Suzanne Lorraine Eckert

Biography

Suzanne Eckert earned her doctorate in 2003 from the Department of Anthropology, Arizona State University. She is currently the Head of Collections at the Arizona State Museum, and an Associate Professor in the School of Anthropology, University of Arizona. Dr. Eckert’s research focuses on how pre-colonial and colonial cultures organized ceramic technology, and how this technology integrated with other aspects of society, including migration, political and social organization, religious practice and ideology, and gender and ethnic relations. To pursue these questions, she relies primarily upon mineralogical and chemical compositional data, as well as decorative data, collected from pottery (and the occasional stone tool). Her current research focuses on the development of glaze-paint technology in prehispanic New Mexico and how various cultural dynamics articulated with the production and use of glaze-painted vessels.

Degrees

• Ph.D. Anthropology (Archaeology)
• Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, United States
• Social Boundaries, Immigration, and Ritual Systems: A Case Study from the American Southwest
• M.A. Anthropology (Archaeology)
• Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, United States
• The Process of Aggregation in the Post-Chacoan Era: A Case Study from the Lower Zuni River Region
• B.A. Anthropology
• University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California, United States
• A Functional Approach to the Origins of the Pueblo Katsina Cult