Anthony Graesch

Anthony P. Graesch is an anthropologist whose scholarship and analytic sensibilities are shaped by archaeological method and theory. His active research programs address 1) household materiality and discard behavior in 21st century North America and 2) ancestral Sto:lo-Coast Salish households and lifeways in western British Columbia. Although seemingly disparate research domains, some common threads link these programs: a focus on discard as a set of deeply rooted dispositions that undergird routine household life and are imbricated with other domains of daily practice; a focus on materializations of labor in household assemblages; a pursuit of the less-glamorous, less-studied, and oft-dismissed realms of the material record; and a commitment to exploring the applications of archaeological research—the process and the outcomes—to addressing contemporary challenges.

As College Archaeologist, Professor Graesch collaborates with the Mohegan Tribe, Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, and Easter Pequot Tribal Nation to provide oversight on matters pertaining to the conservation, management, and study of cultural heritage resources within the 750 acres stewarded by Connecticut College. Collectively spanning over five thousand years of human entanglements with local landscapes and ecosystems, these resources include numerous archaeological sites and features. 

Professor Graesch oversees the Archaeology Concentration in the Anthropology major and offers courses addressing the practice, theory, and ethics of archaeological anthropology. Some of these courses are designed around active, collaborative research programs; some address the study and stewardship of cultural resources in the College Arboretum. He regularly mentors students pursuing advanced field- and lab-based experiential education, and he subscribes to the idea that undergraduates should achieve demonstrable research literacy at the time of graduation. Professor Graesch’s efforts to challenge students to work harder than they thought possible and to reach unanticipated levels of academic achievement garnered him a Helen Mulvey Faculty Award.

Students pursuing an Archaeology Concentration in the Anthropology Major can work with Professor Graesch in a program designed to provide practice-based training germane to careers in the heritage conservation sector, including positions at cultural resource management (CRM) firms as well as municipal, state, and federal agencies. Emphasis is placed on developing competencies required of successful collaborations with multiple stakeholders but also challenging the Eurocentricity of archaeological anthropology.

Professor Graesch also serves as a faculty advisor for students pursuing the social science track of Environmental Studies as majors or minors. He also serves as a faculty fellow for the Goodwin-Niering Center for the Environment and the Ammerman Center for Arts and Technology and advises students applying to and pursuing projects in both. In true liberal Arts fashion, many of Professor Graesch’s students pursue an Anthropology major in combination with a second major in Environmental Studies, Biological Sciences, Botany, History, or Art.

Research | Curriculum Vitae | Anthropology Department