Dr. Daniel LaDu
Assistant Professor
Bio
Daniel LaDu received his bachelor鈥檚 degree in anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2007) under the mentorship of Vin Steponaitis; and earned his master鈥檚 (2009) and doctorate of philosophy degrees (2016) with Ian W. Brown at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, specializing in the archaeology of complex societies. Director of the USM Archaeology Laboratory, Dr. LaDu has more than 15 years field experience, both prehistoric and historic. He is the author of the The Mazique Site (2018), coauthor of Second Creek Archaeology (2019), and maintains several active research agendas. The Mazique Archaeological Project continues to explore the emergence of socio-political inequality in the Southeast. The Natchez Bluffs Village Project seeks to address a pervasive settlement bias and recenter our attention on entire communities instead of individual mound and plaza sites. He is taking motivated MA students with common research interests.
- PHD - University of Alabama (2016)
- MA - University of Alabama (2009)
Survey of Archaeological Methods (ANT 331); Prehistoric Foodways (ANT 432/532); Archaeological Field Methods (ANT436/536); Heritage Resources and Public Policy (ANT 437/537); Archaeology of Complex Societies (ANT 439/539); The Anthropology of Cemeteries (ANT 439/539)
- 鈥淭he Coles Creek-Plaquemine Transition: Ninety-One Years of Lower Mississippi Valley Research, 1932-2023鈥� , Mississippi Archaeology, 2024
- Reconstructing the Coles Creek Settlement System: The View from the Hinterlands, Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology, 2021
- The Faunal Record at Mazique (22Ad502): Everyday Subsistence at a Late Prehistoric Mound and Plaza Center in the Natchex Bluffs Region, Mississippi Archaeology, 2019
- Second Creek Archaeology: A Glimpse into Mississippi's Past, 2019
- The Mazique Site (22Ad502): A Balmoral Phase Coles Creek Mound and Plaza Center in the Natchez Bluffs Region of Mississippi, 2018
- Coles Creek Fauna Procurement Strategies: Subsistence Diversity Among Late Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherer-Horticulturalists in the Lower Mississippi Valley, Southeastern Archaeology, 2018
- The Sandstone Grave Markers of Greenwood Cemetery, Tuscaloosa, Alabama., Markers, 2017