I am a historical archaeologist doing community-engaged research in Appalachia and the American South. While grounded in anthropology, I use methods and theories from across the social sciences to explore how labor exploitation, class struggle, and the politics of identity have shaped people’s lives, past and present.
My archaeological experience spans several time periods across the Southeastern United States. As an undergraduate at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, I completed an archaeological field school at the Topper Site in Allendale County, South Carolina, and went on to work as a student researcher doing artifact and spatial analysis of the site’s Woodland Period assemblage. I presented conference posters and papers on this research at SEAC and the SAA.I earned my BA in Anthropology cum laude in 2017.
While completing my MA in Anthropology at the University of Alabama, I used zooarchaeological and geochemical methods to analyze samples of mollusk shells from 16th and 17th century household middens on St. Catherines Island, Georgia. This research examined the impacts of Spanish colonization, especially via the Catholic mission system, on Indigenous Guale foodways. My co-authored article on these findings was published in The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology. I completed my degree in 2019, and in 2020 I was awarded the University of Alabama’s Graduate School Outstanding Master’s Thesis Award.
Currently, my research focuses on the incarcerated laborers who built the Western North Carolina Railroad (WNCRR) from 1875-1891. I was awarded the Wenner-Gren Dissertation Fieldwork Grant in 2024 to support archaeological survey and excavations at the Cowee Tunnel Prison Labor Camp in Jackson County, North Carolina. I have partnered with community research partners in Jackson County and the surrounding area to address the local community’s interests and concerns and to share the results in accessible formats.
I worked with the North Carolina Historical Publications Office, a division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, to create an online exhibit about incarcerated labor on the WNCRR. I also published an article about incarcerated people’s resistance on the railroad in The North Carolina Historical Review.
I will defend my dissertation in Spring 2026.
Cayla B. Colclasure 