Dr. Randolph Daniel Jr
Office: 271 Flanagan Building
Telephone: 252-328-9455
E-mail: danieli@ecu.edu
About Me
I am a Professor in the anthropology department at East Carolina University where I have worked since 1996. I received my Ph.D. in 1994 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. My research interests include the archaeology of prehistoric hunter-gatherers in the Southeastern United States, particularly hunter-gatherer adaptations at the end of the last Ice Age. My methodological specializations include stone tool analysis, spatial analysis, and hunter-gatherer settlement systems. Publications related to that research have appeared in two books, several book chapters, and in journals including American Antiquity, Current Research in the Pleistocene, Southeastern Archaeology, and North Carolina Archaeology. I am also the recipient of the 1999 C.B. Moore Award for Excellence in Archaeology by a Young Scholar in Southeastern Studies by the Lower Mississippi Survey & Peabody Museum, Harvard.
Since arriving at ECU my research falls broadly into two categories. First, for over the last ten years I’ve been doing archaeological research investigating prehistoric settlements along the Tar River in eastern North Carolina. Both undergraduate and graduate students play an important role in this research. Examples of publications coauthored with students are listed below. Second, I’m also interested in documenting the state wide occurrence of fluted spear points in North Carolina. These are exceptionally rare artifacts that mark the first widespread evidence of humans in North Carolina. The study includes recording information about fluted point size, shape, flaking characteristics and raw material type. This work involves a great degree of public outreach as most of these artifacts are held in private collections.
On a personal note, I’ve been married for some three decades to Becky. We have three teenage children (i.e., triplets). In Darwinian terms, that makes me one of the most productive members of the faculty. I also have an ill-mannered dog that does not realize he is suppose to be a domesticated animal. What little leisure time I have is spent growing bonsai. With respect to pet peeves, two come readily to mind: students who are habitually late to class and students who email or text-message in class. As an archaeologist I’m trained to be observant, so don’t think I don’t see you.
Selected Publications
(* coauthored with student):
Books
Daniel, Jr., I. R. (2021). Time, Typology, and Point Traditions in North Carolina Archaeology: Formative Cultures Reconsidered. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.
Daniel, Jr., I. R. (1998). Hardaway Revisited: Early Archaic Settlement in the Southeast. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
Daniel, Jr., I. R. & Wisenbaker, M. (1987). Harney Flats: A Florida Paleo-Indian Site. New York: Baywood Publishing Company, Inc.
Book Chapters
Daniel, Jr., I. Randolph and Christopher R. Moore. (2022) Recent Developments in Paleoindian and Early Archaic Research in North Carolina. In D. Shane Miller, Ashley M. Smallwood, and Jesse W. Tune. (Ed) The American Southeast at the End of the Ice Age (pp. 139-149). University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.
Daniel, Jr., I. Randolph and Albert C. Goodyear. (2017) Clovis Bands of the Carolinas. In Joseph A.M. Gingerich (Ed.) In The Eastern Fluted Point Tradition, Volume II (pp. 240-247). University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
Daniel, Jr., I. Randolph & Goodyear, A. C. (2012) Under Review. “North Carolina Clovis”, North American Clovis: Current Perspectives On Technology, Chronology, and Adaptations. Texas A & M Press.
*Daniel, Jr., I. R. & Moore, C. R. (2011). “Current Research into the Paleoindian and Archaic Periods in the North Carolina Coastal Plain”, In Charles R. Ewen, Thomas Whyte, R. P. Stephen Davis, Jr. (Ed.) The Archaeology of North Carolina: Three Archaeological Symposia, (pp. 1-24). North Carolina Archaeological Council Publication Number 30. http://www.rla.unc.edu/NCAC/Publications/NCAC30/index.html
*Moore, C. R. & Daniel, Jr., I. Randolph (2011). “Geoarchaeology and Geochronology of Stratified Aeolian Deposits in the North Carolina Coastal Plain”, In Charles R. Ewen, Thomas Whyte, R. P. Stephen Davis, Jr. (Ed.) North Carolina Archaeology: Three Archaeological Symposia, (pp. 76-119). North Carolina Archaeological Council Publication Number 30. http://www.rla.unc.edu/NCAC/Publications/NCAC30/index.html
Journal Articles
Christopher R. Moore; Larry R. Kimball; Albert C. Goodyear; Mark J. Brooks; I. Randolph Daniel; Allen West; Sean G. Taylor; Kiersten J. Weber; John L. Fagan; Cam M. Walker. (2023). Paleoamerican exploitation of extinct megafauna revealed through immunological blood residue and microwear analysis, North and South Carolina, USA. Scientific Reports. 2023-06-10 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-36617-z
Daniel, Jr., I. R. (2016). Don’t Let Ethics Get in the Way of Doing What’s Right: Three Decades of Working with Collectors in North Carolina. North Carolina Archaeology. 65:1-27.http://www.rla.unc.edu/Publications/NCArch.html
Daniel, Jr., I. R., Moore, C. R., & Caynor, E. C. (2013). Sifting the Sands of Time: Geoarchaeology, Culture Chronology, and Climate Change at Squires Ridge. Southeastern Archaeology 32: 253-270.
*Daniel, Jr., I. R., Seramur, K. C. , Potts, T. L. , & Jorgenson, M. W. (2008). Searching a Sand Dune: Shovel Testing the Barber Creek Site. North Carolina Archaeology 57, 50-77.
*Daniel, Jr., I. R., Moore, W., & Pritchard, J. (2007). Analysis of a Paleoindian Stone Tool Assemblage from the Pasquotank Site (31PK1) in Northeastern North Carolina. Southeastern Archaeology 26, 73-90.
Daniel, Jr., I. R. (2006). Three Fluted Points from the Hardaway Site, North Carolina. North Carolina Archaeology 55, 103-111.
Daniel, Jr., I. R. & A. Goodyear (2006). An Update on the North Carolina Fluted Point Survey. Current Research in the Pleistocene 23, 88-90.
Conference Presentations
Daniel, Jr., I. R. & Goodyear, A. C. (2013). Clovis Macrobands in the Carolinas. Poster presented at the Paleoamerican Odyssey Conference, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
