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Joyce White

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Joyce White
Dr. Joyce White,Executive Director at the Institute for Southeast Asian Archaeology (ISEAA).
Institute for Southeast Asian Archaeology
Incumbent
Assumed office
October 1, 2013 (2013-010-01)
Personal details
Born
Joyce White

Chicago, Illinois, United States
Residence(s)Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.
Alma materUniversity of Pennsylvania
ProfessionArchaeologist
WebsiteInstitute for Southeast Asian Archaeology

Joyce C. White, PhD is an American archaeologist, an adjunct associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and executive director of the new Institute for Southeast Asian Archaeology. Her research primarily concerns decades-long multidisciplinary archaeological investigations in Thailand and Laos covering the prehistoric human occupation of the middle reaches of the Mekong River Basin. She is considered the world's leading expert on the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Ban Chiang, Thailand, and directs an archaeological fieldwork program in the Luang Prabang Province of Laos.[1]

Research and career

Joyce White is a senior Southeast Asian archaeologist in the Greater Philadelphia area. She received her MA and PhD in Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania and holds the position of Consulting Scholar at the University's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Dr. White founded the Institute for Southeast Asian Archaeology (ISEAA) in October 2013 in order to build upon the decades-long archaeological research programs in Thailand and Laos undertaken by the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. White is the current director of the Middle Mekong Archaeological Project and of the Ban Chiang Project (since 1982) at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.[2]

Ban Chiang project

Dr. White’s investigation of Southeast Asian prehistory began in the mid-1970s when, as a PhD student under the supervision of the late Chester Gorman, she ran the labs conducting post-excavation analysis of artifacts from Gorman’s excavations in northern and northeast Thailand. From 1976 she focused on the analysis of the metal age site of Ban Chiang, a site subsequently named in 1992 as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In 1978 she initiated an ethnoecological research program in the Ban Chiang area studying the local understanding of indigenous natural resources with a special emphasis on native plants. While there, she compiled an ethnographic collection of everyday traditional material culture items (e.g., baskets, tools, pottery, etc.) for the Penn Museum. After conducting this field project in Ban Chiang village for nearly two years in 1979-1981, she returned to Philadelphia where, following Gorman’s premature death in June 1981, she curated the Smithsonian-produced traveling exhibition “Ban Chiang: Discovery of a Lost Bronze Age” and authored its catalog. The exhibition was later installed in a branch of Thailand’s National Museum in Ban Chiang village and parts of it are still on display. In 1986, White completed her PhD thesis at Penn that revised the Gorman chronology for Ban Chiang. Since that time Dr. White’s career has centered on the multi-disciplinary investigation of the human past in Thailand and Laos. She continued with the analysis of the Ban Chiang site at Penn Museum as a Senior Research Scientist and later as an Associate Curator. In 1993 she founded the Friends of Ban Chiang to facilitate fund-raising to continue the post-excavation analysis and publication program. In the mid-1990s she was co-principal investigator of the Thailand Palaeoenvironment Project, which cored sediments from lakes in northeast, north, and south Thailand that for the first time in that country retrieved vegetation evidence from the terminal Pleistocene to the Late Holocene from each area. The first Ban Chiang monograph published in 2002 was on the human remains from the site and was authored by Michael Pietrusewsky and Michele Douglas.

Middle Mekong Archaeological Project (MMAP)

In 2001, Dr. White initiated what was to become the first archaeological research program in Laos led by an American, the Middle Mekong Archaeological Project (MMAP). Dr. White has pursued larger Mekong regional questions raised by the original Ban Chiang excavations in Thailand and her work on the Thailand Palaeoenvironment Project. With seed funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Geographic Society in 2005, the Middle Mekong Archaeological Project (MMAP) has excavated and surveyed numerous sites along the Mekong and its tributaries in Luang Prabang province in northern Laos, with the goal of investigating early human settlement of the Mekong Valley.[3] From 2008-2013 during White’s tenure as Associate Curator for Asia at University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology she directed the Museum’s program to Strengthen Southeast Asian Archaeology, funded by the Henry Luce Foundation. In addition to surveys and cave excavations, a variety of scientific and capacity-building endeavors sought to enhance knowledge and skills among Asian and western archaeologists to lay the foundation for future development of archaeological research in the Middle Mekong Basin. By early 2010, 84 historic and prehistoric sites had been recorded by MMAP in Luang Prabang and four cave sites have been excavated. In 2013 several ancillary scientific studies were undertaken, including palaeoenvironmental research using speleothems led by a team from the University of California at Riverside, and population history research using modern human DNA led by a team from Oxford University, The Luce Program also included a year of intensive analysis of hundreds of pottery vessels excavated from Ban Chiang on loan to the Penn Museum as well as extensive development of a regional archaeological database that contains data from both the Ban Chiang and Lao research programs.

Institute for Southeast Asian Archaeology (ISEAA)

In 2013 Dr. White founded the ISEAA, which is dedicated to the multi-disciplinary investigation of Southeast Asia’s archaeological past in order to advance that knowledge for the benefit of scholars as well as the public. Due to strategic decisions to downsize its research staff, Penn Museum ended funding for its research program for Southeast Asian Archaeology in 2013. The new non-profit Institute was then created by Dr. White with initial support from several founding donors. The Institute’s objective is to continue the internationally renowned research and publication programs of the Ban Chiang Project and the Middle Mekong Archaeological Project (MMAP) , in order to preserve for posterity the knowledge of the human past revealed by those pioneering research programs. ISEAA can also serve as a center for future research projects in Southeast Asian archaeology. In 2014, Dr. White established the ISEAA Early Career Award. This first ever international award in the discipline of Southeast Asian archaeology aims to promote the field among younger archaeologists and to foster the application of contemporary archaeological theory to Southeast Asian data. Dr. White’s scholarship has significantly influenced both the public appreciation for Southeast Asian archaeology generally and Ban Chiang in particular,[4] as well as the scholarly discourse concerning the place of Southeast Asia in world prehistory. As examples, while Associate Curator, Dr. White was honored by Her Royal Highness of Thailand,[5] Crown Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, on February 9, 2010, at the opening of the new National Museum at Ban Chiang, Thailand. Also a publication in 2009 she co-authored with Dr. Elizabeth Hamilton has been described as providing an “innovative model of cultural transmission of metal technology [that is] a significant intellectual landmark in archaeometallurgy.” [6]

Joyce White is an author of several influential publications, including the following selected examples.

Selected publications

  • 1982 Ban Chiang: Discovery of a Lost Bronze Age, The University Museum, University of Pennsylvania and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service.
  • 1988 Early East Asian Metallurgy: The Southern Tradition. In The Beginning of the Use of Metals and Alloys, edited by R. Maddin, pp. 175 181. MIT Press, Cambridge.
  • 1992 (with B. Bronson) Radiocarbon and Chronology in Southeast Asia. In Chronologies in Old World Archaeology, 3rd ed., edited by R. Ehrich, Vol. 1: pp. 491–503, Vol. 2: pp. 475–515. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
  • 1995 Modeling the Development of Early Rice Agriculture: Ethnoecological Perspectives from Northeast Thailand. Asian Perspectives 34(1):37-68.
  • 1995 Incorporating Heterarchy into Theory on Socio-Political Development: the Case from Southeast Asia. In Heterarchy and the Analysis of Complex Societies, edited by R. Ehrenreich, C. Crumley and J. Levy, pp. 101–123. Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association, No. 6. American Anthropological Association, Arlington.
  • 1996 (With V. Pigott) From Community Craft to Regional Specialization: Intensification of Copper Production in Pre-State Thailand. In Craft Specialization and Social Evolution: in Memory of V. Gordon Childe, edited by Bernard Wailes, pp. 151–175. University of Pennsylvania Museum Monograph 93.
  • 2004 (with Daniel Penny, Lisa Kealhofer, and Bernard Maloney) "Vegetation Changes from the Terminal Pleistocene Through the Holocene from Three Areas of Archaeological Significance in Thailand." Quaternary International (2004). 113(1):111-132.
  • 2004 (with C. Gorman) "Patterns in Amorphous Industries: The Hoabinhian Viewed Through a Lithic Reduction Sequence. " IN Southeast Asian Archaeology: A Festschrift for Wilhelm G. Solheim II. Edited by Victor Paz. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press. pp. 411–441.
  • 2008 "Archaeology of the Middle Mekong: Introduction to the Luang Prabang Exploratory Survey. " IN Recherches nouvelles sur le Laos (New research on Laos), edited by Yves Goudineau and Michel Lorrillard. Coll. Etudes thématiques, no. 18, Paris : Publication de l’École Française d’Extrême Orient. pp. 37–52.
  • 2009 (with H. Lewis, B. Bouasisengpaseuth, B. Marwick & K. Arrell) Archaeological Investigations in Northern Laos: New Contributions to Southeast Asian Prehistory. Antiquity Vol 83 Issue 319 March 2009.
  • 2009 (with E. Hamilton) "The Transmission of Early Bronze Technology to Thailand: New Perspectives". Journal of World Prehistory 22: 357-397.
  • 2011 (with C. Eyre) Residential Burial and the Metal Age of Thailand. In Residential Burial: A Multi-regional Exploration. Rod Adams and Stacie King, eds. Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association, Number 20. American Anthropological Association, Arlington VA. pp. 59–78.
  • 2011 "Emergence of Cultural Diversity in Mainland Southeast Asia: a View from Prehistory" in Mainland Southeast Asia: a View from Prehistory. In Dynamics of Human Diversity: the Case of Mainland Southeast Asia. N.J. Enfield, ed. Pacific Linguistics 627. Pacific Linguistics, Canberra. pp. 9–46.
  • 2013 Ban Non Wat: New Light on the Metal Ages of Southeast Asia. Antiquity 87(337): 909-011.

Notes

  1. ^ "Staff". Institute for Southeast Asian Archaeology. Retrieved October 2, 2014.
  2. ^ "Joyce White Honored at Opening of Ban Chiang National Museum". University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Retrieved October 2, 2014.
  3. ^ * J White, H. Lewis, B. Bouasisengpaseuth, B. Marwick & K. Arrell, 2009 Archaeological investigations in northern Laos: new contributions to Southeast Asian prehistory. Antiquity Vol 83 Issue 319 March 2009.
  4. ^ Editors of Time-Life Books (1995). Southeast Asia: A Past Regained. alexandria, Virginia: Time-Life Books. ISBN 0-8094-9112-5. {{cite book}}: |last1= has generic name (help)
  5. ^ "Ban Chiang project honored at Thailand museum opening". Expedition. 52 (2): 46. 2010. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  6. ^ Thornton, Christopher; Roberts, Benjamin (2014). Archaeometallurgy in Global Perspective: Methods and Syntheses. New York: Springer. p. 4. ISBN 978-1-4614-9016-6. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)

References

Svasti, Pichaya. "Dwelling on the past". www.Bangkokpost.com. Retrieved 30 April 2013.

Svasti, Pichaya. "Dwelling on the past".

"Ban Chiang project honored at Thailand museum opening". Expedition. 52 (2): 46. 2010. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)

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