Dr. Penelope B. Drooker

Curator of Anthropology Emerita

My archaeological research centers on two areas: the Contact Period in eastern North America (ca. 1500-1750), and perishable material culture, particularly archaeological textiles.

The Contact Period, during which Europeans began to explore the Western Hemisphere and they and Native Americans initially encountered each other, was an era of rapid change, even far inland from where face-to-face confrontations and accommodations were taking place. I am particularly interested in tracing changes and continuities in inter-regional interaction patterns through the movements of European trade goods and indigenous objects of value such as engraved marine shell gorgets and redstone pipes, and assessing the accompanying changes and continuities in Native lifeways during this turbulent period.

As much as 95 percent of Native American material culture – houses, clothing, containers, hunting and fishing implements – was fashioned from organic materials such as wood, bark, plant fiber, leather, fur, and feathers, yet only a small fraction of this survives in the archaeological record. Much of my research in this area is dedicated to searching out and analyzing new sources of evidence, such as textile impressions on pottery, that can be used to deduce the significance of perishable crafts in the economies and “social fabric” of past peoples.

Publications

2016

G. Geyer, E. Landing 2016, Comment on “Terreneuvian Small Shelly Faunas of East Yunnan (South China) and Their Biostratigraphic Implications”, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology , doi: 10.1016/j.palaeo.2016.04.016. 10.1016/j.palaeo.2016.04.016
E. Landing, A. Kouchinsky 2016, Correlation of the Cambrian Evolutionary Radiation: geochronology, evolutionary stasis of earliest Cambrian (Terreneuvian) small shelly fossil (SSF) taxa, and chronostratigraphic significance, Geological Magazine 153, 750-756. 10.1017/S0016756815001089
E. Landing, Joseph Meert, Natalia Levashova, Mikhail Bazhenov 2016, Rapid changes of magnetic Field polarity in the late Ediacaran: Linking the Cambrian evolutionary radiation and increased UV-B radiation, Gondwana Research 34, 149–157. 10.1016/j.gr.2016.01.001
E. Landing, Samuel Bowring, Judy Pu, Jahandar Ramezani, Paul Myrow, Timothy Raub, Andrea Mills, Eben Hodgin, Francis Macdonald 2016, Dodging snowballs: Geochronology of the Gaskiers glaciation and the first appearance of the Ediacaran biota, Geology 44, 955-958. 10.1130/G38284.1
E. Landing, M. Webster 2016, Geological context, biostratigraphy and systematic revision of late early Cambrian olenelloid trilobites from the Parker and Monkton formations, northwestern Vermont, U.S.A., Australasian Palaeontological Memoirs 49, 193-240.
Geyer, G., Landing, E., 2016. The Precambrian–Phanerozoic and Ediacaran–Cambrian Boundaries: A Historical Approach to a Dilemma, in: Brasier, A., McIlroy, D., McLoughlin, N. (Eds.), Earth System Evolution and Early Life: A Celebration of the Work of Martin Brasier. Geological Society of London, London, England, pp. 311-349.

2015

E. Landing, J. Antcliffe, M. Brasier, A. English 2015, Distinguishing Earth’s oldest bryozoan (Pywackia, Late Cambrian) from pennatulacean octocorals (Mesozoic–Recent), Journal of Paleontology 89, 292-317. 10.1017/jpa.2014.26
E. Landing, J. Antcliffe, M. Brasier, A. English 2015, Distinguishing Earths Oldest Bryozoan (Pywackia, Late Cambrian) from Pennatulacean Octocorals (Mesozoic-Recent), Journal of Paleontology 89, 292-317. 10.1017/jpa.2014.26
G. Geyer, E. Landing, R. Buckwaldt, S. Bowring 2015, Geochronology of the Cambrian: A Precise Middle Cambrian U-Pb Zircon Date from the German Margin of West Gondwana, Geological Magazine 152, 28-40. 10.1017/S0016756814000119
E. Landing, A.W.A. Rushton, R.A. Fortey, S.A. Bowring 2015, Improved Geochronologic Accuracy and Precision for the ICS Chronostratigraphic Charts: Examples from the late Cambrian–Early Ordovician, Episodes 38, 154-161.