Trish Markert

I am an historical archaeologist interested in place, migration, and community-based archaeology. My research focuses on placemaking in contexts of historic migration, particularly those related to ongoing settler colonialism in North America. How do negotiations of migrant identity become expressed through built landscapes, oral histories, and heritage practices in the generations that follow migration events? How are migrant pasts remembered and mythologized through materials and words, and how do these inform conceptions of migration in the present? As an archaeologist working with communities on sites of the recent past, I incorporate methods such as ethnography, oral history, linguistic and narrative analysis, architectural analysis, 3D photogrammetry, and participatory mapping to collaboratively approach questions of place, identity, and heritage.

My other research interests include digital archaeology, mapping and memory, archaeological ethics, historical material culture (19th-20th century), and museum scholarship and curation.

Old D’Hanis Archaeological Mapping Project

I direct a community archaeology project in south Texas focused on several towns that originated from a wave of Alsatian and German migration in the 19th century. The towns continued to exist at the intersection of multiple migrations in the century that followed, including Mexican migration to Texas in the 20th century. My current book project follows the construction and eventual ruination of five rock houses from the town of D’Hanis, TX to examine how migrants (from Alsace, Germany, and Mexico) and their descendants made place, negotiated identities, and imagined pasts and futures across several generations. The project has received generous funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Wenner-Gren Foundation, National Geographic Society, American Council of Learned Societies/Mellon Foundation, Council of Texas Archeologists, and Medina County Historical Commission, as well as the Binghamton Research Foundation and the Faculty of Social Science at Western University.

Archaeological Ethics

In addition to my research on place and migration, I have researched and published on questions of archaeological ethics, equity, and accessibility. I am currently a member of the Canadian Archaeological Association’s Working Group on Equity and Diversity in Canadian Archaeology, chaired by my colleague Dr. Lisa Hodgetts. I have previously served on ethics committees and task forces for the Register of Professional Archaeologists and the Society for American Archaeology.

Digital Archaeology, Mapping, and Virtual Reconstruction

I am interested in how digital methods, qualitative mapping, and virtual reconstruction intersect with community-based methods, public education, and interdisciplinary research between archaeology and other disciplines. I direct the Digital & Interdisciplinary Archaeology Lab (DIA Lab) and am co-founder of the Mapping and Memory Research Group at Western. I am also a member of the virtual reconstruction working group and geophysical survey team for the Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador Project.

The Discover Old D’Hanis virtual archaeology game, based on data from the Old D’Hanis Archaeological Mapping Project, was developed in collaboration with lead developer Michael Salton and a team of computer science and music students from Western. An early-release version of the game, which is still in development, is available for free download on Steam as an open educational resource.

Markert, Patricia G. (2026) Without a Roadmap: Reflections on the Emergent Methods of Community-Based Archaeology. Advances in Archaeological Practice 1-21 (First View).

Patricia Markert, Lisa Hodgetts, Marie-Pier Cantin, Solène Mallet Gauthier, Natasha Lyons, Kisha Supernant, John R. Welch, Adrianna Wiley, Joshua Dent (2025) Confronting Archaeology’s “Grey Zones,” American Antiquity 90(3):555-572.

Markert, Patricia G. (2022) Gathering Places: Alsatian Migration and Place-Making on the Texas Frontier. In The Archaeology of Space and Place in the West, edited by Carolyn White and Emily Dale. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.

Markert, Patricia G. (2021) On Ethical Codes: Re-visioning Our Relationship with Archaeological Ethics. The SAA Archaeological Record 21(2):24-28.

Markert, Patricia G. (2020) Historical Archaeology of Migration in the American Southwest. In New Perspectives on the American Southwest: Historical Archaeology of the 1800s and 1900s, ed. Emily Dale. Special Issue, KIVA: Journal of Southwestern Anthropology and History 86(2): 137-148.

Public Anthropology

“Photogrammetry in Three Acts.” Advances in Archaeological Practice Blog, Cambridge University Press, April 13, 2026.

“Rethinking Archaeology.” National Geographic Explorer Classroom, 9-12 grade, June 10, 2020.

“#SAA2019 and the Public Face of Harassment: Thoughts and Resources on #metoo and the SAA.” Co-author Nathan Klembara. MAPA Blog, May 1, 2019.

"Fieldnotes from the Twilight Zone." Co-author Jeremy Trombley. Speculative Anthropologies, Cultural Anthropology, December 18, 2018.

I welcome students interested in historical and/or contemporary archaeology; collaborative and interdisciplinary approaches to heritage; settler colonialism in North America or abroad; landscape, mapping, and memory; historical material culture of the 19th and 20th century; and archaeological approaches to place and migration. I currently run a community-based archaeology project in D’Hanis, TX that examines how migrant communities and their descendants navigate identity and place through narratives and the built landscape, with several options for graduate projects. I am happy to supervise research projects that involve interdisciplinary approaches to archaeology including ethnography, oral history, linguistic anthropology, museums, archives, and digital approaches to landscape (e.g., photogrammetry, GIS). I also welcome applications that creatively and critically examine sites of migration more broadly, particularly in the American and Canadian West.

Undergraduate Courses 

ANTHRO 2231: Archaeologies of Migration (Fall 2023; Fall 2024)

ANTHRO 4418F: Historical Material Culture (Fall 2024, Winter 2026; cross-listed with grad course)

ANTHRO 2256B: Ruins and Ruination (Winter 2025; Winter 2027)

Graduate Courses 

ANTHRO 9127A: Historical Material Culture (Fall 2024; Winter 2026)

ANTHRO 9101B: Research Design in Archaeology and Biological Anthropology (Winter Term)

ANTHRO 9125: Contested Heritage and Landscapes (Fall 2023)