Dr. Morgan Smith has been a member of the UTC faculty since 2019. Photo by Angela Foster.
A University of Tennessee at Chattanooga associate professor of anthropology and archaeology is literally charting new waters.
Dr. Morgan Smith is one of five principal investigators on an international research team recently awarded a $1,497,512 cooperative agreement from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) for the study titled “Reevaluating BOEM’s Guidelines for Identifying Submerged Pre-Contact Archaeological Sites in the Gulf of Mexico: An Extensive Geoarchaeological Approach.”
The team includes archaeologists from Texas A&M University, Florida State University, the University of Bradford in England, the Smithsonian Institution, and the National Museum of the American Indian. Tribal members and BOEM scientists will also participate as key partners in the study.
BOEM, an agency within the U.S. Department of the Interior, works with other state agencies as well as academic institutions and coastal communities to restore and protect shorelines. This five-year study is intended to inform and update current archaeological guidelines regarding the identification of Indigenous sites on submerged landscapes in the Gulf of Mexico.
Smith explained that the previous significant effort to map these sites dates back to 1977, meaning that the current research will benefit from decades of technological advancements.
“I’ve been working in the Gulf of Mexico for five years now to identify archaeological sites out there,” said Smith, who has been part of the UTC faculty since 2019. “More recently, this has become a big push to try to identify sites on the continental shelf offshore because there’s been a lot more infrastructure development going on out there.
“Another very exciting aspect is that our project includes tribal consultation, collaboration and cooperation in all stages.”
Dr. Morgan Smith
Smith said there is a low number of recorded archaeological sites in the offshore continental shelf of the Gulf of Mexico, whereas onshore parishes/counties have thousands of recorded sites.
“They’ve mapped most of the area,” he said, “but typically, that’s either too deep for our interest in terms of when people would’ve been here or it’s just kind of futuristic in terms of looking for sites out there.”
Smith said this exploration is a challenge, whether it be the increasingly unpredictable weather in the Gulf of Mexico; the erosion caused by storms, waves and currents; or just the difficulty of working in water as opposed to on land. With the help of the funding and the team of archaeologists involved, however, the project is finally underway.
The first step of the project involves aggregating all existing archaeological and geophysical data on the Gulf of Mexico.
According to Smith, the next step is to go on a series of research cruises to test methods for identifying sites using sonar mapping and sediment cores to chart inundated river valleys and identify archaeological deposits directly.
Smith said his primary role in the project is sub-bottom profiling, utilizing soundwaves to map the seafloor. He explained the importance of using minimally or non-invasive methods to find the sites without disturbing the continental shelf.
“We need to study the continental shelf and understand what impacts we’re going to be making to it because it’s one of the last unexplored frontiers on the planet, so it provides a really cool opportunity for us,” he said.
This is where UTC, as a campus, plays a role in the endeavor.
“We’re trying to make it work in an applied field setting,” Smith said. “That’s one of the things that UTC specifically will be at the forefront of.
“I’m also helping with the broader archaeology of the project, which will involve taking sediment cores and analyzing them.”
Dr. Morgan Smith
He said that funding is reserved for UTC undergraduate students to assist in data processing and laboratory tests on campus. Eventually, several students from all the aforementioned universities will be able to sail on a few of the research cruises.
“UTC is super well equipped with sub-bottom sonar instruments because the College of Arts and Sciences has been so supportive over the last couple of years in acquiring a lot of this technology,” he said.
In a recent award nomination letter, College of Arts and Sciences Dean Pam Riggs-Gelasco commended Smith for his “excellent work in all areas of evaluation.”
“His most compelling attribute is his ability to excite students about archaeology through the purposeful design of courses that include experiential practices and research experiences that are accessible and exciting to students,” she wrote.
For Smith, this project is a professional and personal passion.
“It’s the coolest thing to be able to put these projects together and explore the least explored place on our planet, archaeologically speaking,” he said.
He paid homage to longtime archaeological researcher Michael Faught, “who is really the pioneer of this work in the Americas. He was a big mentor and now an ever-supportive colleague of mine.”
It was Faught who first introduced Smith to this study while he was pursuing his undergraduate degree at the University of West Florida.
“It’s kind of full circle in that regard where I just have such an admiration for people who were doing this in the ’70s and ’80s without a GPS,” he said. “They were going offshore and triangulating their position with a compass.
“To be able to go out there with all the benefits that we have now and follow in their footsteps is super exciting. You only get so many opportunities to be the tip of the spear on things and that’s definitely what this is.”
Morgan Smith teaches his Cultural Anthropology students primitive ways to make weapons on Chamberlain Field. Photo by Angela Foster.
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