Donald Gaylord Research Archaeologist and Instructor of Anthropology

Donald Gaylord

Newcomb 204
540-458-8378
gaylordd@wlu.edu

Education

B.A., Rutgers University, 1998

M.A., University of Virginia, 2002

Research

I am interested in the anthropological analysis of property ownership and land use as seen through the lens of production, exchange, and consumption. My research on the woodland, colonial, and ante-bellum periods of Virginia hopes to better understand the intersection of peoples' lives with the broader Atlantic world. I specialize in using the physical sciences, quantitative methods, and mapping equipment/software for the analysis of archaeological deposits, cultural landscapes, and environmental transformation. My recent focus is to understand the implications of the post-revolutionary adoption of slave-based labor by the descendants of Scotch-Irish settlers to the Great Valley of Virginia; settlers who themselves largely eschewed the long-standing practice of enslavement common east of the Blue Ridge. I focus specifically on Rockbridge County and its seat of government, the Town of Lexington.

Teaching

SOAN 101: Introduction to Anthropology (SS4)

SOAN 206: Archaeology (SS4)

SOAN 210: Field Methods in Archaeology (SL)

SOAN 211: Laboratory Methods in Archaeology (SL)

SOAN 230/HIST 230: Discovering W&L’s Origins Using Historical Archaeology (SS4)

SOAN 291: The Archaeology of Virginia’s Presidents (SS4)

Selected Publications

Bell, Alison, Donald Gaylord, and Kristin Sharman
2019 “All My Little Might of Money”: Signaling, Structure, and Mobility among the Middling in Nineteenth-Century Virginia and Kentucky, in Historical Archaeology 53(2): 372-392.

Recent Conference Presentations

2019     Gaylord, Donald and Alison Bell

A Comparative Analysis of Ceramic Assemblages from Slave Plantation Sites in the Valley and Piedmont of Virginia. Poster presented at the Society for American Archaeology annual meetings in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

2018     Gaylord, Donald

The Rise of Slavery in the Valley of Virginia and its Enduring Presence on the Landscape of Lexington and Rockbridge County. Paper presented at the Society for Historical Archaeology annual meetings, New Orleans, Louisiana.

2017      Ptacek, Crystal and Donald Gaylord

Preparing for the Future or Investing in the Present? Assemblages from an Overseer’s Site and Enslaved Laborers’ Quarters. Paper presented at the Society for Historical Archaeology annual meetings, Fort Worth, Texas.

2016     Gaylord, Donald

Revisiting a Stratified Random Sample of the 18th-Century Liberty Hall Campus of Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia. Paper presented at the Society for American Archaeology annual meetings, Orlando, Florida.

2016     Gaylord, Donald

Enslavement at Liberty Hall: Archaeology, History, and Silence on an Ante-Bellum College Campus and Slave Plantation in the Valley of Virginia. Paper presented at the Society for Historical Archaeology annual meetings, Washington, DC.

2014     Bell, Alison and Donald Gaylord

Reading Ceramic Use Wear: A Twist in the Plot. Paper presented at the Society for Historical Archaeology annual meetings, Quebec City, Quebec.

2013     Dudley, Chelsea, Karen Lyle, Donald Gaylord, and Alison Bell

Measuring Diversity to Identify Residential Group Types: Buttons from the Longdale Mining Community. Poster presented at the Virginia Social Sciences Association annual meetings, Richmond, Virginia.