Rate My Professor Ben Steere

Ben Steere is Professor and Department Head of the Anthropology and Sociology Department in the College of Arts and Sciences at Western Carolina University. He earned his Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Georgia in 2011, with a dissertation on the archaeology of houses and households in the Native Southeast. Steere has held progressive academic appointments at WCU, advancing from assistant professor to his current professorship, and served as Director of the Cherokee Studies Program from 2017 to 2022. His career emphasizes collaborative research with indigenous communities, including ongoing archaeological preservation projects with the Tribal Historic Preservation Office of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians since 2011.

Steere's research specializations include Southeastern archaeology, Cherokee archaeology, household anthropology and archaeology, economic anthropology, indigenous archaeology, and regional settlement pattern studies. He teaches courses in these fields and leads archaeological field schools. Key publications encompass his book The Archaeology of Houses and Households in the Native Southeast (2017), which traces the development of domestic spaces from the Woodland period through the Historic era; The Nikwasi Mound: Archaeology, Preservation, and Politics in the Eastern Cherokee Heartland (Native South, 2023); Tali Tsisgwayahi: Cherokee Landscape and Campus Archaeology at Western Carolina University (SAA Archaeological Record, 2022); Archival Evidence for Woodland Period Monumental Architecture in Western North Carolina (North Carolina Archaeology, 2020); and contributions such as Collaborative Archaeology as a Tool for Preserving Sacred Sites in the Cherokee Heartland (Berghahn Books, 2017). Steere has delivered public lectures on Cherokee architecture and heritage, contributed op-eds to regional outlets, and participated in podcasts. In 2017, he received the Principal Chief Leon D. Jones Award for Archaeological Excellence from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians for his service in archaeology and historic preservation. His scholarship advances preservation efforts and integrates Cherokee perspectives into academic teaching and research on Southeastern indigenous cultures.