Professor, Department of Anthropology
B.A. (Toronto), MSc (Southampton), MA, PhD (University College London)
Life & Health Sciences DNA C218, ext.7877, jamesconolly@trentu.ca
Research Interests: landscape archaeology; historical ecology; geoinfomatics; geoarchaeology; lithic raw materials and technologies (Great Lakes)
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/James_Conolly
https://www.researchgate.net/lab/Kenneth-Kidd-Archaeological-Research-Laboratory-Kidd-Lab-James-Conolly
My interests lie at the intersection of archaeology and geography, and I integrate methodological and theoretical approaches from both disciplines. My early academic work focused on the economic and geographic patterning of European Neolithic and Bronze Age societies.
I worked for twenty years in the Mediterranean region, including the Catalhoyuk Project (1992 to 2002), the Kythera Island Project (1998 to 2003), and the Antikythera Survey Project (2005 to 2010). Since 2010, my geographic interests have shifted and I now conduct field and laboratory research mainly in the Great Lakes region. I am particularly interested in the use of the waterways between Lake Ontario and Georgian Bay by ancestral First Nations, early European missions and explorers, and the impacts of nineteenth-century European farming and mercantile colonialism on regional ecology.
Current Research Project
My SSHRC-funded project (Kawartha Lakes Project: 2016-2026) addresses the cultural and environmental history of the lakes, rivers and wetlands in the Kawartha Lakes area of Ontario to understand long-term changes in ecology, economy, settlement and land-use patterns. Our ongoing research involves applications of remote sensing and other geospatial methods of analysis, alongside the study of material culture (technology, design and function) and environmental data obtained from archaeological and geoarchaeological field research, both terrestrial and underwater.
Graduate Student Opportunities (Accepting Graduate Students for 2024-25)
The Kawartha Lakes project currently supports seven graduate students involved in study of ceramic residues, underwater landscapes, historical ecology, and lithic and ceramic assemblages from recent and past excavation programs. If you are interested in joining our team and participating in applied archaeological and community focused research, there are further opportunities for Masters students interested in lithic, ceramic and faunal analysis, chronological modelling, GIS and ecological modelling, experimental archaeology, and field excavation.
Selected Publications
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/James_Conolly
Conolly J and Dougherty K. 2022. History and Landscape Archaeology at the Nassau Mills, Peterborough. Ontario Archaeology 101.
Robinson S and Conolly J. 2021. Compositional Variability in Middle and Early Late Woodland Pottery Fabrics from the Trent River Valley. Ontario Archaeology 100: 20-33
Ellis C, Conolly J, Monkton S. 2021. Dating the Late Archaic at the Davidson Site (AhHk-54), Ontario. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 46/2: 157–184
Conolly J and Obie M. 2021. The Archaeology of Inundated Cultural Landscapes in Freshwater Lake Systems: Preliminary Insights from a Multi-Methods Study in the Kawartha Lakes Region, Ontario. Journal of Maritime Archaeology
Conolly J. 2020. Archaeology and paleogeography of a Lake-Wetland complex: Modeling the postglacial evolution of the Kawartha Lakes, Ontario. Geoarchaeology.
Conolly J and Lane P. 2019. Vulnerability, risk, resilience: an introduction. World Archaeology 50/4: 547–553.
Conolly J. 2019. Hunter-gatherer mobility, territoriality, and place-making in the Kawartha Lakes region, Ontario. Canadian Journal of Archaeology 42:185–209.
Conolly J. 2018. Revisiting the Laurentian Concept: evaluating the contribution of isolation by distance and biogeography on the morphological and geospatial variation in Laurentian archaic biface forms. Archaeology of Eastern North America 48: 69–92.
Dudgeon TW, Rafuse DJ, Burness G, Conolly J. 2018. Faunal analysis of the Middle Woodland Rice Lake Serpent Mounds (BbGm-2) midden assemblage, Ontario. Ontario Archaeology 98: 84–107
Colledge S, Conolly J, Finlayson B, Kuijt K. 2018. Plant domestication, production intensification and food storage at Pre-Pottery Neolithic A Dhra‘, Levant doi:10.1080/00758914.2018.1424746 29.
Jenkins D, Yannic G, Schaefer JA, Conolly J, Lecomte N. 2018. Population structure of caribou in an ice-bound archipelago. Diversity and Distributions 2018: 1–17. 28.
Conolly J. 2017. Costly signalling in archaeology: concepts, applications, challenges, and prospects. World Archaeology 49:4, 435-445.
Conolly J. 2015. An early hunter‐gatherer cemetery in the Canadian Lower Great Lakes. Archaeology International 18: 45‐50.
Conolly J, Dillane J, Dougherty K, Elaschuck K, Csenkey K, Wagner T, Williams J. 2014. Early collective burial practices in a complex wetland setting: an interim report on mortuary patterning, palaeodietary analysis, zooarchaeology, material culture and radiocarbon dates from Jacob Island (BcGo‐17), Kawartha Lakes, Ontario. Canadian Journal of Archaeology 38: 106‐133.