Karen A. Stevens
M.A., Anthropology, University of Kentucky, 2016.
B.A., Anthropology, concentration in Archaeology, Appalachian State University, 2011.
B.S., Chemistry, Secondary Education, Appalachian State University, 2011.
My research focuses on Archaic period hunters and gatherers in the Green River Valley of Kentucky. These sites are commonly referred to as the Green River Shell Mound Archaic (SMA), although many contain little to no shell. Many of these sites were initially excavated during the WPA era in the 1930s and 1940s by William S. Webb and others. I am interested in taking these collections and implementing isotope chemistry to further study the paleoenvironment. Currently I am looking at unexcavated shell middens in Henderson County, Kentucky. I am also interested in further examining gender and sex relations as related to subsistence strategies in the egalitarian hunter-gatherer groups, focusing mainly on hunting, fishing, and shellfish gathering, by looking at secondary indicators such as human-dog pair burials and the presence of auditory exostoses.
Department of Anthropology, University of Kentucky, Advisor: George Crothers
Stevens, Karen A. (2011) Determination of Burial Chronology at the Kirkland site using Fluoride Dating. Unpublished Honors Thesis, Department of Anthropology, Appalachian State University, Boone.
Selected Presentations:
2016 Auditory Exostoses as Indicators of Mobility and Sexual Divisions of Labor in the Green River Valley, Kentucky. Poster to be presented at the 81st Annual Society for American Archaeology Meeting, Orlando, Florida.
2016 Preliminary Fieldwork at Several Archaic Shell Middens in the Lower Green River Archaeological Region. Paper presented at the 33rd Annual Kentucky Heritage Council Archaeology Conference, Pineville, Kentucky.