Neal Ferris

I hold the Lawson Chair of Canadian Archaeology and am cross-appointed between the Department of Anthropology and the Museum of Ontario Archaeology. My research focusses on the archaeology of the last 1000 years related to both the Indigenous and Industrial Eras, including the contemporary practice of archaeology in society today. I particularly focus on archaeology from Ontario, Northeastern North America, and the Caribbean.

My research interests focus on three main themes that, at least in my head, all overlap and braid together into broader interconnections through the research I do myself, in collaboration with others, and through supervision of student-led research:

1. The archaeology as trans-generational histories of lived human experiences interpreted through the materiality of craft, settlement-subsistence, social organization, interaction, and identity, as reflected across the Late Woodland part of the Indigenous Era, and through the Industrial Era in southern Ontario, Northeastern North America, and the Caribbean. This focus allows me to explore the fluid social-material processes of always becoming and changing continuities across deep time and across material borderlands between Indigenous societies, between the colonial metropole and its peripheries, and between class, gender, aged, and other temporally transient and socially constructed notions of difference. I am particularly interested in how the archaeological record offers insight into the global colonialism of the last half millennium and how it has shaped trans-generational understandings of self across colonizer, colonized, and diaspora. That interest, in turn, also leads me to explore the continuing legacies of that colonial legacy in shaping this always contested heritage, locally and globally.
2. I also explore archaeology as contemporary social practice and praxis, including the Statecraft of policy, regulation and bureaucratic administration; the ethics and identity of the archaeological community; and the commercialization of practice through Archaeological Heritage Management (AHM). This includes research on the intersection of archaeology and Descendant community treaty and resource claims, and the capacities for differing uses and interpretations of the archaeological record.
3. Those two research themes also overlap in work exploring the contemporary uses and consumption of archaeological information and of the material record, and the shifting of archaeological sensibilities away from archaeologist-centric agendas to finding research fulfillment while being “in the service of” those larger social values that come to bear over the archaeological heritage today..

Ongoing Research

The Archaeology and Heritage of Colonialism and Colonial Legacies in St. Kitts Nevis

Exploring the colonial landscape and legacy of the volcanic waters of Lower Bath Stream/Bath House-Hotel on the Island of Nevis. This project explores the materialities of late British colonialism on Nevis, and the legacies of that colonialism in the ongoing shaping and valuing of heritage legacies on Nevis, as reflected through an ongoing community engagement with the communal heritage of wellness and bathing, the popularization of a colonial elite heritage of recreational spa tourism, and the contemporary valuation of that heritage through a world heritage nomination and inscription of the Bath House-Hotel and Stream. This research also explores the communal archaeological heritage anhd oral history of relevance post Emancipation, and reimagining of colonial plantations landscapes into local heritage landscapes of relevance today.

Sustainable Archaeology:

Innovating how the archaeological record can be cared for, documented, conceived of, made accessible, and managed in Ontario. This includes advancing a digital archaeology to achieve those aims.

Working together separately to develop a practice of archaeology that is consensually co-managed and in the service of the Indigenous descendants of this archaeological heritage, and accessible broadly across Ontario, and about the relationships built on the journey.

Lawson Site:

Advancing and revising our understanding of the human history of the Lawson Site – a vital Indigenous cosmopolitan town that existed for about 50 years around 1500 AD and that has been subjected to continuous archaeological investigation for close to 150 years.

Exploring, revising and adding multiple voices to our interpretations and understanding of the 15th and 16th century human history of southwestern Ontario, and how the human history of the Lawson site fits into that broader archaeological landscape, and challenges the continual colonizing of local history through misconceptions of the Indigenous heritage of this region.

In addition, I have ongoing research interested in:

Southwestern Ontario Late Woodland Borderlands and the revising of material identity across generations and across cultural historical “borders” of artifact trait expression.

Archaeological Practice as Statecraft, in particular how the Archaeological Resource Management Industry, and the archaeological record itself, is regulated through State policy and bureaucratic practice, and how that shapes the ethics, attitudes, and logics of commercial archaeology.

You can access most of my publications through my Academia Page or ResearchGate Page:

Books

2014. Rethinking Colonial Pasts through Archaeology. Edited by Neal Ferris, Rodney Harrison (University College London), and Michael Wilcox (Stanford University). Oxford University Press, Oxford.

2009. The Archaeology of Native-Lived Colonialism: Challenging History in the Great Lakes. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

1990. The Archaeology of Southern Ontario to A.D. 1650. Edited by Chris J. Ellis and Neal Ferris. Occasional Publications of the London Chapter, OAS, Number 5.

Articles

2023. Figured Practices: The Material Heritage of Ritual in the Great Lakes Region. William A. Fox and Neal Ferris. Landscapes of Ritual Practice in Eastern North America, edited by Cheryl Claassen, pp. 139-154. Oxbow Press, Oxford.

2023. Changing Continuities of Home: Tinawatawa/Outinaouatoua in the Context of Seventeenth Century Indigenous Heritage Landscapes. The Archaeology of the Iroquois du Nord, edited by Ronald Williamson and Robert Von Bitter, pp. 141-156. Mercury Series, Canadian Museum of History, Ottawa.

2021. Learning from Ancestors Caring for Ancestors: The Antiquity of Reburial on Bkejwanong. Dean Jacobs, David White, Neal Ferris and Michael Spence. In: Learning from the Ancestors: Collaboration and Community Engagement in the Care and Study of Ancestral Human Remains, edited by Chelsea Meloche, Katherine Nicols and Laure Spake, pp. 178-189. Routledge, New York.

2020. Wringing Hands and Anxious Authority: Archaeological Heritage Management Beyond an Archaeologist's Ontology. Neal Ferris and Josh Dent. Archaeologies 16(1):29-56.

2019. Unraveling Identities on Archaeological Borderlands: Late Woodland Western Basin and Early Ontario Iroquoian Traditions in the Lower Great Lakes Region. Amy St. John and Neal Ferris. Canadian Geographer 63(1):43-56.

2018. Objects as Stepping Stones: Sustainable Archaeology. Neal Ferris, Aubrey Cannon & John Welch. Canadian Journal of Archaeology 48(1):4-12.

2018. Research Spaces from Borderland Places – Late Woodland Archaeology in Southern Ontario. In Engaging Archaeological Research edited by Stephen Silliman, pp. 99-108. Wiley-Blackwell Books.

2017. Flint, Feather, and Other Material Selves: Negotiating the Performance Poetics of E. Pauline Johnson. Manina Jones & Neal Ferris. American Indian Quarterly 41.2:125-157.

2015. New Worlds: Ethics in Contemporary North American Archaeological Practice. Neal Ferris and John Welch. In Ethics and Archaeological Praxis, edited by Cristóbal Gnecco and Dorothy Lippert, pp. 69-93. Springer Books, New York.

2014. Being Iroquoian, Being Iroquois: A Thousand Year Heritage of Becoming. In Rethinking Colonial Pasts through Archaeology, edited by Neal Ferris, Rodney Harrison, and Michael Wilcox, pp. 371-395. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

2014. Introduction: Rethinking Colonial Pasts through the Archaeologies of the Colonized. Neal Ferris, Rodney Harrison, and Matthew Beaudoin. In Rethinking Colonial Pasts through Archaeology, edited by Neal Ferris, Rodney Harrison, and Michael Wilcox, pp. 1-34. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

2014. We Have Met the Enemy and it is Us: Transforming Archaeology through Sustainable Design. John Welch and Neal Ferris. In Transforming Archaeology: Activist Practices and Prospects, edited by Sonja Atalay, Lee Clauss, Randall McGuire and John Welch, pp. 91-114. Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, California.

2014. Beyond Archaeological Agendas: In the Service of a Sustainable Archaeology. Neal Ferris and John Welch. In Transforming Archaeology: Activist Practices and Prospects, edited by Sonja Atalay, Lee Rains Claus, Randall McGuire and John R. Welch, pp. 215-238. Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, California.

2014. Sustainable Archaeology through Progressive Assembly 3D Digitization. Namir Ahmed, Michael Carter, and Neal Ferris. World Archaeology 46(1):137-154.

Technical Reports

2025. Inventorying the Cultural Heritage Record of Nevis Study Area: South St. John Figtree/St. George Gingerland. Neal Ferris, Marco Meniketti, Elaine Morris, Robert Philpott, and David Small. Report for the Nevis Historical and Conservation Society, Charlestown Nevis.

2024. History of Archaeological Investigations at the Lawson Site. Report for Lawson Site Steering Committee, Museum of Ontario Archaeology. Neal Ferris, Matthew Beaudoin and Robert Pearce.

2021. Archaeological Investigations at Gallows Bay in 2018 – Part 2: a) Bath Stream Mouth (JO-04) Surface Survey and Test Excavation; b) Bath Stream Site 1 (JO-09) Surface Survey. Permit Report Prepared for the Nevis Historical Conservation Society, Charlestown.

2019. Aspirational Heritage: The History & Archaeology of the Bath House-Hotel and Bath Stream-Spring Landscape, Nevis. Permit Report Prepared for the Nevis Historical Conservation Society, Charlestown.

I can be asked to teach a number of graduate and undergraduate courses, and often find myself teaching different courses year to year, which gives me the chance to engage with students over wide range of archaeological topics. Typically, my courses include in class projects and research and community engaged work. The following are courses I have taught more than once over the last few years.

Anthropology 2229 - Principles of Archaeology

This course provides an overview of the goals, theory and analytical methods of archaeology as practiced by anthropologists. The course serves to provide a basic exploration of how archaeologists study the material remains of past peoples to interpret their cultural systems, and also how the practice of archaeology is shaped by the contemporary world archaeologists are a part of today.

Anthro 3308 - Archaeological Theory and Practice

This course explores how material culture comes into being, how archaeologists conceive, study, and make meaning from those material practices, and what this imperfect record can tell us about human experiences over time, and what it can’t tell us about human heritage in the present. The course will be structured around contemporary intellectual trends in archaeology, offering students an opportunity to explore key concepts for the discipline, as well as think about and experience hands on those material practice and making meaning from those practices.

Anthro 3320 - Archaeological International Field School – Nevis’ Archaeological Heritage

This course is an intensive introduction to field archaeology, surveying, excavating, and working in a field laboratory on a series of archaeological sites and collections on the island of Nevis, in the country of St Kitts Nevis, in the eastern Caribbean. Sites will include ancient Indigenous and historical material culture associated with community households, colonial and post-Emancipation settlements, and the earliest formal hotel in the eastern Caribbean. The course requires students to learn to live and work together as a crew in a foreign country, to experience Nevisian society and culture, and to learn field methods while contributing to the larger research project this fieldwork supports.

Anthropology 9112 - “i”-ing the Past: Digital Archaeology and Digital Heritage

This course explores the implications of digitizing the practice of archaeology, and interacting with the past digitally. What are the possibilities and issues when a material, tangible past is interacted with and “handled” intangibly and online? What does it mean for archaeological datasets to be “borne digitally”? How does this digital world change methodologies, analyses, and even how we interpret and think about the archaeological heritage? What are the implications for understanding the past and making the archaeological heritage accessible beyond archaeology, as it becomes engaged with, challenged, and re-imagined online and within social media and a global digital community?

Anthropology 9110 - Principles of Applied Archaeology

This course examines the principles and concerns that are integral to the practice of applied archaeology in North America, and the role of applied archaeology in heritgae management in general.  The course will review legislation and profesional practices that govern applied archaeologist, and in particular the form of archaeology carried out by consultant archaeologists hired by third parties to undertake archaeological investigations in advance of land development or resource extraction (commonly called Cultural Resource Management - CRM).  While the readings will draw on the experience of applied archaeology from across North America and beyond, the course will focus on applied archaeology as currently practiced in Ontario.

I work with students interested in Indigenous and Settler Society archaeology from Ontario and the Caribbean, including students who work on my own research interests, such as dimensions of the archaeology of colonialism, or on the Lawson site and 15th-16th century archaeology in southwestern Ontario. I am always happy to consider supervising research projects related to applied archaeology and contemporary practice, the Ontario Late Woodland, and dimensions of 17th-20th century era archaeology. I am particularly happy to consider and encourage applicants from the consulting industry who wish to enroll in the Department’s Applied Archaeology MA option.

Current Students

Emmaneul Amui Amui, PhD Candidate: Implications of Colonial Heritage legacies on Nevis

Phil Woodley, PhD candidate: Memory and Tradition at the Christie Site (AhHa-61)

Amanda Suko, PhD Candidate: Communities of Practice and Assemblages Within a Material Late Woodland Borderland

Michael Bagnall, MA Candidate: Settlement Patterns at the Figura Site (Applied Archaeology)

Thomas Prince, MA Candidate: Craft and Agency in a Late Woodland Lithic Assemblage (Applied Archaeology)

Dana Gonzalez Zavala, MA Candidate: Intra Site House Analyses of the Lawson Site

Robyn Flanders, MA Candidate: Ceramic Consumption and Newspaper Advertising on Nevis (Applied Archaeology)

Mathew Gibson, MA Candidate: Stage 3/4 Approaches to 19th century Domestic Sites (Applied Archaeology)

Sarah Bolstridge, MA Candidate: CRM Approaches to Valuing Late 19^th century sites

Former PhD Students

Beth Compton, PhD candidate: Engaging with Archaeological Collections in Community Archaeology: examining the value of digital representations and physical replicas. Joint supervisor with Lisa Hodgetts

Amy St. John:  "Late Woodland Ceramic Borderlands Using a Micro-CT Scanner." Joint supervisor with Andrew Nelson

Michael Carter: “Virtual Archaeology, Virtual Longhouses And “Envisioning the Unseen” Within the Archaeological Record.”

Joshua Dent: “Accounts of Engagement: Conditions and Capitals of Indigenous Participation in Canadian Commercial Archaeology.”

Matthew Beaudoin: "De-Essentializing the Past: Deconstructing Colonial Categories in 19th-Century Ontario"

Former MA Students

Sydney Rowinski, MA Candidate: Surveying the Industry: A Professional Profile of Cultural Resources Management in Canada

Hillary Kiazyk: "Digital Indigenous Community Archaeology"

Corbin Berger: "19^th century Cellar Standards in Ontario CRM"

Kelly Gostick: “If Pits Could Talk: An Analysis of Features from the Figura Site (AgHk-52).”

Adria Grant: “The Roffelsen Site: A Late Woodland Place of Transition between Life and Death.”

Chelsey Armstrong: "Ancient DNA in Archaeologically Charred Zea MaysL. : Prospects and Limitations".

Joshua Dent: "Past Tents: Temporal Themes and Patterns of Provincial Archaeological Governance in British Columbia and Ontario"

Ellen Brown: "Borders of Knowledge: Cultural and Political Borderlands, Identity and the Ironsdies in the Great Lakes (1790-1863)."