Associate ProfessorJames Madison University
701 Carrier Drive
ISAT, MSC 4102
Harrisonburg, Virginia 22807
Email: nashcl@jmu.edu
Phone: 540-568-6805
Visit Carole's Research Website
Research Disciplines: Research Interests:
geoarchaeology, historical ecology, Native American cultures, Appalachians, human-environment interactions, citizen science, climate change, GIS
View Carole's CVBiographical Sketch
Carole Nash has 41 years of experience in the archaeology of the Middle Atlantic region and is a specialist in the archaeology of the Appalachians. Her main research interests are the long-term environmental and cultural history of the Piedmont, Blue Ridge and Shenandoah Valley. She has taught at James Madison University for 33 years she is currently Associate Professor in the School of Integrated Sciences and the Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for the College of Integrated Science and Engineering. She is the author of over 175 technical reports, scholarly papers, and publications, including co-editor of Foundations of Archaeology in the Middle Atlantic (Routledge 2018). She has directed archaeological research in Shenandoah National Park (SNP) as Consulting Archaeologist since 1999 and Wintergreen since 2003. She served as President of the Archeological Society of Virginia, President of the Middle Atlantic Archaeological Conference and President of the Council of Virginia Archaeologists. She is founding member of the Virginia Archaeology Charitable Trust and is involved in several projects that merge archaeological evidence with historical cartography and remote sensing to understand the impacts of sea level rise on heritage resources and contemporary communities. She is co-chair of the Society for American Archaeology’s international committee on Climate Change Strategies and Archaeological Resources Committee. A practitioner of citizen science, Carole co-directs the Archaeological Technician Certification program for the Archeological Society of Virginia and the Department of Historic Resources. She is president of a new non-profit, Mountain Valley Archaeology.
Education
Catholic University of America, Ph.D., Anthropology, 2009
Dissertation: Modeling Uplands: Landscape and Prehistoric Native American Settlement Archaeology in the Virginia Blue Ridge Foothills
Specialty: Environmental Archaeology
Sub-Specialties: Human-Environment Interaction; Prehistory of Eastern United States (Middle Atlantic Sub-Area); Human Ecology and Climate Change; Citizen Science
Bowling Green State University, M. A., Applied Philosophy, 1986
Masters Thesis: The Allegory of the Infirmary: Interpretation and the Local History Museum
Dean’s Commendation
James Madison University, B.S. cum laude in Anthropology and Philosophy, 1983
Honors Thesis: Moral Relativism in Anthropology and Ethics
Ongoing and Recent CESU Projects
None of my projects for NPS runs through CESU, but as Consulting Archaeologist for Shenandoah National Park, I have worked throughout the North, Central, and South Districts on archaeological projects that range across human occupation of the Blue Ridge.
Projects have focused on Native American hunter-gatherer sites, early Euroamerican sites (including homesteads), industrial sites (extractive industry — logging, ore mining and furnaces), Civilian Conservation Corps camps, Skyline Drive construction, World War II training camps, and descendant communities (families who were removed in the 1930s).