Anthropology

Macie J. Clerkley (she/they) is a historical archaeologist of the African Diaspora working in the Chesapeake region of the United States. A native of the DMV region, Macie has worked extensively with archaeological collections at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello and the Archaeology Office with the Department of Parks and Recreation in Prince George’s County, Maryland. 

Clerkley’s archaeological research focuses on the materiality of placemaking practices in Black domestic spaces on plantations in Prince George’s County, Maryland. Drawing on material culture and landscape studies, as well as Black feminist theory, she analyzes how everyday life manifests in the archaeological record and how Black communities maintained cultural practices within quotidian households shaped by landscapes of struggle, labor, and surveillance.

Previous Degrees

• B.A. in Anthropology and African American and African Studies from the University of Virginia, 2022 
• M.A. in Anthropology from Brown University, 2026

Additional Information 

• 2025 "Social Memory": Interpreting an Enslaved Domestic Space with Public Collaboration, Journal of Middle Atlantic Archaeology, 41 (1)
• M.A. Thesis:  Sediments Remember Otherwise: Ruptured Grounds at the Mount Calvert Plantation (2026)
• Senior Thesis: Knowledge Production through Magical Realism: Using Fiction to Narrate Black Culture in the American South (2021)