Dr. John P. Hart

Curator Emeritus
john.hart@nysed.gov
518-474-3895

My research has focused primarily on the histories of maize, bean, and squash in New York and the greater Northeast and the interactions of human populations with these crops. Through collaborations with numerous colleagues both at the Museum and other institutions, this research resulted in new understandings of these histories and interactions. A primary focus has been on charred cooking residues adhering to the interior surfaces of pottery sherds in the collections of the Museum. These residues contain microfossil evidence (phytoliths, starch, lipids) of the plants cooked in the pots. In addition the residues can be directly radiocarbon dated through accelerator mass spectrometry. These methods and techniques have provided new evidence that is radically altering our understandings of the histories of agriculture in New York State. Theory building to develop understandings of these new histories is another focus. This research has broad implications for Native American history in New York and the greater Northeast.

Most recently I have been working with colleagues on Social Network Analyses (SNA) of northern Iroquoian sites dating from A.D. 1350 to 1650. SNA is a formal graphing method, which in archaeology is used to identify relationships between sites based on similarities of artifact assemblages. This research is helping to build new understandings of interactions between village populations and how these interactions changed through time during the last centuries before and then after European involvements.

My Research Projects

Publications

2012

Landing, E., 2012. Extended Abstract—The Great American Carbonate Bank in Eastern Laurentia: Its Births, Deaths, and Linkage to Paleooceanic Oxygenation (Early Cambrian), in: Derby, J., Fritz, R., Longacre, S., Morgan, W., Sternbach, C. (Eds.), The Great American Carbonate Bank: The Geology and Economic Resources of the Cambrian. American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Tulsa, Oklahoma, pp. 253a-260a.
Landing, E., 2012. The Great American Carbonate Bank in Eastern Laurentia: Its Births, Deaths, and Linkage to Paleooceanic Oxygenation (Early Cambrian, in: Derby, J., Fritz, R., Longacre, S., Morgan, W., Sternbach, C. (Eds.), The Great American Carbonate Bank: The Geology and Economic Resources of the Cambrian. American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Tulsa, Oklahoma, pp. 451-492.
E. Landing, B. Kroger 2012, Cephalopod Ancestry and Ecology of the Hyolith ’Allatheca’ degeeri s.l. in the Cambrian Evolutionary Radiation, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 353-355, 21-30. 10.1016/j.palaeo.2012.06.023
E. Landing 2012, Correction: Proposal of the Four Global Series of the Cambrian, Bulletin of Geosciences 87, 625-627. 10.3140/bull.geosci.1332
E. Landing, S. Bowser, S. Reyes, A. Andreas 2012, First Discovery of Early Palaeozoic Bathysiphon (Foraminifera) - Test Structure and Habitat of a ’Living Fossil’, Geological Magazine 149, 1013-1022. 10.1017/S0016756812000155
E. Landing 2012, Time-specific Black Mudstones and Global Hyperwarming on the Cambrian-Ordovician Slope and Shelf of the Laurentia Palaeocontinent, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 367-368, 256-272. 10.1016/j.palaeo.2011.09.005
E. Landing, S. Westrop, B. Kroger, J. Adrian 2012, Tribes Hill-Rochdale Formations in East Laurentia: Proxies for Early Ordovician (Tremadocian) Eustasy on a Tropical Passive Margin (New York and West Vermont), Geological Magazine 149, 93-123. 10.1017/S0016756811000598

2011

E. Landing, M. Moczydlowska, W. Zang, T. Palacio 2011, Proterozoic Phytoplankton and Timing of Chlorophyte Algae Origins, Palaeontology 54, 721-733. 10.1111/j.1475-4983.2011.01054.x
E. Landing, J. Keppie, M. Streng, B. Melbin 2011, Linguliform Brachiopods from the Terminal Cambrian and Lowest Ordovician of the Oaxaquia Microcontinent (Southern Mexico), Journal of Paleontology 85, 122-155. 10.1666/10-074.1
E. Landing, S. Westrop, J. Adrain 2011, The Cambrian (Sunwaptan, Furongian) Agnostoid Arthropod Lotagnostus Whitehouse, 1936, in Laurentian and Avalonian North America: Systematics and Biostratigraphic Significance, Bulletin of Geosciences 86, 569-594.