Sean M. Rafferty

Office: Arts & Sciences Building, Room 120
Ph: (518) 442-4713
E-mail: rafferty@albany.edu

Class Files

Ph.D., Binghamton University, 2001

Interests: Archaeology and Ethnohistory of Eastern Woodlands, Archaeometry, Early Woodland and Adena Period Archaeology, Prehistoric Use of Medicinal and Psychoactive Plants, Public Outreach in Archaeology, Shamanism and Religion in Small-Scale Societies, Ethnobotany, Ritual Practices
Areas: Eastern North America

Director, Archaeology Field School, Schoharie, New York

Editor, Northeast Anthropology

Curriculum Vitae

Research Statement

My research involves the archaeology of Eastern North America.  Within this region, I am interested in the interplay between ritual practices and cultural variability, especially within the area of mortuary practices and smoking rituals.  I have research interests in the field of archaeometry, with a specialty in residue analysis using chromotographic approaches.  These research interests coincide with my ongoing research into the origins of tobacco smoking in the Eastern Woodlands of North America.  I have identified nicotine residue in smoking pipes dating to the Early Woodland Period, which predates botanical evidence for the use of tobacco by several centuries.  I have also conducted research projects in historical archaeology, investigating the roles of consumer culture and household production in nineteenth-century rural farming communities in Upstate New York.

Select Publications Since 2000

Edited Volumes

2004
Rafferty, Sean M. and Rob Mann. Smoking and Culture:  The Archaeology of Tobacco Pipes in Eastern North America.  University of Tennessee Press.

Articles and Book Chapters

In press:
Evidence of Early Tobacco in Northeastern North America? Journal of Archaeological Science.

The Many Messages of Death: Mortuary Practices in the Ohio Valley and Northeast. In Woodland Taxonomy and Systematics in the Middle Ohio Valley. Darlene Applegate and Robert Mainfort (eds). University of Alabama Press.

Smoking Pipes and Early Woodland Mortuary Ritual. In Early Woodland and Adena Archaeology. Martha Potter Otto (ed). Ohio Historical Society.

2004
Tobacco and Hallucinogens. In Tobacco: Scribner's Turning Points in History. Jordan Goodman, Marcia Norton and Mark Parascandola (eds).

Tobacco and Archaeology. In Tobacco: Scribner's Turning Points in History. Jordan Goodman, Marcia Norton and Mark Parascandola (eds).

They Pass Their Lives in Smoke, and at Death, Fall into the Fire:  Smoking Pipes and Mortuary Ritual during the Early Woodland Period. In Smoking and Culture:  The Archaeology of Tobacco Pipes in Eastern North America. Sean M. Rafferty and Rob Mann (eds).  University of Tennessee Press.

2001
Identification of Nicotine by Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectroscopy Analysis of Smoking Pipe Residue. Journal of Archaeological Science 29:897-907.

2000
A Farmhouse View: the Porter Site. In Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Domestic Site Archaeology in New York State. John P. Hart and Charles Fisher (eds). New York State Museum Bulletin 495.