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Leslie Reeder-Myers

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Leslie Reeder-Myers

  • College of Liberal Arts

    • Anthropology

      • Associate Professor

      • Director

        Programs

        • Anthropology Laboratory and Museum

      • Affiliated Faculty

        Programs

        • Center for Sustainable Communities

Curriculum Vitae  

Expertise

Indigenous Fisheries; Ecological and Cultural Heritage; Historical Ecology; Conservation Paleobiology; Coastal Archaeology; Sea Level Rise

Biography

I am an Associate Professor of Anthropology and director of the Temple Anthropology Laboratory and Museum at Temple University. I received my PhD from Southern Methodist University in 2012 and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Anthropology at the National Museum of Natural History before coming to Temple in 2017.

My research explores how Indigenous societies developed sustainable, resilient large-scale fisheries that survived thousands of years of climate change in the past. I focus on entanglements between social and ecological systems, and how those entanglements can help create, rather than destroy, resilience. I also study the importance of ecological heritage for modern Indigenous people and the impact of climate change on all forms of heritage. My current research focuses on the coast of Northeastern Honduras alongside continuing research in the Middle Atlantic.

Website

Selected Publications

  • Reeder-Myers, L.A. and N. Fulmer. 2025. Conservation and Management of Coastal Sites. Chapter 46 in the Oxford Handbook of Island and Coastal Archaeology, edited by S. Fitzpatrick and J. Erlandson. University of Oxford Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197607770.013.46.
  • Reeder-Myers, L.A., J. Turck, T.C. Rick, editors. 2019.Human-Environmental Dynamics on the Atlantic Coast of North America. University Press Florida, Gainesville.
  • Przelomska, N. A. S., M. T. Balazik, A. T. Lin, L. A. Reeder-Myers, T. C. Rick, L. Kistler. 2024. Archaeogenomic analysis of Chesapeake Atlantic sturgeon illustrates shaping of its populations in recovery from severe overexploitation. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 291: 20241145. doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2024.1145.
  • Reeder-Myers, L.A., T.J. Braje, C.A. Hofman, E.A. Elliott Smith, C. Garland, M. Grone, C.S. Hadden, M. Hatch, T. Hunt, A. Kelley, M.J. LeFebvre, M. Lockman, I. McKechnie, I.J. McNiven, B. Newsom, T. Pluckhahn, G. Sanchez, M. Schwadron, K. Smith, T. Smith, A. Spiess, G. Tayac, V.D. Thompson, T. Vollman, E.M. Weitzel, and T.C. Rick. 2022. Indigenous oyster fisheries persisted for millennia and should inform future management. Nature Communications, 13:2383.
  • Rick, T.C., A. Alsharekh, T. Braje, A. Crowther, D.Q. Fuller, J.M. Erlandson, K.M. Gill, H.S. Groucutt, M. Guagnin, R. Helm, C.A. Hofman, M. Horton, A. Kay, R. Korisettar, M. Petraglia, C. Radimilahy, L. Reeder-Myers, C. Shipton, H.T. Wright, N. Boivin. 2022. Coring, profiling, and trenching: archaeological field strategies for investigating the Pleistocene-Holocene Anthropocene Continuum. Quaternary International, 628:1-17. doi: 10.1016/j.quaint.2022.02.011.
  • Rick, T.C., T. Braje, K. Easterday, L. Graham, C. Hofman, B. Holguin, A. Mychajliw, L. Reeder-Myers, and M. Reynolds. 2022. Cultural keystone places and the Chumash landscapes of Kumqaq’, Point Conception, California. American Antiquity, 87: 487-504 https://doi.org/10.1017/aaq.2021.154.
  • Braje, T.J., J.M. Erlandson, T.C. Rick, L. Davis, T. Dillehay, D.W. Fedje, D. Froese, A. Gusick, Q. Mackie, D. McLaren, B.L. Pitblado, J. Raff, L.A. Reeder-Myers, and M.R. Waters. 2020. Fladmark +40: what have we learned about a potential Pacific Coast peopling of the Americas? American Antiquity 85:1-21.
  • Reeder-Myers, L.A. and T.C. Rick. 2019. Mitigating the effects of sea level rise and coastal erosion on the archaeological record: kayak survey in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, USA. Antiquity, 93:1040-1051.
  • Reeder-Myers, L.A. and M.D. McCoy. 2019. Preparing for the future impacts of mega storms on archaeological sites: an evaluation of flooding from Hurricane Harvey, Houston, Texas. American Antiquity, 84: 292-301.
  • Rick, T.C., L.A. Reeder-Myers, D. Breitburg, R. Lockwood, C.A. Hofman, G. Henkes, L. Kellogg, D.L. Lowery, M. Luckenbach, R.L. Mann, M.B. Ogburn, M.J. Southworth, J. Wah, J. Wesson, A.H. Hines. 2016. Millennial-scale sustainability of the Chesapeake Bay Native American oyster fishery. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113: 6568-6573.
  • Reeder-Myers, L.A. 2015. Cultural heritage at risk: A vulnerability assessment of coastal archaeological sites in the United States. Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, 10:
    436-445.
  • Reeder-Myers, L.A., J.M. Erlandson, D.R. Muhs, T.C. Rick. 2015. Sea level, paleogeography, and archaeology on California's Northern Channel Islands. Quaternary Research, 55: 263-272.

You can view a complete list of publications here. 

Courses Taught

  • Decolonizing the Museum
  • Methods in Archaeological Science
  • Historical Ecology
  • Evolution, Human Environments, and the Culture Niche