Barbara Mills

Dr. Barbara Mills is an anthropological archaeologist with broad interests in archaeological method and theory, especially (but not exclusively) as applied to the North American Southwest. Her work has focused on ceramic analysis as a tool for understanding production, distribution, and consumption but more broadly her interest in material culture to understand social relations in the past. Her research on ceramic technology, craft specialization, and accumulations research led to a series of papers and edited volumes on social inequality, identity, feasting, and migration.  These interests were fostered by more than a decade of work in the Silver Creek area of east-central Arizona, including a multi-year collaborative project with the White Mountain Apache Tribe. Dr. Mills also has field and research experience in a number of other areas of the Southwest including Zuni, Chaco, Mimbres, Grasshopper, and most recently the Greater Hohokam area.  Outside the U.S. she have research experience in Guatemala (Postclassic Maya), Kazakhstan (Bronze Age), and Turkey (Neolithic).  Besides ceramics, she is interested in depositional practice, and how that can be used to understand memory, materiality, and relational logics.  Currently she is a PI on the Southwest Social Networks Project, which brings together data and a talented group of scholars to apply social network analysis (SNA) to archaeological data to the Southwest. This ongoing project continues her interest in looking at the dynamics of social relations from a multiscalar perspective.