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Photograph of Daniel Sayers

Daniel Sayers Associate Professor CAS | ANTH | Anthropology

Additional Positions at AU
Graduate Director, Anthropology
Degrees
PhD, Historical Archaeology, College of William & Mary
MA, Anthropology, Western Michigan University
BA, Philosophy and Anthropology, Western Michigan University

Book Currently Reading
Goldfarb, 2023 Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of our Planet
Bio
Dr. Sayers is a historical archaeologist who has worked across the United States on academic and cultural resource management projects during the past 30 years. He has written on a variety of topics in areas of theory, practice, and issues in the profession today as can be found in his two academic books and his many journal articles and edited volume chapters. As a public-facing researcher, Dr. Sayers has appeared on many television and streaming shows, documentary films, podcasts, radio programs, and other media while also presenting to a variety of public audiences several times per year.
For the Media
To request an interview for a news story, call AU Communications at 202-885-5950 or submit a request.

Teaching

Fall 2024

  • ANTH-253 Introduction to Archaeology

  • ANTH-496 Selected Topics:Non-Recurring: Spatial Anthropology

Spring 2025

  • ANTH-253 Introduction to Archaeology

Partnerships & Affiliations

Scholarly, Creative & Professional Activities

Research Interests

Exploring the following through a political economic perspective:

  • Diasporas and exile
  • Alienation, estrangement, and the material world
  • Labor and commodities
  • Marronage, Maroon communities, and the (so-called) Underground Railroad
  • Farmsteads and rural life
  • Defiance and resistance among the oppressed
  • Animal emancipation/rights and archaeology
  • The Material-existential aspects of having been, of being, and of becoming 
  • Community power
  • Multispecies society
  • Gender, family, and kin
  • Archaeological research models and methods (e.g., excavation, survey, and certain modes of data recordation)
  • Homed and unhomed (a.k.a., homeless, unhoused)
  • Race, racism, and racialization
  • The nature of the archaeological record
  • Historical archaeology as a deliberate, strategic, interventionist and world-transformational praxis.

Media Appearances

Recent appearances:

July 2023

Appeared as a collaborative team member in, “Searching for a Fortress Built by People Who Escaped Slavery”, by Matthew Hutson, The New Yorker

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/searching-for-a-fortress-built-by-people-who-escaped-slavery

May 2023

Appeared as Dismal Swamp archaeology expert and commentator on Indigenous American social history in Great Dismal Swamp. In the podcast, Tribal Truths, episode, “Nansemond Indian Nation: Looking for Ancestors in the Great Dismal Swamp”, WVTF, Virginia Public Radio.

https://www.wvtf.org/podcast/tribal-truths/2023-05-25/nansemond-indian-nation-looking-for-ancestors-in-the-great-dismal-swamp

August 2022

American Landscapes w/ host Baratunde Thurston, PBS, Episode 4 on the Mid-Atlantic; appeared as archaeology expert and interviewee with host in the Dismal Swamp.

February 2022

The Underground Railroad, episode 3 in 4-part series on Discovery Science Channel; appeared as archaeology expert in Dismal Swamp segment.

December 2020

“The Great Dismal Swamp was a Refuge for Escaped Slaves. A Congressman Wants to Revive its Forgotten History”, The Virginian-Pilot.

November 2020

Enslaved People on the Run: The Great Dismal Swamp. Constant Wonder, Brigham Young University Radio, Podcast interview.

October 2020

What on Earth?, Discovery Science Channel, Dismal Swamp Archaeology segment (original air date 10/22/2020)

Grants and Sponsored Research

NEH "We the People Collaborative Grant; Canon/National Park Service/American Academy of Arts and Sciences Grant        

Films/Documentaries

Escape to the Great Dismal Swamp, Smithsonian Channel, 2018.

Selected Publications

Recent Public Work

Sayers, Dan. 2021, The Secret Society of the Great Dismal Swamp. TedEd short film.

Sayers, Daniel O. 2018, A Modest Firearms Proposal, The Doctor T.J Eckleburg Review.

Sayers, Daniel O., 2017, Guest Columnist, "The Shepard House Has Alot to Teach Us."

Recent Books

*Sayers, Daniel O. (2023). The Archaeology of the Homed and the Unhomed. Archaeology of the American Experience, Michael S. Nassaney and Krysta Ryzewski, series eds., University Press of Florida, Gainesville.

     * 2023 Choice Outstanding Academic Title Award (American Library Association)

Sayers, Daniel O. (2014). A Desolate Place for a Defiant People: The Archeology of Maroons, Indigenous Americans, and Enslaved Laborers in the Great Dismal Swamp. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. (Second, paperback edition, 2016).

Recent Articles and Book Chapters

Sayers, Daniel O. (2023). Some Thoughts on Landscape’s Political-Economic Fissures and Understanding Past Social Radicals. Thematic volume on “Cracks in Capitalism.”, Wurst and Dezsi, eds. International Journal of Historical Archaeology.

Sayers, Daniel O. (2019). The Radical Antebellum Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina and Virginia, USA: Maroons, Indigenous Americans, and the Power of Underdeveloped Landscapes. Revue d’histoire du XIXe siècle 58:125-146.

Sayers, Daniel O., and Justin Uehlein (2018). Animal Emancipation and Historical Archaeology: A Pairing Long Overdue. In, Critical Animal Studies: Towards Trans-species Social Justice, Atsuko Matsuoka and John Sorenson, eds., pp.117-142, Rowman & Littlefield International, London, UK.

Short Fiction

Daniel Owen Sayers, 2018, The Omphalos of Pritchard McCovey, Poor Yorick Journal 

Honors, Awards, and Fellowships

WMU Distinguished Anthropology Alumnus; William and Mary Distinguished Doctoral Dissertation in Social Sciences; Keynote, Great Dismal Swamp NPS Network To Freedom Ceremony      

Announcements

*The Great Dismal Swamp collaboration effort is yielding good results:

**See our Great Dismal Swamp Landscape Study Facebook page.

Professional Services

Expert consultant activities include

  • Jamestown Rediscovery Museum Revamp: Content, Tour Info, and Exhibits
  • USFWS Archaeological Excavation and Architectural Survey Consulting
  • USFWS and NPS Great Dismal Swamp Public History Interpretation Pavilion: Info, Text, and Images
  • Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (National Mall, Washington DC): Exhibit development and content, facilitation of artifact loans

Examples of courses developed and taught include

  • Grad: Craft of Anthropology; Foundations of Archaeology: Marxism, Material Culture, and Space; Archaeology, Alienation, and the Existential Condition
  • Grad/Undergrad: Great Depression Undocumented Laborer Project/Delta, PA Archaeological Field School (AU, co-taught); Archaeology of the Homeless and the Home; Radical Archaeologies; humAnimal anthropology
  • Undergrad: Human Origins; Introduction to Archaeology; Early America: The Buried Past