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Photograph of Alanna Warner-Smith

Alanna Warner-Smith Assistant Professor CAS | ANTH | Anthropology

Degrees
PhD, Anthropology, Syracuse University
MA, Anthropology, Syracuse University
BA, Anthropology, University of Chicago

Bio
As an historical bioarchaeologist, I draw on multiple lines of evidence to investigate how lived experiences are embodied, and how macroscale phenomena, such as immigration, urbanization, and economic inequality, shape bodies. I also follow the postmortem "lives" of dead bodies, as the dead become entangled with the living through collective memory, memorialization, and heritage practices.

My main research focuses on Ireland-born persons in the Huntington Anatomical Collection (1893-1921), which is comprised of the remains of persons who died in public institutions, were dissected, and then made into anatomical specimens. Acknowledging these histories of inequality, I use archival and osteological methodologies and draw upon theories of embodiment and materiality to rearticulate their life histories and refocus attention to their personhood. I ask: What were the material and social landscapes that they inhabited in Ireland and New York City? What does the skeletal evidence of health and activity tell us about labor in these places? What meanings did signs of labor and health, visible on their bodies, take within discourses of poverty, citizenship, race, age, and gender? I also articulate this research within the enduring legacies of inequality and race science within the discipline of biological anthropology and with movements to respond to these histories of inequality and violence. This research will be published in a monograph, currently in preparation and under contract with the University of Alabama Press, in the Archaeologies of Restorative Justice series.

My second project more closely follows the post-mortem movements of human remains, from their places of death, to sites of dissection and curation. Starting from the Huntington Collection, I consider the circulation of immigrant bodies more widely within knowledge production practices of early physical anthropology, during an era of eugenics, race science, nativism, and evolving immigration policies that sought to restrict entry. This research considers the enduring material effects of these histories, within collection storerooms, datasets, everyday research practices and methods, and historical memory. By tracing broader histories of collection and the discipline of biological anthropology, this research also considers the future of skeletal collections and bioarchaeological and curatorial ethics. I also draw connections between immigrant experiences in the past with contemporary structural inequality, racialization, and immigration policy.
For the Media
To request an interview for a news story, call AU Communications at 202-885-5950 or submit a request.

Teaching

Spring 2025

  • ANTH-496 Selected Topics:Non-Recurring: (Bio)Archaeology of Labor

Partnerships & Affiliations

  • Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History
    Peter Buck Fellow

  • Journal of Historical Archaeology
    Book Reviews Editor

Scholarly, Creative & Professional Activities

Selected Publications

2024  “Slow (Bio)archaeology: Recovering the Lives of Aging Irish Immigrants in the Huntington Anatomical Collection.” In “Archaeology of and as Dissonance,” special issue for Historical Archaeology, edited by Kelly Britt and Sarah Platt.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s41636-024-00520-9

 

2024 “Bioarchaeology and History” Invited contribution to for Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Anthropology. First author, with Shannon A. Novak.

https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190854584.013.625

 

2021  “The Body as (in, and with) Text: Doing Bioarchaeology with Archives.” Archaeological Review from Cambridge 36(2). Second author, with Lauren Hosek and Shannon A. Novak.

https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.86205

 

2020  “The Body Politic and the Citizen’s Mouth: Oral Health and Dental Care in Nineteenth-Century Manhattan.” Historical Archaeology 54(1):138-159. Second author, with Lauren Hosek and Cristina C.Watson.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s41636-019-00215-6

 

2020  “Vital Data: Re/Introducing Historical Bioarchaeology.” Historical Archaeology 54(1):1-16. Second author, with Shannon A. Novak.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s41636-019-00217-4

 

2020 “Assembling Heads and Circulating Tales: The Doings and Undoings of Specimen 2032.” Historical Archaeology 54(1):71-91. Second author, with Shannon A. Novak. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41636-019-00157-z

 

Research Interests

  • Historical Bioarchaeology
  • (Bio)archaeology of capitalism, labor, and inequality
  • Race, gender, and identity
  • The body and embodiment
  • Movement, mobility, and diaspora
  • History of collections and legacy collections
  • Anthropology of the archive

Work In Progress

Working Hands, Indebted Bodies: A Multi-Sited Bioarchaeology of the "Huntington" Irish. Monograph under contract with the University of Alabama Press, Archaeologies of Restorative Justice series.

Tissues and Traces: Doing Bioarchaeology with/in Archives. Edited volume under contract with Berghahn Books. Second co-editor, with Laurn Hosek (first) and Shannon Novak.

Excavating Bodies in the Archives. Edited volume, emerging from School for Advanced Research NSF-Seminar (2023). Second co-editor, with Shannon Novak.