The Department of Anthropology is honored to announce that PhD student, Delancey Griffin, was selected as a recipient of the National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship Program. Established in 1952, the program supports outstanding graduate students in their research. The fellowship will support Delancey for five years and is a prestigious recognition. Her advisor, Dr. Victor Thompson commented on her project

Delancey’s project embodies the NSF’s vision for broader societal benefit. Her commitment to collaborative research with the Cherokee Nation, Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, and the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians ensures that her work will contribute directly to descendant communities. Her work not only helps us to understand the past but also reshapes how we present it publicly by linking heritage, governance, and community resilience in powerful ways.                                      

Below Delancey outlines how the fellowship will support her dissertation research and the broader importance of community engagement in archaeology.

This fellowship supports my collaborative dissertation project on the Indigenous archaeology of New Echota and early 19th century Cherokee Nation. New Echota was the capital of the Cherokee Nation in Georgia from 1825 to the mid-1830s; a town that hosted the National Council, Committee, and Supreme Court, as well as the Cherokee Phoenix printing press. This site is a key place that is known by most Cherokee citizens today, but critically understudied archaeologically. Previous research has largely focused on historical documents, with public narratives placing a particular emphasis on assimilation and removal. However, braiding Indigenous Knowledge into this history alongside the mobilization of archaeological evidence suggests that the role of longstanding Cherokee traditions at New Echota reflect how democratic institutions have a deeper history in this region through Indigenous governance. My proposed research will explore archaeological evidence related to Cherokee Nation governance and the institutions that constituted life in the capital of New Echota. 

This project is strengthened by the involvement of Cherokee citizens from the federally recognized bands in Oklahoma and North Carolina, as well as at-large Cherokee citizen communities. This research demonstrates the importance of community engagement, benefiting Cherokee citizens with educational opportunities and asserting Cherokee people as essential to research about our Nation. Legacies of Indigenous displacement have rendered archaeology occurring on ancestral territories largely invisible to descendants in distant states, calling for the necessity of descendant engagement at sites like New Echota, where removal is central to how the site is interpreted. As a Cherokee Nation citizen from Oklahoma, I am grateful for the opportunities this fellowship provides to further my dissertation project and broader career goals, which include developing opportunities for getting Tribal Citizens involved with archaeological research and furthering Indigenous Archaeologies.