Archaeologist to describe ‘race’ with active Caribbean volcano

Contact: Karyn Brown

STARKVILLE, Miss—An internationally recognized Rhode Island archaeologist discusses his technology-based explorations on the Caribbean island of Montserrat during a Thursday [April 21] program at Mississippi State.

John Cherry of Brown University is the latest guest for the 2015-16 Institute for the Humanities Lecture Series. He holds Brown’s Joukowsky Family Professorship of Archaeology.

In addition to the humanities institute, Cherry’s 4 p.m. presentation at the Colvard Student Union Foster Ballroom is co-sponsored by the Cobb Institute of Archaeology. Both institutes are part of the university’s College of Arts and Sciences.

In his presentation titled “Archaeology Under the Volcano: Survey and Landscape Archaeology on Montserrat, 2010-2016,” he will describe efforts to capture knowledge and information before Soufrière Hills, Montserrat’s regularly erupting volcano, covers or destroys all physical evidence of early human habitation on the nearly 40-square-mile land mass.

Largely dormant for many years, the 3,000-foot-high stratovolcano began erupting in 1995. Since then, its pyroclastic flows and related expulsions have covered more than half the island, destroyed the capital of Plymouth and forced some 7,000 residents to evacuate permanently.

Part of the British Overseas Territories, the island today has a population of nearly 5,000.

A British citizen holding permanent U.S. residency, Cherry is a doctoral graduate of England’s University of Southampton. He worked at the University of Michigan before joining Brown’s faculty in 2006.

During the Caribbean explorations, his team employed for the first time a surveying technology known as LiDAR, acronym for light detection and ranging. The process involves a high-powered laser that scans the jungle canopy and measures ground surfaces with sub-centimeter accuracy. Archaeologists then may individually examine any detected anomalies and produce a complex archaeological map of the area.

Michael Galaty said Mississippi State archaeologists have begun applying similar techniques in the Delta. In addition to heading the university’s archeology and Middle Eastern cultures department, he currently serves as the Cobb Institute’s interim director.

Galaty predicted Cherry’s program “will wow the audience, not just because a volcano is involved, but because John has the unique ability to convey just how critical archaeology is to our understanding of the human condition. 

“Dr. Cherry literally is rescuing Montserrat’s past in advance of the lava,” he said. “When a society loses its past, the present suffers and cultural memory is shredded.” 

William Anthony Hay, Institute for the Humanities director, said he joins Galaty in eagerly anticipating Cherry’s presentation.  

“Archaeologists use scientific methods to address humanistic questions about how people adapt to their environment over time,” Hay said. “Their work with physical evidence complements, and sometimes corrects, historians working from written records and oral tradition.

“Dr. Cherry’s work on Caribbean islands like Montserrat with their rich past offers a prime example,” Hay observed.

For more information about Cherry’s campus visit, contact Hay at whay@history.msstate.edu or Karyn Brown, College of Arts and Sciences communication director, at 662-325-7952 or kbrown@deanas.msstate.edu.