Justin Cramb

I am a doctoral candidate (ABD) working with Victor Thompson here at UGA. I specialize in the areas of Island and Coastal Archaeology, Historical Ecology, and the Cultures of the South Pacific. I have studied Oceanic Societies for over seven years, including as an undergraduate working with Dr. Carmen White at Central Michigan University. Since 2011, I have worked on archaeological field projects in Florida, Georgia, Michigan, and South Carolina as well as in Fiji, French Polynesia, and the Cook Islands. This includes pre-dissertation (2015) and dissertation (2017) research on the remote atolls of Manihiki and Rakahanga in the northern Cook Islands where I conducted archaeological survey and excavation as well as ethnographic interviews. My laboratory experience includes two years as a research assistant at the UGA Laboratory of Archaeology and training in zooarchaeological methods from dissertation committee member Dr. Elizabeth Reitz. I have also worked/volunteered in museums and with museum collections in Michigan, Georgia, French Polynesia, and the Cook Islands. Additionally, I have assisted in teaching numerous in-class courses at UGA and I have assisted with three archaeological field schools both domestic and in Fiji. I have also been involved in public outreach projects aimed at educating children and communities (both domestic and abroad) about archaeology and its purpose (e.g., Speakman et al. 2016).

I recently returned from a seven-month field project in the northern Cook Islands and I am now working to complete the analysis of the materials and data recovered on the Atolls of Manihiki and Rakahanga. This includes artifact analysis of shell tools, zooarchaeological analysis, analysis of ethnogaphic data, and AMS dating coupled with Bayesian statistical analysis. 

Research Projects:
Manihiki and Rakahanga: Persistence on the Margins of Oceania (PhD Dissertation Project)

This research aims to answer the question: How have humans transformed and managed marginal and emerging environments to create resilient cultural landscapes? To address this question I incorporate methods from archaeology, zooarchaeology, cultural anthropology, and oral history as well as the theoretical perspectives of historical ecology and resilience theory.

I worked closely with the communities of two small atolls, Manihiki and Rakahanga, in the Northern Cook Islands of East Polynesia to conduct this dissertation project. I am now working to complete the analysis of artifacts, animal remains, ethnographic data, and datable materials from the atolls. Completion of this project will create a multifaceted deep-time understanding of the ways that humans have, and can continue to, create sustainability through landscape transformation and innovative subsistence practices.