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

2001

Drooker, P., 2001. Approaching Fabrics Through Impressions on Pottery, in: America, Textile (Ed.), Approaching Textiles, Varying Viewpoints. Textile Society of America, Earleville, Maryland, pp. 59-68.
Drooker, P., Cowan, C., 2001. The Dawn of History and the Transformation of the Fort Ancient Cultures of the Central Ohio Valley, in: Brose, D., Cowan, C., Mainfort, R. (Eds.), Societies in Eclipse: Archaeology of the Eastern Woodlands Indians, A.D. 1400-1700. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D. C., pp. 83-106.
Drooker, P., 2001. Leaving No Stone Unturned: Making the Most of Secondary Evidence for Perishable Material Culture, in: Drooker, P. (Ed.), Fleeting Identities: Perishable Material Culture in Archaeological Research. Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois, pp. 170-186.
Drooker, P., 2001. Material Culture and Perishabililty, in: Drooker, P. (Ed.), Fleeting Identities: Perishable Material Culture in Archaeological Research. Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois, pp. 1-15.

2000

Drooker, P., 2000. Madisonville Focus Revisited: Reexcavating Fort Ancient from Museum Collections, in: Genheimer, R. (Ed.), Cultures Before Contact: The Late Prehistory of Ohio and Surrounding Regions. The Ohio Archaeological Council, Columbus, Ohio, pp. 228-270.
P. Drooker, E. Barber, E. Fraquemont, C. Jones, L. Teague 2000, A Map of the Weaving World in A.D. 1000. Handwoven 21, 42-45
P. Drooker, L. Webster 2000, Beyond Cloth and Cordage: Archaeological Textile Research in the Americas, University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, Utah
Webster, L., Drooker, P., 2000. Archaeological Textile Research in the Americas, in: Drooker, P., Webster, L. (Eds.), Beyond Cloth and Cordage: Archaeological Textile Research in the Americas. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, Utah, pp. 1-24.

1999

P. Drooker, M. Wagner, B. Butler 1999, Fabric Impressed Sherd from the Rose Hotel Site. Appendix D. Archaeological Investigations at the Rose Hotel (11Hn-116), Hardin County, Illinois. Presented at the ,, Albany, New York
Drooker, P., 1999. Exotic Ceramics at Madisonville: Implications for Interaction, in: Williamson, R., Watts, C. (Eds.), Taming the Taxonomy: Toward a New Understanding of Great Lakes Archaeology. Eastendbooks, Toronto, Ontario, pp. 71-82.