Dissertation Prize

Announcing the 2014 SHA Dissertation Prize

The 2014 SHA Dissertation Prize will be awarded to a recent graduate whose dissertation is considered by the SHA Dissertation Prize Subcommittee to be an outstanding contribution to historical archaeology.

Please note that there have been changes to the dissertation prize award process. Beginning in 2010, the winner will receive $1,000 at the time the prize is awarded at the annual meeting. Receipt of the award and the monetary prize are no longer dependent upon publication of the dissertation with the University Press of Florida. Prize winners may take their dissertation to any press, including SHA.

If the winner chooses to work with SHA on publication of their dissertation, he or she will

  • receive the endorsement of the society and an associate editor to guide them through the publication process
  • receive assistance from SHA in finding the appropriate press and contract arrangements
  • be required to assign copyright of the manuscript and donate any royalties for their book to SHA
  • agree not to submit their dissertation for consideration elsewhere

If the choice is made not to publish through SHA, the winner is responsible for arranging publication on his or her own.

To be considered for the 2014 prize, which will be awarded at the SHA annual meeting in January 2014, nominees must have defended their dissertations and received a Ph.D. within three years prior to 30 May 2013. One unbound copy of the complete dissertation and three copies on CD-ROM or DVD must be provided to James E. Ayres, chair of the SHA Dissertation Prize Subcommittee, by the date noted below. The dissertation copies will not be returnedThe nominator or nominee must provide the chair of the subcommittee with the nominee's contact information, including current mailing address, e-mail address, and telephone number(s).

Nominations must be made by nonstudent SHA members and must consist of a nomination letter that makes a case for the dissertation. Self-nominations will not be accepted. NOMINEES MUST BE MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY FOR HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY.

Deadline for receipt of all materials (nomination letter[s] and copies of dissertations) is 12 July 2013. Materials received after that time will not be eligible for consideration for the 2014 prize.

The subcommittee is expected to reach a consensus on the winner by no later than 16 October 2013.

For more information or to submit nomination materials, contact James E. Ayres, 1702 East Waverly, Tucson, AZ 85719; phone: 520-325-4435; fax: 520-620-1432; e-mail: jammar@post.com.

Dissertation Prize Subcommittee: James Ayres (Chair), Charles Ewen, Teresita Majewski, Paul R. Mullins, Mark S. Warner, and LouAnn Wurst

Previous Dissertation Prize Winners:

  • 2002 - Michelle M. Terrell, The Jewish Community of Early Colonial Nevis: A Historical Archaeological Study, published by
    SHA-UPF in 2004
  • 2003 - Kurt Jordan, The Archaeology of Iroquois Restoration: Settlement, Housing, and Economy at a Dispersed Seneca Community, ca. A.D. 1715-1754
  • 2004 - Nathan Richards, Deep Structures: an Examination of Deliberate Watercraft Abandonment in Australia
  • 2005 - J. Cameron Monroe, Building Dahomey: Landscape, Architecture and Political Order in Atlantic West Africa
  • 2006 - Elizabeth Kellar, Construction and Expression of Identity: An Archaeological Investigation of the Laborer Villages at Adrian Estate, St.John, USVI
  • 2007 - Elizabeth Jordan, "From Time Immemorial": Washerwomen, Culture, and Community in Capetown, South Africa
  • 2008 - Sarah Croucher, Plantations on Zanzibar: An Archaeological Approach to Complex Identities
  • 2009 - Neil L. Norman, An Archaeology of West African Atlanticization: Regional Analysis of the Huedan Palace Districts and Countryside, Benin, 1650-1727
  • 2010 - Meredith Lynn, From Typhus to Tuberculosis and Fractures in Between: A Visceral Historical Archaeology of Irish Immigran Life in New York City 1845-1870
  • 2011 - Gerard Chouin, Forests of Power and Memory: An Archaeology of Sacred Groves in the Eguafu Polity, Southern Ghana (c.500-1900 A.D.)
  • 2012 - Lisa Gijanto, Change and the Era of the Atlantic Trade: Commerce and Interaction in the Niumi Commercial Center (The Gambia)
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