Smithsonian Environmental Research Center

Jim Gibb (Binghamton University, PhD 1994) directs SERC’s Environmental Archaeology Laboratory (SEAL), housed in the historic Sellman House at the main entrance to the campus. He has researched and published on numerous topics in archaeology, from a Paleoindian site in Southern Maryland, to patterns of wealth among 17^th-century planters, to production strategies among late 19^th-century cheese manufacturers. With a team of citizen scientists engaged at all levels of research, from archival research to data collection to analysis and reporting, Jim investigates the ecosystem stresses created by socially differentiated households in the Rhode River watershed, analyzing biological materials and artifacts from tightly dated archaeological deposits from the mid-17^th through 20^th centuries. He is part of a collaboration developing a palynology laboratory at SERC.