Isabelle Holland-Lulewicz

Our lab of archaeologists, historians, and ecologists studies social, economic, and environmental dynamics over the last 5,000yrs. From the earliest Indigenous villages on the US Atlantic coast, to nomadic Mongolian empires, to Black towns of the post-emancipation South. Follow for rad archaeology!

Me (working really hard, as you can see) and @isazooarch.bsky.social. AND the sea turtle (?) that came out of this DENSE shell midden #archaeology #ecology

A flyer for a public talk by Dr. Isabelle Holland-Lulewicz at Tribby Arts Center in Fort Myers, FL. Saturday, 1/18 at 11am. The talk is titled “The Calusa, the sea, and the fisher cities of southwestern Florida.”

If you’re in SW Florida this weekend, come hang out! #archaeology

Rock art image of a catfish recorded by T.H. Lewis in the late 19th century, showing its large head and fins, long body and forked tail, with details of the gills and one eye

Map of a group of burial mounds above the edge of a steep slope. Most are round but one in the center is long with protuberances that seem like a catfish’s fins. A road and railroad line are also shown on the map.

Thinking about catfish in Minnesota archaeology- rock art image from a cave and an effigy mound likely depicting catfish, both from southeastern Minnesota near the Mississippi River where catfish are still common.

Published last year by myself and @isazooarch.bsky.social. Would love to see more use of network graphs to think about ecological data from the archaeological record! “A network approach to zooarchaeological datasets and human-centered ecosystems in southwestern Florida” 🔗 tinyurl.com/mf2xp6x2

🚨🐡 Hot off the press from the Journal of Anthropological #Archaeology! “Beyond Subsistence: Toxic burrfishes and non-food-based economies among the Calusa complex fisher-hunter-gatherers of the American Southeast” 🔗 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

🚨🐡 Hot off the press from the Journal of Anthropological #Archaeology! “Beyond Subsistence: Toxic burrfishes and non-food-based economies among the Calusa complex fisher-hunter-gatherers of the American Southeast” 🔗 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

A perfect Monday treat!! Stay tuned to learn more about the use of toxic burrfishes by the Indigenous Calusa communities of southern Florida!! 🐡🐡🐡 #archaeology #fish

Add me too please! Thanks!

A water filled canal in the dense forest of Ossabaw Island on the Georgia Coast. An archaeologist standing next to it is dwarfed by its size, at c. 3m wide and 3m deep.

A dry canal surrounded by the dense forest of Ossabaw Island on the Georgia coast. An oak branch hung with Spanish moss hangs over the canal. An archaeologist stands on the edge of the canal, its depth is twice her height and many times her height wide. It is filled with sticks, forest debris, and mud.

Canals of the coastal SE US are usually assumed to be built by 19thC enslaved labor, but some of our preliminary work hints at Indigenous Guale communities as the potential architects of this water management infrastructure, reused 600yrs later by plantations! #archaeology @isazooarch.bsky.social

Have you heard of Mound Key!? The once capital of the Calusa Kingdom of southwestern Florida is an entirely anthropogenic island (c. 60ha) made completely of shell! There are even massive fish storage ponds (watercourts) for live fish surplus to feed its c. 4,000 residents! #archaeology #ecology

Saturday night in Hockey Valley with @isazooarch.bsky.social !

Peaches spread across North America through Indigenous networks | Penn State University Indigenous networks played a key role in the spread of peaches across North America, according to a new study led by a researcher at Penn State.

Press release on our paper in Nature Comms tracking the spread of peaches across Indigenous North America! Through this study we aimed to center Indigenous communities and ecologies in narratives of colonialism as a socioecological process #archaeology #history #ecology www.psu.edu/news/researc...

A stand of palm tree trunks in the salt marshes of the Georgia coast. Their tops have fallen off and are clearly dead. Large wood storks sit atop the dead palm trunks.

These stands of dead palms on Ossabaw Island along the Georgia Coast are evidence of increasingly severe salt water intrusion. With rising sea levels, estuarine ecosystems will continue to be disrupted, and with that critical losses of biodiversity will continue to ramp up #climate #climatechange

🚨 I’m hiring a new Postdoctoral Researcher in Environmental Archaeology/Ecology at #PennState in a brand new building and lab! Looking to build new awesome collaborations. Come hang out with us in Happy Valley! #archaeology #ecology 🔗 psu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/PSU_Ac...

Come hang out and let’s do cool archaeology together! I’m hiring a Post-Doc! #archaeology 🔗 psu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/PSU_Ac...

Did you know oysters are like little ecological time capsules?? Part of my research includes using geochemical methods to reconstruct climatic and environmental conditions from archaeological shell! #archaeology #ecology #climate

An archaeologists sits on the ground over a small excavation unit. The unit is located between two remnants of houses of former enslaved families. A wall that still stands can be seen in the background behind the archaeologist. The photo is wide, capturing the tall live oaks draped with Spanish moss that shade the area.

Excavating between the houses of once enslaved Gullah-Geechee families on Ossabaw Island off the Georgia coast. In the background is a remnant wall of one of these homes that still stands. They were made of “tabby,” a concrete-like substance produced from shell, lime, sand, and water #archaeology

On the Georgia coast, Indigenous communities altered landscapes through the deposition of shell. We’ve estimated that the modern land masses of some marsh islands and landforms are between 5-10% shell! Where we’ve done enough work to calculate, a single site can have upwards of 100 MILLION oysters!

Excited to present with @archaeojake.bsky.social on some ongoing work centered on the Georgia Coast, USA today at #SEAC2024 regarding the need for appropriately scaled analyses in our studies of archaeological shellfisheries and intra-site variation in oyster use! #archaeology

The AMAZING work our students are presenting this week! (Apologies for the low res, but you get the gist 😅) w/ @isazooarch.bsky.social #archaeology #history #ecology

Looking forward to presenting at the Southeastern Archaeological Conference this week on Gullah-Geechee lifeways and historic human-ecosystem dynamics! w/ @isazooarch.bsky.social #archaeology #history #ecology

Hello! 👋 I am an environmental archaeologist at #PennState who studies socio-ecological systems in Eastern North America, primarily Coastal Georgia and SW Florida, using zooarchaeology, stable isotope geochem, and geoarch. I 💙 fisheries. #archaeology #ecology

Where the streets are paved with…bones! An example of animal bone (cattle & sheep) flooring from Park End Street in Oxford - 12 examples of bone flooring have been found in the county of Oxfordshire! 17th cent. On display at Museum of Oxford!

🚨 I’m hiring a new Postdoctoral Researcher in Environmental Archaeology/Ecology at #PennState in a brand new building and lab! Looking to build new awesome collaborations. Come hang out with us in Happy Valley! #archaeology #ecology 🔗 psu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/PSU_Ac...