Department of Anthropology
Former Associate Curator-In-Charge, Historical Archaeology Section, Penn Museum
Email:Bio
Robert L. Schuyler is an anthropologist with a specialization in Historical Archaeology which is the study of the Modern World (AD 1400 to the Present). He was educated at the University of Arizona and the Univesity of California, Santa Barbara and has taught at the University of Maryland, CCNY-City University Graduate Center, and the University of Pennsylvania. Educationally he has produced almost 40 PhDs in his specialization and in 2004 received the Dean's Award for Innovation in Undergraduate Education followed in 2008 by the Provost's Award for Distinguished PhD Teaching and Graduate Mentoring. Professionally in 1980 he served as the President (Executive Officer) of the Council for Northeast Historical Archaeology (CNEHA) and in 1982 as President of the Society for Historical Archaeology(SHA). In 2009 he was the recipient of the J.C. Harrington Medal in Historical Archaeology at the SHA Annual Conference in Toronto.
Schuyler is a long term advocate for Historical Archaeology as an integral part of general anthropology and for a cultural evolutionary approach to understanding human history including the formation (AD 1400-1600), establishment (AD 1600-1800) and transformation of the Modern World system (AD 1800 - the Present).
Courses Taught:
ANTH151/751 Archaeology of American History: Colonial Period
ANTH152/752 Archaeology of American History: National Period
ANTH219/719 Archaeology Field Project
ANTH220/720 Archaeology Field Project Laboratory
ANTH247/747 Archaeology Laboratory Field Project-Summer
ANTH451/751 Historical Archaeology
ANTH750/450 African American Archaeology
ANTH457/757 Themes in Historical Archaeology
Education
Ph.D. University of California at Santa Barbara, 1975; MA UCSB 1968; BA (Anthropology) University of Arizona 1964
CV (file)
Research Interests
Archaeology--North America and global; anthropological theory and history of anthropology and archaeology; evolutionism; historical archaeology, both colonial period and the 19th/20th centuries; East Coast and the historic American West. In 2001 initiated the South Jersey Project, a long-term investigation of Vineland, New Jersey (founded in 1861) and the region around this planned Victorian Period agricultural community. Project will equally explore both the 19th and the 20th centuries and involve not only archaeology but also archival, oral historic and ethnographic research. His Silver Reef Project (an archaeological study of a 19th century (1875-1895) abandoned ghost town in SW Utah) is also continuing with laboratory analysis, archival research, and a Public Archaeology program on the site.
Selected Publications
Books
1978 HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY: A GUIDE TO SUBSTANTIVE AND THEORETICAL CONTRIBUTIONS. (Ed.) Baywood Publishing Company.
1980 ARCHAEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ETHNICITY IN AMERICA: AFRO-AMERICAN AND ASIAN AMERICAN CULTURE HISTORY (Ed.) Baywood Publishing Company
Editorial Experience
1973-1976 Editor for Archaeology, Absracts In Anthropology
1979-1982 Founding Editor, North American Archaeologist
Articles
1968 The Use of Historic Analogs in Archaeology, American Antiquity, Vol. 33, No. 3, pp. 390-392
1970 Historical and Historic Sites Archaeology as Anthropology: Basic Definitions and Relationships, Historical Archaeology, Vol. 4, pp 83-89
1971 The History of American Archaeology: An Examination of Procedure, American Antiquity, Vol. 36, No. 4, pp. 383-409
1974 Sandy Ground: Archaeological Sampling in a Black Community in Metropolitan New York, Papers of the Conference on Historic Sites Archaeology, Vol. 7, No. 2, PP. 12-52
1976 Images of America: the Contribution of Historical Archaeology to National Identity, Southwestern Lore, Vol. 42, No. 4, PP. 27-39
The Supply Mill on Content Brook, an Example of the Excavation of Recent Historic Sites (with Christopher Mills), Journal of Field Archaeology, Vol. 3, pp. 61-95
Historical Archaeology as an Integral Part of the Anthropology Curriculum, Chapter 13 (pp. 84-99) in Training in Archaeology Editor: William McHugh, Southern University Press
1977 The Written Word, The Spoken Word, Observed Behavior and Preserved Behavior: The Various Contexts Available to the Archaeologist, Papers of the Conferecne on Historic Sites Archaeology, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 99-120
Archaeology of the New York Metropolis, Bulletin of the New York State Archaeological Association, Number 69, pp. 1-19
1978 Indian-Euroamerican Interaction: Archaeological Evidence from Non-Indian Sites, Chapter 7 in Volume 8 (California), pp. 69-80, Handbook of North American Indians, Volume Editor: Robert F. Heizer, Smithsonian Institution
1980 Sandy Ground: Archaeology of a 19th Century Oystering Village, Chapter 5, pp. 48-59, & Archaeology of Asian American Culture: An Annotated Bibliography, Chapter 13, pp. 124-132, in Archaeological Perspectives on Ethnicity in America, Baywood Publishing Company
1982 Urban Archaeology in America, Editor, Special Issue of North American Archaeologist, Vol. 3, No. 3
1988 Archaeological Remains, Documents and Anthropology: A Call for a New Cultue History, Historical Archaeology, Vol. 22, No. 1, PP. 36-42
Silver Reef: Creation of a 'Historic Ethnography' for a 19th Century American Mining Town on the Western Frontier, Expedition, Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 61-63
1990 Historical Archaeology in the American West: the View from Philadelphia, Historical Archaeology, Vol. 25, No. 3, pp. 7-17
1991 A 'Compleat' Curriculum: Historical Archaeology on the Undergraduate Level, pp. 33-40, Archaeology and Education: the Classroom and Beyond, Edited by K.C. Smith and Francis P. McManamon, National Park Serivce, Washington, D.C.
1993 The Society for Historical Archaeology 1967-1992, Historical Archaeology, Vol. 27, No. 1, pp. 35-43
1996 Frontier Sites of the American West, The Oxford Companion to Archaeology, pp. 241-243, Ed. Brian Fagan, Oxford University Press
1997 Culture Contact in Evolutionary Perspective, Chapter 4 (pp. 67-76), Studies in Culture Contact: Interaction, Culture Change and Archaeology, Ed. James G. Cusick, Southern Illinois Press
1998 History of Historical Archaeology, Bulletin of the History of Archaeology, Vol. 8, No. 2, 7-17
1999 The Centality of Post Medieval Studies ot General Historical Archaeology, Chapter 2, pp. 10-16, Old and New Wrolds, Eds. Geoff Egan and R.L. Michael, Oxbow Books, London
2001 A Conversation With Edward B. Jelks, Historical Archaeology, Vol. 35, No. 4, pp. 8-37
2003 The Second Largest Ciity in the English Speaking World: John L. Cotter and the Historical Archaeology of Philadelphia 1960-1999, Chapter 8, pp. 156-164, Philadelphia and the Development of Americanist Archaeology, Eds. Don D. Fowler and David Wilcox, University of Alabama Press
2004 Vineland (p. 836), Charles K. Landis (pp. 453-455), Daily Journal (p. 189), Palace Depression (pp. 610-611), Encyclopedia of New Jersey, Eds. Maxine N. Lurie and Mark Mappen, Rutgers University Press
2011 The South Jersey Project: Historical Archaeology in the Largest City in New Jersey, The Vineland Magazine, Vol. 82, pp. 75-96, Vineland Historical and Antiquarian Society, Vineland, New Jersey
Affiliations
Former: Anthropology Department Faculty; Associate Curator in Charge, Historical Archaeology, University Museum; American Civilization Graduate Group.