April 10, 2025: Dr. Jayur Madhusudan Mehta

Shell Midden Landscapes of the Western Atchafalaya Basin
Dr. Jayur Madhusudan Mehta, Associate Professor in Anthropology, Native American and Indigenous Studies, Florida State University

Monumental shell works, shell middens, and earthen mounds are found throughout the interior of the Atchafalaya Basin and just inland from the margins of the Gulf Coast of Mexico. Many of these sites surround Dauterive Lake, Lake Fausse Point, and Grand Avoile Cove, water bodies artificially impounded by early 20th century levee projects. The geomorphology of Bayou Teche also significantly impacted settlement dynamics in this region before modern levee building. While significant grey literature exists for this region, very little information has been published or made publicly available. This presentation situates the archaeology of the region relative to other published surveys in Petite Anse, Tensas and Yazoo Basins, the Natchez Bluffs, and the Lower Mississippi Valley, and presents on new findings from recent archaeological work in the region.

 

Dr. Jayur Madhusudan Mehta is an Associate Professor in Anthropology and affiliate faculty in Native American and Indigenous Studies at Florida State University. He specializes in the study of North American Native Americans, human-environment relationships, and the consequences of French and Spanish colonization in the Gulf South. Dr. Mehta earned his PhD in Anthropology from Tulane University (2015) and his MA (2007) from the University of Alabama. He received his BA from the University of North Carolina (2004) and is an avid Tarheel! Dr. Mehta is also a Registered Professional Archaeologist and he has lead excavations in both the United States and Mexico. He is currently lead investigator for Resilience in the Ancient Gulf South (RAGS), an interdisciplinary investigation into delta formation, hunter-gather settlement dynamics, and monumentality in coastal Louisiana. He also leads the Evergreen Plantation Archaeological Survey (EPAS), which you can learn more about here, www.evergreensurvey.org
Dr. Mehta is a National Geographic research fellow and he has published research in the fields of environmental archaeology, ethnohistory, and Indigenous religious and ritual practices. He recently starred in a documentary called Keepers of the Mound, a film by Katie Matthews and produced by the New Orleans Video Access Coalition. http://novacvideo.org/keepers-of-the-mound/ He also worked with local students on the Adams Bay Project, www.adamsbayproject.org, where he and his students documented the loss of an Indigenous archaeological site due to sea level rise.

This monthly Archaeology Lecture series is co-sponsored by the Alliance for Central Gulf Coast Archaeological Society (CGCAS) and Weedon Island Archaeological Research and Education (AWIARE).  

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