Winter Lecture – Ancient Oysters and Modern Messes: How Archaeology Can Help Clean the Bay

• Oysters struggle to grow in much of the upper Chesapeake Bay today, but thousands of archaeological sites full of oyster shells tell us that they were once plentiful.
• These sites show how Indigenous people fished the Bay for thousands of years, and how the relationship between people and the Bay has shifted over the past few centuries.
• Address how Chesapeake environments and cultures have changed, and investigate a few archaeological clues about what we could do differently today.

Presenter: Leslie Reeder-Myers | Assistant Professor – Department of Anthropology at Temple University

About the Presenter: Leslie Reeder-Myers is an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at Temple University and the director of Temple’s Anthropology Laboratory and Museum. As an archaeologist and geographer, Reeder-Myers studies the impact of sea-level rise and climate change on coastal populations in the past.