Dr. Carole Nash will present the first Suter Science Seminar of 2022, “Telling Time with Historical Ecology: Native American Communities in a Changing Shenandoah Valley Environment,” on January 26 at 5 p.m. Nash is a registered professional archaeologist and associate professor in the School of Integrated Sciences at James Madison University. She is also the director of the Environmental Archaeology Laboratory at JMU.
The sessions are free to the public, and made possible by the sponsorship of the Daniel B. Suter Endowment in Biology and the co-sponsorship of supporting programs. They will be live streamed on the EMU Facebook Page [you do not need to be a Facebook member to access the livestream.] The campus community is invited to attend the seminars in person in Swartzendruber Hall of the Suter Science Center.
“Archaeology opens doors to past cultures, allowing us to see the relevance of past practices to today’s problems,” says Nash. “As an interdisciplinary science, archaeology also tells us about the relationship between environmental history and cultural responses, a topic very important in this time of climate change.”
Nash explains that by looking at Native American communities who have long occupied the Shenandoah Valley, we can learn a great deal about responses to environmental change in our area.
Nash received her PhD in anthropology from the Catholic University of America. She is a specialist in archaeology of the Middle Atlantic uplands with over four decades of experience in cultural and environmental studies, including work with the National Park Service, National Forest Service, Commonwealth of Virginia, and private firms.
Named in honor of long-time EMU biology professor, Daniel B. Suter (1920-2006), the Endowment in Biology was established in 1986 through the generous donations of alumni and friends and currently consists of over $1 million of invested funds. EMU hopes to double the Suter Endowment in order to more adequately support distinguished faculty and to increase scholarship aid to deserving students.