasio specializes in prehistory, archaeological method and theory, prehistoric technology and material analysis, geoarchaeology, as well as the Archaeology of North America, Mesoamerica, and the former Soviet Union. Dr. Adovasio is also known for his excavation of the Meadowcroft Rockshelter, 30 miles southwest of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Meadowcroft has been recognized as the earliest well-dated archaeological site in the Western Hemisphere, with evidence of human habitation dating to 16,000 years ago.

Dr. Albert C. Goodyear III is an archaeologist who is founder and director of the Allendale PaleoIndian Expedition in South Carolina, where he has unearthed controversial evidence that may greatly move back the date of occupation of North America by humans to 50,000 years or more before the present. His area of expertise includes the Clovis culture, which dates back about 13,000 years in North America.  Goodyear has been a professor at the South Carolina Institute of Archaeolgy and Anthropology, a branch of the University of South Carolina since 1974.He has a bachelors degree from the University of South Florida a masters from the University of Arkansas, and a Ph.D. from Arizona State University.  Goodyear has authored over 100 articles and other publications and is a frequent lecturer on paleoIndian archaeology.

Michael F. Johnson is Senior Archeologist with Fairfax County Park Authority.  He is particularly interested in the initial peopling of the Americas, Paleoindian lithic technology, experimental archeology, public archeology, archeological methodology, and 17th Century European-American Indian interaction in the upper Potomac River Valley.  He served as project director with the Archeological Society of Virginia for Paleoindian research in the Nottoway River Valley, directing excavations at the Cactus Hill, Barr, Blueberry Hill, Koestline, Watlington, and Rubis-Pearsall sites.

Dr. Michael B. Barber received a BA in Anthropology from the College of William and Mary, an MA in Anthropology from Kent State University, and a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Virginia, all with concentration in archaeology.  Dr. Barber has worked for 30 as years Forest Archaeology for the USDA-Forest Service and currently serves as State Archaeologist for the Commonwealth of Virginia in the Department of Historic Resources Barber has served as President of the Archeological Society of Virginia, the Council of Virginia Archaeologists, and the Middle Atlantic Archaeological Conference and has served on numerous committees within the organizations.  He is recognized as an expert in zooarchaeology and lithic analysis and has over 70 published articles in books and journals.  His dissertation entitled The Late Woodland Dan River People: A Social Reconstruction Based on the Study of Bone Tools at a Regional Scale is in preparation for publication by the Virginia Museum of Natural History.

Randolph Turner received a B.A in Anthropology from the University of Virginia in 1970 followed by a M.A. in anthropology from the Pennsylvania State University in 1972 and a Ph.D. in anthropology from the Pennsylvania State University in 1976.    Both his M.A. thesis and Ph.D. dissertation focused on Virginia Coastal Plain archaeology and the Powhatans.   He has written over 50 articles related to Virginia archaeology and ethnohistory in addition to co-authoring with Helen Rountree in 2002 a book on Before and After Jamestown: Virginia’s Powhatans and Their Predecessors.  Since 1979 he has been employed with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources as Senior Prehistoric Archaeologist, serving for the past twelve years as director of the department’s regional office for eastern Virginia located in Newport News.  He also has taught both undergraduate and graduate courses in anthropology and archaeology at Penn State, Emory and Henry College, and the College of William and Mary.

Most recently, Turner helped establish in 2002 and is an active member of the Werowocomoco Research Group which is devoted to archaeological excavations at Werowocomoco in Gloucester County.  Werowocomoco was the principal residence of Powhatan from 1607 to 1609, served as the capital of the Powhatan chiefdom at that time, and was where Powatan and Captain John Smith first met in December 1607.  The Werowocomoco Research Group is a partnership between the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, the College of William and Mary, and the Virginia Indian community.  Archaeological investigations at Werowocomoco continued through  2007, the 400 year anniversary of the founding of Jamestown.

Dr. Blaine W. Schubert is a vertebrate paleontologist at East Tennessee State University, where he is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geosciences and a Museum Curator at the ETSU and General Shale Brick Natural History Museum.  His interests focus on understanding the history of amphibians, reptiles, and mammals over the past 10 million years.  Particular areas of research include 1) paleoecology of vertebrate communities, 2) evolutionary relationships of organisms, 3) late Pleistocene ("Ice Age") environments and extinctions, and 4) the evolution and paleobiology of bears.  Dr. Schubert is the author of numerous scientific articles, is the senior editor of the book Ice Age Cave Faunas of North America, and appears as a scientific consultant in the History Channel's new show Jurassic Fight Club.

Dr. Fiedel received his B.A. in Anthropology from Columbia University in 1973, and his Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania in 1979.  Fiedel is the author of "Prehistory of the Americas" (Cambridge University Press 1987, revised 1992) as well as numerous articles on diverse topics including Paleoindian origins, radiocarbon dating, Neolithic Europe, migration theory, Pleistocene and Holocene climate change, Algonquian languages, and residue analysis.  He currently supervises archaeological research projects and historic preservation studies as Senior Archaeologist for The Louis Berger Group in Richmond, VA.