Current Roles

I am currently a Professor of Anthropology at UC Santa Cruz. I am the founding director of the UCSC Archaeological Research Center, and the Editor-In-Chief of the African Archaeological Review. I was elected to the Society of Antiquaries of London in 2019.

Expertise

My research expertise is in the archaeology of West Africa and the African Diaspora, historical anthropology, social complexity and the state, urbanism, space, landscape and monumentality, culture contact and change, spatial analysis and GIS, West Africa (Bénin) and the Caribbean (Haiti).

Focus

My research broadly examines the political, economic, and cultural transformation in West Africa and the Diaspora in the era of the slave trade. He has conducted longterm research in the Republic of Bénin in West Africa (The Abomey Plateau Archaeological Project). This project explores the the political economy of landscape and the built environment and the nature of urban transformation in West Africa during the era of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. In 2015 I initiated a comparative project on the materiality of power and political sovereignty in post-revolutionary Haiti. This project (The Milot Archaeological Project) examines the royal palace site of Sans-Souci in its broader political and economic context in the Kingdom of Hayti, a short-lived experiment in political order in the wake of the Haitian revolution. Since 2022 I have also led a new project on transformations in village life on the Abomey Plateau over the past two thousand years (Saclo Village Archaeology).

As a historical archaeologist and Professor of Anthropology, I am firmly committed to advancing diversity in archaeology and academia more broadly. My research on the archaeology of West Africa and the African Diaspora—particularly in Bénin and Haiti—centers historically marginalized communities and contributes to more inclusive narratives of the past. In the classroom, I teach courses such as “African Archaeology” and “Slavery in the Atlantic World,” which challenge students to think critically about race, power, and history. Beyond teaching, I have actively supported initiatives aimed at expanding access and mentorship for students from underrepresented backgrounds, including field training opportunities that provide hands-on experience in global archaeological contexts. I believe that cultivating a more diverse next generation of scholars is not only essential to the future of our discipline, but foundational to ethical and transformative archaeological practice.

Background

I earned a B.A. from UC Berkeley (1995, magna cum laude), M.A. from UCLA (1999), and PhD from UCLA (2003), all degrees in Anthropology. Between 2004 and 2006, I was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Departments of African and African American Studies, Anthropology, and History at Washington University in St. Louis. I joined the Department of Anthropology at UC Santa Cruz in the Fall of 2006. I have participated in archaeological field research in Armenia, Belize, Bénin, Haiti, Israel, Sudan, the United States, and the UK.

Select Publications

Books:

• The Precolonial State in West Africa: Building Power in Dahomey. New York: Cambridge University Press, (2014).
• Power and Landscape in Atlantic West Africa: Archaeological Perspectives, Co-edited with Akin Ogundiran, New York: Cambridge University Press (2012).

Articles:

• “Sovereignty After Slavery: Universal Liberty and the Practice of Authority in Post-Revolutionary Haiti”. Current Anthropology 61:S22. Special Issue on Slavery and its Legacies in the Atlantic World (2020)
• ‘Elephants for Want of Towns’’: Archaeological Perspectives on West African Cities and Their Hinterlands”. Journal of Archaeological Research 26:4 (2018).
• “New Light From Haiti’s Royal Past: Recent Archaeological Excavations in The Palace of Sans-Souci, Milot”. The Journal of Haitian Studies 23:2 (2017).
• “Power and Agency in Precolonial African States”, Annual Review of Anthropology 42 (2012).
• “In the Belly of Dan: Space, History, and Power in Precolonial Dahomey”, Current Anthropology 52:6, pp. 769-798 (2012).
• “Urbanism on West Africa’s Slave Coast: Archaeology sheds new light on cities in the era of the Atlantic slave trade”, American Scientist 99(5):400-409 (2011).
• “Power by design: architecture and politics in precolonial Dahomey”, Journal of Social Archaeology 10(3): 477-507 (2010).
• “Continuity, Revolution, or Evolution on the Slave Coast of West Africa? Royal Architecture and Political Order in Pre-colonial Dahomey”, Journal of African History 48, 349-373 (2007).

Other research outputs can be found at the following sites:

Memberships