E. Charles Adams

About E. Charles Adams

Since 1985, E. Charles Adams has been Curator of Archaeology, Arizona State Museum and Professor, School of Anthropology, University of Arizona. Since arriving at UA, he has directed the Homol’ovi Research Program for the Museum. Homol’ovi was a gathering place for many Hopi clans prior to migrating to the present villages around 1400. Adams received his PhD from the University of Colorado, Boulder in 1975 and previously held positions as Senior Archaeologist at the Museum of Northern Arizona and Director of Research at Crow Canyon Archaeological Center. He has published nearly 100 articles and book chapters and single authored or edited ten books/monographs. His most recent monograph is the edited volume, Chevelon: Pueblo at Blue Running Water, published as volume 211 in the Arizona State Museum, Archaeological Series. His most recent journal articles appeared in American Antiquity (81:42-57) in 2016 and Journal of Archaeological and Anthropological Science (9:1101-1114) coauthored with Samantha Fladd in 2017. The fieldwork was funded almost entirely through grants including from the National Science Foundation (including 8 DDIG grants), Wenner-Gren, Earthwatch Institute, and many more, totally more than $1 million. This project has produced more than 30 master’s theses and dissertations and trained dozens of graduate and undergraduate students in field methods.

Adams has served on and chaired the following University committees: Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure, Committee on Conciliation, and twice on the University Committee on Continuing Status and Promotion. He has also served on and chaired numerous SBS, School, and Museum committees. Adams developed the course, Pueblo Archaeology (Anth 447/547) in 1987 and taught it every other year through 2016. Similarly, he helped develop and teach the core course (Anth 418/518) for the graduate minor in Southwest Land, Culture, and Society, also teaching it every other year. Finally, Adams taught the School of Anthropology Field School from 2011-2016 in northeastern Arizona, funded as an NSF-REU grant from 2014-2016. 

Selected Publications

1991  The Origin and Development of the Pueblo Katsina Cult. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

---- and Kelley Ann Hays, editors

1991    Homol'ovi II: Archaeology of an Ancestral Hopi Village, Arizona. Anthropological Papers 55. The University of Arizona. Press, Tucson.

1996    River of Change: Prehistory of the Middle Little Colorado River Valley. Archaeological Series 185, Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona, Tucson.

Walker, William H., Vincent M. LaMotta, and E. Charles Adams

2000    Katsinas and Kiva Abandonment: A Deposit-Oriented Perspective on Religion in Southwest Prehistory.  In The Archaeology of Regional Interaction: Religion, Warfare, and Exchange Across the American Southwest and Beyond, edited by Michelle Hegmon, pp. 341-360. University Press of Colorado.

2001   Homol'ovi III: A Pueblo Hamlet in the Middle Little Colorado River Valley, Northeastern Arizona. Arizona State Museum Archaeological Series 193. University of Arizona, Tucson.

2002   Homol'ovi: An Ancient Hopi Settlement Cluster, University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

---- and Charla Hedberg

2002   Driftwood Use at Homol'ovi and Implications for Interpreting the Archaeological Record. Kiva 67:363-384.

---- and Andrew I. Duff, eds.

2004   The Protohistoric Pueblo World: A.D. 1275 to 1600. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

---- and Vincent M. LaMotta

2006    New Perspectives on an Ancient Religion: Katsina Ritual and the Archaeological Record. In Religion in the Prehispanic Southwest, edited by Christine S. VanPool and Todd VanPool, pp. 53-66. AltaMira Press.

2013  Prehispanic Hopi Yellow Ware: An Overview. Kiva 79:104-124

2013  Relationship among Design, Time,Source, and External Design Elements on Prehispanic Jeddito Yellow Ware. Kiva 125-146.

2016  Closure and Dedication Practices in the Homol'ovi Settlement Cluster, Northeastern Arizona. American Antiquity 81:42-57. 

Adams, E. Charles, editor

2016  Chevelon: Pueblo at Blue Running Water. Arizona State Museum Archaeological Series 211. University of Arizona, Tucson.

Bernardini, Wesley, and E. Charles Adams

2017    Hopi History Prior to 1600. In The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the American Southwest, edited by Barbara J. Mills and Severin Fowles. Oxford University Press, NY.

Courses Taught

Dr. Adams retired 12/31/17 and is no longer teaching formal courses.

Areas of Study

U.S. Southwest

Projects

Director, Rock Art Ranch Fieldschool, near Winslow, AZ. Student traiing in archaeological survey and excavation. June 2-July 4, 2014. Analysis of material culture from survey and excavations of sites and landscapes occupied from 6000 BCE to 1250 CE.

Director, Homol'ovi Research Program, Arizona State Museum. Analysis of ancestral Hopi material culture excavated from six pueblos along the Little Colorado River in the vicinity of Winslow, AZ from 1984-2006.

Director, Rock Art Ranch Field School, survey discovered 250 new sites dating from Clovis to 1600 CE; tested two small pueblos dating 1175-1260 from 2011-2016.

Curator of exhibit: Life along the River: Ancestral Hopi at Homol'ovi, open December 2017 through June 2019.

Research Interests

Effects of aggregation and migration on prehistoric and protohistoric agricultural societies in the U.S. Southwest

Social and ritual organization of Pueblo groups in the U.S. Southwest

Ethnoarchaeology, pre-contact and early contact period in U.S. Southwest

Formation of the archaeological record both social and natural

Experimental Archaeology, including analysis of Structural fire

Hopi Indians