Suzanne Lorraine Eckert
- Curator
- Acting Associate Director, Arizona State Museum
- Head of Collections, ASM
- Professor, Anthropology
- Member of the Graduate Faculty
- (520) 626-0253
- Raymond H. Thompson Building, Rm. 209
- Tucson, AZ 85721
- sleckert@arizona.edu
Biography
Suzanne Eckert earned her doctorate in 2003 from the Department of Anthropology, Arizona State University. She is currently the Head of Collections and a Curator at the Arizona State Museum, and a 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
Work Experience
- Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona (2013 - Ongoing)
- Department of Anthropology, Texas A&M University (2004 - 2014)
Interests
Research
Archaeology, American Southwest, Ceramic Analysis, Identity, Gender
Teaching
Archaeology, American Southwest, Ceramic Analysis, Identity, Gender
Courses
2023-24 Courses
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Internship
ANTH 493 (Spring 2024) -
Internship
ANTH 393 (Fall 2023)
2022-23 Courses
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Internship
ANTH 493 (Spring 2023) -
Internship
ANTH 393 (Fall 2022) -
Internship
ANTH 493 (Fall 2022)
2021-22 Courses
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Independent Study
ANTH 499 (Summer I 2022) -
Internship
ANTH 393 (Spring 2022) -
Intro Archaeol Analysis
ANTH 333 (Spring 2022)
2020-21 Courses
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Internship
ANTH 493 (Spring 2021) -
Honors Independent Study
ANTH 399H (Fall 2020) -
Internship
ANTH 393 (Fall 2020) -
Internship
ANTH 493 (Fall 2020)
2019-20 Courses
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Internship
ANTH 493 (Spring 2020) -
World Archaeology
ANTH 160A1 (Spring 2020) -
Internship
ANTH 493 (Fall 2019)
2018-19 Courses
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World Archaeology
ANTH 160A1 (Spring 2019) -
Independent Study
ANTH 499 (Fall 2018)
2017-18 Courses
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Intro Archaeol Analysis
ANTH 333 (Fall 2017)
2016-17 Courses
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Internship
ANTH 493 (Spring 2017) -
Internship
ANTH 493 (Fall 2016)
2015-16 Courses
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Internship
ANTH 393 (Spring 2016) -
Internship
ANTH 493 (Spring 2016)
Scholarly Contributions
Journals/Publications
- Schaefer, J. M., Eckert, S. L., Huntley, D. L., & Ferguson, J. R. (2023).
In-Field Obsidian XRF Analysis of Sites in the Lion Mountain Area and Gallinas Mountains of West-Central New Mexico
. Journal of Field Archaeology, 48(5), 337-349. doi:10.1080/00934690.2023.2221520 - Eckert, S. L., & Habicht-mauche, J. A. (2021).
Coalescence and the Spread of Glaze-Painted Pottery in the Central Rio Grande: The View from Tijeras Pueblo (LA581), New Mexico
. American Antiquity, 86(4), 752-772. doi:10.1017/aaq.2021.60More infoThe concept of coalescent communities has been widely used by North American archaeologists as a framework for understanding cultural responses to social upheaval. In this article we explore how the concept of coalescence helps us understand the processes that led to the emergence of aggregated settlements in the Albuquerque district of the central Rio Grande Valley around the turn of the fourteenth century. We argue that such communities emerged as strategic local responses to disruptive social and demographic trends on a macroregional scale. Specifically, we use NAA and petrographic sourcing of Western Pueblo- and Rio Grande-style glaze-painted pottery in conjunction with settlement data from the site of Tijeras Pueblo (LA581) to explore how the amalgamation of immigrant and autochthonous people, technology, knowledge, and ritual creatively and radically transformed local and regional practices of community and identity formation. - Eckert, S. L. (2020).
BOOK REVIEW: Communities and Households in the Greater American Southwest: New Perspectives and Case Studies
. KIVA, 86(2), 242-244. doi:10.1080/00231940.2020.1757216 - Eckert, S. L. (2017). Wrapping and Unwrapping Material Culture: Archaeological and Anthropological Perspectives. Susanna Harris and Laurence Douny, eds. Walnut creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2014. 245 pp.. Museum Anthropology, 40(2), 159-160. doi:10.1111/muan.12142
