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. 

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. 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.

In addition to my research on place and migration, I am invested in questions of archaeological ethics, equity, and accessibility. I am a member of the Canadian Archaeological Association’s Working Group on Equity and Diversity in Canadian Archaeology, chaired by my colleague Dr. Lisa Hodgetts.

Markert, Patricia, Lisa Hodgetts, Marie-Pier Cantin, Solène Mallet Gauthier, Natasha Lyons, Kisha Supernant, John R. Welch, Adrianna Wiley, Joshua Dent (in review) ConfrontingArchaeology’s “Grey Zones,” from Blurred Boundaries to Equitable Futures. American Antiquity.

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

Barton, Christopher P. and Patricia G. Markert. (2012). Collaborative Archaeology, Oral History,and Social Memory at Timbuctoo, New Jersey. Journal of African Diaspora Archaeology and Heritage 1(1): 79-101.

Public Anthropology

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

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

Markert, Patricia G. (2019) The Old D’Hanis Archaeological Mapping Project. Council of Texas Archeologists Newsletter 43(2): 21-26.

“#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 approaches to heritage, settler colonialism, and material and narrative aspects of 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. 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, cross-listed with grad course)

ANTHRO 2256B: Ruins and Ruination (Winter 2025)

Graduate Courses 

ANTHRO 9127A: Historical Material Culture (Fall 2024)

ANTHRO 9101B: Research Design in Archaeology and Biological Anthropology

ANTHRO 9125: Contested Heritage and Landscapes (Fall 2023)