Carlton Shield Chief Gover

Assistant Curator - Archaeology
Assistant Professor - Department of Anthropology

College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, Anthropology

Contact Info

785-864-0598

Spooner Hall, Room 6E
Lawrence
134o Jayhawk Blvd.
Lawrence, KS 66045

Biography —

Carlton Shield Chief Gover, a citizen of the Pawnee Nation, is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and an Assistant Curator of Archaeology for the KU Biodiversity Institute and Natural History Museum. His research area is in the Central Great Plains of the United States, focusing on ancestral Pawnee and Arikara heritage.

His research utilizes Pawnee and Arikara oral traditions regarding population movement and social change as foundational evidence for interpreting the archaeological record from the 9th to 16th centuries A.D. He has published in American Antiquity, Plains Anthropologist and Advances in Archaeological Practice.

Shield Chief Gover received his B.S. in Anthropology from Radford University, his M.A. from the University of Wyoming, and his Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Colorado Boulder with professional certificates in Museology and Native American and Indigenous Studies.

Education —

Ph.D. in Anthropology, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, Colorado
2024

M.A. in Anthropology, University of Wyoming, 2019, Laramie, Wyoming

B.S. in Anthropology, Radford University, 2016, Radford, Virginia

Indigenous Archaeology; Decolonial Anthropology; Community-Based Research; Ethnogenesis; Identity; Migration; Bayesian Statistics; Radiocarbon Analysis; Chronology Analysis; Plains Town Formation; Introduction of Horses; Diaspora of Mesolithic Peoples; Public Outreach; Science Communication; Underwater Archaeology

Teaching —

ANTH 318 Peoples of the Great Plains
ANTH 397 Museum Anthropology
ANTH 523 Great Plains Archaeology

Selected Publications —

2024 Van Alst, E. & Shield Chief Gover, C. Indigenizing Archaeology: Applying Theory into practice. Edited Volume for University of Florida Press. In Press.

2024 Shield Chief Gover, C. History within Radiocarbon. In Indigenizing Archaeology: Applying Theory into Practice, Eds. Van Alst, E., Shield Chief Gover, C. University of Florida Press. In Press.

2024 Shield Chief Gover, C. Becoming a Čâhiksičâhiks Archaeologist. In Being Indigenous Archaeologists: Reckoning New Paths Between Past and Present Lives, Eds. Nicholas, G., & Watkins, J. Routledge Press. In Press.

2023 Taylor, W., Librado, P., Running Horse Collin, Y., Shield Chief Gover, C., et al. Early Dispersal of Domestic Horses into the Great Plains and Northern Rockies. In Science.379(6639): 1316-1323.

Memberships —

Society for American Archaeology
American Anthropological Association
Plains Anthropological Society
Society for Historical Archaeology
Nebraska Association of Professional Archaeology
Professional Archaeologists of Kansas