Rate My Professor Justin Reamer

Justin Reamer is Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Bowdoin College. He earned a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania in 2024, completing a dissertation titled "The Farmers in the Del: Maize and Minsi-Lenape Foodways in the Minisink National Historic Landmark (2000 BCE–CE 1675)." Reamer holds a BA in Anthropology and Archaeology from Dickinson College. Prior to his current role, he served as Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Bryn Mawr College following his doctoral studies at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a Junior Fellow in the Kolb Society. He also holds a position as Consulting Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.

Reamer is an anthropological archaeologist researching Indigenous landscapes and foodways in the Northeastern United States, primarily in Lenapehoking, the ancestral and spiritual homeland of the Lenape people. His work investigates how the Lenape shaped landscapes and environments through daily practices, particularly foodways, including the integration of maize as a staple crop and agricultural methods that created anthropogenic landscapes over more than 10,000 years. He explores how European colonists obscured or erased these practices to claim Lenape land. A key aspect of his methodological approach involves using legacy data—previously excavated materials and associated archives—to generate new insights, addressing the curation crisis in archaeology and advancing a more sustainable and ethical discipline. Additional research interests encompass the archaeology of Eastern North America, especially the Northeast, Archaic and Woodland periods, and the Eastern Agricultural Complex. Notable publications include "Evidence for the Eastern Agricultural Complex Crops in the Upper Delaware Valley: Botanical Analysis from the Manna Site (36Pi4)" in American Antiquity (2024) and "Old Collections, New Data: Insights on the Minisink Site and Upper Delaware Valley Archaeology from the Philhower and Sommerville Collections" in the Journal of Middle Atlantic Archaeology (2020). In teaching, Reamer emphasizes hands-on learning through labs and real-world applications, highlighting archaeology's role in understanding the modern world.