Terrence Slocum
As a 5th year UW-Madison Graduate Student, I am continuing PhD research of Stone Age Scandinavia as an advisee of Prof. T. Douglas Price. The summer of 2007 marked my 7th season of archaeological fieldwork in Denmark, investigating the process by which hunting, foraging and fishing communities shifted priorities and adopted a socio-economic system based primarily on animal husbandry and agriculture. In particluar, I am interested in how these economic changes inspired increasingly elaborate patterns of ceremonial behavior, and how these behaviors reflect transformations in Neolithic social organization.
Currently, I am completing dissertation research as a Fulbright Fellow on the Danish island Bornholm. The focus of study involves the predictive modeling and spatial analysis of monumental Neolithic structures known as Causewayed and Palisaded Enclosures. Enclosure sites occur in Denmark ca. 3500-2800 BC – contemporaneous with an aggregation of settlement, construction of megalithic graves, and heightened transformation of the environment via forest clearance and agrarian practices. For a short but intense time, the enclosures become the cultural center of this world and as a result are viewed by archaeologists as critical to understanding socio-economic change during this period. This is essentially a ‘settlement’ or ‘landscape’ archaeology project but is unique methodologically for its coordinated examination of archaeological, geographic, and geophysical information. Both material and spatial data will be stored, analyzed, and graphically-reproduced using GIS mapping software. By combining GIS technology with remote sensing and traditional archaeological field methods, I hope, first, to more efficiently locate and define previously unknown enclosure sites and, secondly, to address questions of changing settlement patterns, land use, and social relations on Bornholm and elsewhere in Stone Age southern Scandinavia. Excavation of the Vasagård site, currently the only known causewayed enclosure on Bornholm, was conducted with the assistance of Bornholms Museum during summer 2007. Among the results of the 2007 excavation was the discovery of two previously unknown palisade enclosure lines. Magnetometry survey has also located a potential ´wood henge’ on the site. Additional fieldwork at Vasagård is planned for Summer and Fall of 2008.
Prior to attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I recieved an MS in Interdisciplinary Studies: Folklore from the University of Oregon (2001), and a BA in Anthropology from Miami Univeristy (Ohio) (1992).
