Professor of Archaeology, Murray State University
Ph.D. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1982.
M.A. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1977.
B.A. summa cum laude Washington University, 1975.
Research Interests
Dr. Wesler's research interests encompass the late prehistoric and historical archaeology of Eastern North America, West Africa and the Caribbean, and the comparative study of complex societies.
Currently, Dr. Wesler is continuing to analyze 15 years of excavations at the Wickliffe Mounds site in Ballard County, Kentucky, and also the 2005-2006 excavations and survey at Columbus-Belmont State Park in Hickman County, Kentucky. He is collaborating on a book reporting a study of the Taino of the north coast of Jamaica, and has recently returned to Jamaica to begin an archaeological investigation of the town of Falmouth.
Dr. Wesler served as a Project Archaeologist for the Maryland Historical Trust before coming to Murray State University, as a Fulbright Lecturer at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, while on leave from MSU in 1985-1986, and as a Fulbright Professor at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica while on leave from MSU in Spring, 2002. He was Director of the Wickliffe Mounds Research Center from 1983-2004.
Links:
Major Publications:
1981 Models for Pleistocene extinction. North American Archaeologist 2(2):85-100.
1983 Trade politics and native polities in Iroquoia and Asante. Comparative Studies in Society and History 25(4):641-660.
1983 Typology and sequence in the Maryland Archaic. Southeastern Archaeology 2(1):21-29.
1985 Model and sequence in the Maryland Archaic. In Roy S. Dickens, Jr., and H. Trawick Ward, eds., Structure and Process in Southeastern Archaeology, pp. 212-228. University of Alabama Press.
1991 Ceramics, chronology, and horizon markers at Wickliffe Mounds, 15Ba4. American Antiquity 56(2):278-290.
1993 The Introduction of Imported Ceramics in Nigeria: an archaeological perspective. West African Journal of Archaeology 22:109-132.
1994 Historical archaeology and prehistory: experimenting with dating formulas for Mississippi period ceramics. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 19(2):260-290.
1997 The Wickliffe Mounds project: implications for late Mississippi period chronology, settlement and mortuary patterns in Western Kentucky. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 63:261-283.
1998 (edited) Historical Archaeology in Nigeria. Africa World Press, Lawrenceville NJ.
1999 Chronological sequences in Nigerian ceramics. African Archaeological Review 16(4):239-258.
2001 Excavations at Wickliffe Mounds. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.
Most recent papers and publications:
2004 Exploring assemblage patterning in Western Kentucky and Southeast Missouri historic sites. Ohio Valley Historical Archaeology 19:7-22.
2005 Exploring assemblage patterning in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri. Missouri Archaeological Society Quarterly 22(1):10-21.
2005 The Tyranny of Text: the Archaeology of Religion as Historical Archaeology. Presented to the Symposium on Ohio Valley Urban and Historical Archaeology, Carter Caves Resort StatePark, March 5.
2005 A failure of academic stewardship. Presented to the Society for American Archaeology, Salt Lake City, UT, April 1.
2005 P. Allsworth-Jones, Kit W. Wesler, and Michele Bogle-Douglas, Defining the Montego Bay style: a re-consideration of R.L. Vanderwal’s work in Jamaica. Presented to the International Association of Caribbeanist Archaeologists, University of the West Indies-St. Augustine (Trinidad), July 2005.
2006 Platforms as Chiefs: Comparing Mound Sequences in Western Kentucky. in Leadership and Polity in Mississippian Society, edited by Brian M. Butler and Paul D. Welch, pp. 142-155. Occasional Paper No. 33. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois.
2006 Allsworth-Jones, Philip, and Kit W. Wesler, Excavations at Green Castle, Jamaica, 1999-2001. in Atkinson, Lesley-Gail, ed., The Earliest Inhabitants: the Dynamics of the Jamaican Taino, pp. 69-74. University of the West Indies Press, Jamaica. (Reprint of Allsworth-Jones and Wesler 2002.)
2006 A Summary of Excavations at Rowlandtown Mound 2001-2003. Presented to the Kentucky Heritage Council Archaeological Conference, Bowling Green, Kentucky, March 12.
2006 A Pilot Survey of Church
Sites in Western Kentucky. Presented to the Symposium on Ohio Valley Urban and
Historical Archaeology, Madison IN, 18 March.