Resume

Alyssa Afton Smith

3087 Clarkford Ct.

Woodbridge Virginia, 22192

571.643.9937

Aas3w@virginia.edu

BA UVA (Graduate May 2011)

[Skills]

Computer:  MS Office, Drawing Tools, Skype, GIS (Geographic Information System: integrates hardware, software, and data for capturing, managing, analyzing, and displaying all forms of geographically referenced information- GIS.com), Facebook, Adobe

[Career Objectives]

Job with the opportunity for growth and training

Place where I have the opportunity to take initiative and lead

Would like to travel or work abroad, but not limited to

Do not mind office or a physical environment (i.e. outdoors, multiple locations, can handle tough physical environment)

[Recent Experience]

2010 Summer Was honored to be selected from a large number of applicants to the prestigious Archaeological Field School at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello.  Research was conducted in the field with hands on site analysis. Archaeological and Anthropological sciences were employed to estimate and evaluate the social behaviors of the Monticello slaves from the discovery and evaluation of archaeological evidence.

2010 Summer Was honored to also be accepted into the Archaeological Field School at Montpelier in a selective bid.  Montpelier was the home of President James Madison. Attended Monticello Field School (above) instead.

2009   Conducted an archaeological field survey in Italy with Universita Foggia in the Carapelle Valley. There we determined late Roman Villa presence in the area through the use of aerial photography, physical surveying of fields, and systematic global mapping systems. The goal/project was to find new significant Roman and Etruscan villages in order to fully understand how they put the landscape to use, given their level of technology.  This involved establishing a management grid and systematically surveying each square, using special techniques to recognize signs of man and ancient urban sites.

2007, 2009, 2010 December and 2008-2009 June Hired by PTIS to proctor the Certified Financial Analyst Exam, in charge of monitoring and administering the exam for one section. The tests and certifications are extremely valuable and strict care must be given, because the test can make a difference of thousands of dollars per year to each applicant.

2007- 2009 Summer Hired by Prince William County Schools as a Teacher Assistant. Taught small groups, supervised students, worked one on one with students, filed and graded papers, ran photocopies, and assisted with lesson plans.

2007-2010 Hired by Prince William County as a Substitute Teacher. Lead class by following lesson plan, engaged students in learning, monitored student behavior. When not in classroom, was utilized as a secretary.

2008 Summer Employment as waitress at The Original Steakhouse

 [Honors and Awards]

2008 Spring UVA Athletic Honor Roll, while competing in intercollegiate rowing during a very competitive season.  UVA finished seventh in the NCAA.

2008- Present Member of Sigma Alpha Lambda Honor Fraternity for those with both a record of academic achievement and a demonstrated dedication to community service.

[Education]

Graduation May 2011:  Currently attending the University of Virginia, candidate for Bachelor of Arts, earning a double major in Anthropology and Archaeology. The Archaeology major is interdisciplinary and requires an interview with the department head.

Coursework includes anthropology, archaeology and a wide range of areas including: biology, art history, environmental sciences, and women’s studies.  Both employ the latest in research and analysis techniques as well as geo-physics, chemistry, biology and psychology.  The objective is to understand the total environment and all relevant factors.

[NCAA Athlete]

2007-2009  NCAA UVA Women’s Rowing.  Recruited out of high school.  Rowed on an 8 boat, and learned to compete on the Inter-Collegiate level. 

[Extracurricular]

2009-Present Actively participated in key society meetings in my field. 

Anthropological Society At these meetings, new concepts and methods, as well as new anthropological technology and thought are explored, creating advances in the field. 

Archaeological Society At these meetings, we discuss the latest archaeological thought and advances in the field such as new technologies to advance our analysis capabilities and further our understanding.

2009 UVA Intramural Volleyball (team Capt.)

2009 UVA Intramural Soccer

2010 UVA Intramural Water Polo

2007-2010 Multiple 5K’s “Race for the Cure”

2007-2010 Volunteered for Operation Smile, Project Untrim a Tree, Race for the Cure, Camp for Autistic Children

Accomplishments

2008 Spring UVA Athletic Honor Roll, while competing in intercollegiate rowing during a very competitive season.  UVA finished seventh in the NCAA.

2008- Present Member of Sigma Alpha Lambda Honor Fraternity for those with both a record of academic achievement and a demonstrated dedication to community service.

My Personality

Q&A

Would you be willing to relocate if required?
There is nothing I like better than travelling and exploring. I would not mind relocating, even to a different country.

Writing Samples

Question: Captain John Smith reported on the geographical, political, and economical traits found in Virginia and the Native Virginia Indian tribes, but does the archaeology support what he has to say?

            Much of Virginia’s history of colonial development and story of Jamestown is based on notions obtained through the first settler’s writings and reports back to England. None of these writings are more famous than those of the popular historical figurehead of Jamestown, Captain John Smith. Captain John Smith wrote “The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles”, A True Relation of Such Occurrences and Accidents of Note as Happened in Virginia (1608) A Map of Virginia (1612) The Proceedings of the English Colony in Virginia (1612) A Description of New England (1616) New England's Trials (1620, 1622). These writings for centuries had served as the basis for American understanding of the British colonization of the New World.      However, now with the advancements of archaeology, new understandings of Virginia colonial life and interactions with Virginia Indians can be understood. Many previously held notions of this time period are being shattered with each archaeological discovery made. Contradictions have been found in Captain John Smith’s writing also, but so far the archaeology found seems to support him more than negate. Captain John Smith’s writings on the geographical, political, and economic traits found in Virginia and the Native American Indian tribes, though written with a clear personal slant, on the whole give a good account of early Virginia life.

Myth: Pocahontas rescued Captain John Smith from death at the hands of her tribe. Could the “execution” really have taken place, and was it more symbolic in nature?

            The saving of Captain John Smith’s life by Indian Princess Pocahontas is widely known and generally so accepted as fact that it appears in every John Smith story or movie. For example, the rescuing was romanticized in the 2005 movie “The New World”. The rescuing was largely taken as truth due to Smith’s own claims in his book “A Generall Historie”. However, when examined beyond face-value many inconsistencies appear.

            The earliest surviving account of John Smith’s supposed rescue dates to 1616 in a letter Smith wrote to Queen Anne. However, when one reads Smith’s book “A True Relation” which was published in 1608, a full 8 years before Smith’s letter, Smith makes no mention of a supposed execution, or even of meeting Pocahontas. It is not until 1624 that Smith writes in his “Generall Historie” the tale of Pocahontas sparing his life. By then, Pocahontas had achieved fame in Britain, coming over in 1616. Her arrival had been well publicized (Jamestown Rediscovery). Conveniently for Smith, Pocahontas had died by 1617, leaving no one to refute Smith’s possible exaggerations. A further thing to take into account is that when Pocahontas died, she was only 22, meaning that when Smith was captured by the Powhatans, and the possible “execution” took place, Pocahontas was only 12 years old.

            If one assumes that the “execution” did in fact take place, then a path is opened to many interpretations, the most logical being it was a symbolic execution. In Rountree and Turner’s book “Before and After Jamestown” they delve into the “vision quest” mentioned in William Strachey’s (a short time colonist at Jamestown, and a writer) writings on his travel experiences. This “vision quest” which involved caging, drugging, and food deprivation was an attempt to “kill” the boys of the tribe and have them reborn as men. It has been suggested that Powhatan used a sort of ceremony where Smith was ritually/symbolically killed and reborn as a Werrowance under Powhatan’s control. The ceremony then could be interpreted as a way for Powhatan to try and bring Smith, and consequently the English, under his role.

            This sort of interpretation has a ring of truth to it when you add in the archaeology of Powhatan’s rule. Powhatan had only recently become the Powhatan Chief and finished acquiring all of his tribes by the time Jamestown was colonized. There was also an extreme reliance on non-local trade goods. Prestige items such as copper found in high social status burials had to be traded for through the Susquehannas or Monacans as copper was not native to the Algonquian lands.

            In fact, the very place Smith was brought too to meet Powhatan lends credence to the Werrowance theory. Werowocomoco was the place of Algonquian power. Powhatan himself had recognized this and upon his assumption to power, moved his residency there. "From the early colonial accounts, we know that Werowocomoco was a place of extraordinary power, and the results of our excavations indicate that we need to expand our understanding of the village's role in the Powhatan landscape," said archaeologist and member of the Werowocomoco Resource Group, Martin Gallivan (http://www.neh.gov/news/humanities/2007-01/Powhatans_Empire.htm).

            It is at Werowocomoco, a place of religious and political power (as evidenced by the ditches and separating of space, suggested by Gallivan as marking sacred from profane space), that copper artifacts from Jamestown are found. It is further proof that with the emergence of the English, Powhatan could afford to cut off trade with other Indian tribes and obtain his copper from the English. It therefore follows that Powhatan would want to devise a way to bring the English under his control, and the possible making of Smith a Werrowance would fit well into this construction. There would be no better place to have such an important ceremony than the biggest religious and political center of the Algonquian nation-Werowocomoco.

            However, there are others that remain unconvinced of this theory. Historian Henry Brooks Adams says the story of the execution is simply not true, that it was a way of Smith building himself up. When taken into account that Smith’s story did not come out until Pocahontas was a popular household name in England, Adams, and others like him, cannot be fully dismissed. Still others doubt the supposed execution was in fact a symbolic ritual. David A. Price in his book “Love and Hate in Jamestown” says that this is all guesswork because little is actually known about Powhatan rituals and there has so far been no evidence found for similar rituals in other tribes.

Verdict: Inconclusive, however if Smith truly was put through some sort of execution ordeal, the archaeology tends to lean towards it being of symbolic importance in an attempt to bring Smith and the English under the fold of Powhatan rule.

Myth: The well at Jamestown that Smith ordered built, was a main contributor to the sickness at Jamestown during “the starving time“.

            A generally held belief about Jamestown is that there was a lack of fresh water available as well as sickness arising due to bad location in a swampy area. Many people attribute bad well water to a rash of deaths in the early Jamestown years, a thought first introduced by William Strachey in his long titled book “A True Reportory of the Wreck and Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates, Knight, upon and from the Islands of the Bermudas: His Coming to Virginia and the Estate of that Colony Then and After, under the Government of the Lord La Warr, July 15, 1610”. In this book, Strachey claimed the well to be “Six or seven fathom deep, fed by the brackish river oozing into it; from whence I belief the chief causes have preceded of many diseases and sicknesses which have happened to our people who are indeed strangely afflicted with fluxes and agues and every particular infirmity.”

            John Smith had ordered the well to be built in 1609 inside the fort. Smith later reported the well as holding “sweet water”. Hence, there is a contradiction between Strachey and Smith, not surprising when one considers their rival relationship. William Kelso and his archaeological team at Jamestown attempted to put the question of the quality of the well water to rest when they uncovered a well as old as James Fort. Though the well could not be Smith’s well as it was fifty feet outside the fort, it could provide the answers to the quality of well water in the fort area. 

            According to the Source Water Assessment Program Report for Jamestown,

                        “When a well is pumped, it begins to influence groundwater that is

            flowing through the subsurface and towards the well. The pumping of the well

            creates a contributing area around the well that supplies water to the well. This is

            the area through which contaminants, if released to the environment, can be

            reasonably expected to move through the ground and reach the well.”

            In this experimental archaeology test, workers at Jamestown could prove via contamination analysis of present day water whether the water in the well in 1609 was drinkable. Going with the logical assumption that the well water at Jamestown in present day would be more contaminated, experts began testing the water. They knew that the water would be more saline because of a sea level rise of around four feet (allowing for salt rise in ground level and ground distance). They also could deduce that there would be higher contamination levels due to factors such as river pollution and septic systems. Therefore, if the well water proved to be drinkable in today‘s world, then it would have been drinkable at James Fort.  The archaeological team at Jamestown found out two very important things, the salt level was negligible meaning that the rise in sea level had no effect, and that the nearby river and swamp lands did not seep into the well.  After removing contaminants that were a result of the excavation, the team found that the Jamestown water was good enough to meet the drinking standards of today, and was therefore in 1609 good water.

            So why would Strachey claim the well contained water that was otherwise? In his book, Strachey made a disclaimer where he said he had freely collected “knowledges” from George Percy. Percy had been Governor of Jamestown during the period referred to as “the starving time”. It is possible that Percy was looking to blame the rash of deaths on something other than lack of food which would fall under his command. Therefore the well that Smith ordered built would be a perfect scapegoat.

Verdict: So far, science is on Smith’s side. Due to the experimental archaeology work done by Kelso and team at Jamestown, and other known facts concerning Percy and his leadership, it appears that the well water in the James Fort was not to blame for the many deaths during “the starving time”.

Myth: Smith reported on the Monacan Indian tribe as being less complex agriculturally than the Powhatans, essentially, in the words of Smith, “barbarous” and “living for the most part of wild beests and fruits”.

            In reality, the English knew extremely little about the Monacan Indians, receiving all of their information from the Powhatan Indians. The Powhatans, of course, had a reason to downplay the Monacans. They needed to keep the English and their resources on the Algonquian side. By representing the Monacans as barbarous and less advanced, the Powhatans sought to keep the English from venturing up the fall line of the James River and into Monacan territory.

            The actual encounters the English had with the Monacans were brief. In August 1608, a Piedmont Indian named Amoroleck was taken captive. He told the English that the Monacans were his neighbors and friends and said they ate “rootes and fruites” but existed mainly by hunting. The English finally went into Monacan territory in September 1608, on a venture looking for minerals for the Virginia Company.

            Smith later reported on the expedition in his “Generall Historie”

                        “Two towns we discovered of the Monacans, called Massinacak and

            Monhemenchouch, the people neither used us well nor ill, yet for our securitie

            wee tooke one of their pettie Werrowance and led him bound to conduct us the

            way.”

            So what were the Monacans eating? Jeff Hantman, an archaeologist who specializes on Indian Tribes during colonial expansion, argues that just because Smith made no mention of agriculture does not mean Smith denied it was going on. Rather, Hantman suggests the omission stems from Smith’s own lack of observation. Mention of Monacan agriculture is made however in William Strachey’s “Historie of Travell into Virginia Britania” where Monacan agriculture is implied indirectly.

            Because of lack of direct contact with the Monacans during the colonial period, little was known about the Monacans dietary habits. However, through bioarchaeology done on Monacan burial mounds in recent times, a picture of the Monacan diet has finally emerged. Debra Gold’s book “The Bio-archaeology of Virginia Burial Mounds” explains that by examining Monacan skeletons we can figure out eating habits. Gold says that through skeletal and dental analysis, one can see that the Monacan Indians subsisted on wild plants, animals, aquatic life, and through the cultivation of native plants and maize. Gold used a difference in stable isotopes (C3 plants are typically native to the Eastern Woodlands, whereas maize is a C4), to determine both the timing and importance of corn in the Monacan diet.

            Another important tool Gold used in her research was an analysis on teeth.  Because crowns, the hard outer shell of the teeth, are completely formed in childhood, Gold, and others, can logically reason that any change on the enamel for the rest of the person’s life will be due to things like diet, and disease. Dental cavities, for example, can tell scientists that the person had been eating high carbohydrate foods. Dental wear can provide information on both the kinds of foods eaten, and how the food was prepared. Dental wear actually will decrease with the influx of agriculture because it will be less strain on your teeth to chew, for example, wild nuts, or tough meat.

            By examining tooth wear, and amount of cavities, Gold can deduce a typical Monacan diet, coming to the conclusion that “Maize consumption seems to have varied slightly among the Mound populations but to have been a consistently important component of the diet throughout the mound building period.”

Verdict: Smith should have put a disclaimer in his reports on Monacan dietary habits as the English had extremely little contact with the Monacans, and received their information from the Powhatans, who had their own agenda. The Monacans ate a wide variety of foods including berries, nuts, animals, fish, as well as raising both native plants and maize.

Myth: Smith paints Powhatan as a supreme leader of all the Algonquian speaking tribes, but was Powhatan fully in control?

            John Smith repeatedly refers to Powhatan as “King” in his writings, even going so far as to call him a friend (though this term may have been used loosely).

            Smith would later report,

                        “It is strange to see with what great feare and adoration all these people

            doe obay this Powhatan. For at his feet, they present whatsoever he commandeth,

            and at the least frowne of his browe, their greatest spirits will tremble with feare:

            and no marvell, for he is very terrible and tryannous in punishing such as offend

            him.”

            Archaeology can now provide us with a greater understanding as to the extent and limits of Powhatan’s power and control over the Algonquian speaking peoples. Copper was a valued object to the Indians of Virginia and it was shaped and worn as prestige objects (Kelso). Powhatan told Smith to trade English copper for his corn and other food products. By ensuring that the copper came to only him, he could control its rarity and value as a prestige object. Unfortunately for both Powhatan and the English, in the extreme winter in 1608, so much copper was traded illegally by sailors from the English supply ships, that it lost its value (Kelso). Powhatan therefore had no control over where the copper ended up and its value as a prestige item dramatically decreased, as well as the bargaining power of the English.

            Copper was not native to Powhatan’s area of Virginia, so Powhatan obviously had to trade out for it before the English came. We can find out where Powhatan got his copper in two ways, historically, by way of Smith’s writings, and archaeologically by examining copper found in Indian burials.

            Smith reported,

                        “. . . Whilst we expected the comming in of the Country, we wrangled out

            of the King ten quarters of Corne for a copper Kettell, the which the President

            perceiving him much to affect, valued it at a much greater rate; but in regard of

            his scarcity he would accept it, provided we should have as much more the next

            yeare, or els the Country of Monacan.”

            The English, brought loads of copper over for trade with the Indians and can be found in the archaeological record at Jamestown. Square sheets of copper, as well as pieces left over from the colonists cutting out the copper into shapes, were recovered during excavation (Kelso). Examples of these fancy formed pendants of copper have been found in the Richlands Hospital site in Tazewell County (Rountree). 1,400 pieces of copper were revealed during the first three years of the Jamestown fort excavation alone (Rountree).

            Of course, prior to the English, Powhatan had to rely upon trading to get copper. One can tell the difference and thereby infer trading patterns of copper using proton-induced X-ray emission spectrometry. This testing will tell researchers whether the copper hails from England, or was native to America. The difference shows that American copper contained a lower level of arsenic, lead, and antimony than English copper (Rountree).  Since it is difficult to tell exactly where in Eastern America the American copper came from, one has to logically assume it came from trading with nearby tribes, who either had access to copper, or are along a copper trade route. Smith reports Powhatan as trading with the Monacans who were an on and off enemy of the Powhatan tribe. It logically follows then, that once the English arrive, we typically see mainly English copper in graves like the ones excavated in Pasiphae (Rountree). The English were a much more suitable people to trade with than the Monacans in Powhatan‘s mind. He thought he could bring the English under his fold. However, the English obviously had other ideas, another strike against Powhatan‘s power.

            Powhatan inherited four tribes when he became chief. By the time of the English’s arrival in the New World, Powhatan had control over thirty. Powhatan used force, and as Smith noted, had completely wiped out the Chesapeakes by the English arrival. The tribes he controlled had to pay tributary payments, and were generally ruled by one of Powhatan’s relations (Rountree). However, the Chickahominy tribe did not pay tribute to Powhatan, thus adding to the limitations of Powhatans power. There were also individuals outside of Powhatan’s control. Tribal priests were outside the social realm and had to give approval for Powhatan to go to war (Hantman/class). To get away from the English, Powhatan moved to Orapakes located on the Chickahominy river in 1609.

            However, Smith was not completely wrong about Powhatan’s power.  He did have great influence over the English, in terms of food. Archaeology done at Jamestown, shows the extremely tough conditions the colonists lived through, and periods like “the starving time” in 1609-1610, gave Powhatan great influence as food became power.

Verdict: Powhatan’s power was not as stable or as influential as Smith and modern day history makes it out to be. However, Powhatan was extremely influential in terms of the English colony, and quite possibly, his food was a main contributor to the eventual success of English colonization.

            Captain John Smith, with the advent of the Jamestown Discovery by Kelso and team, is now under the microscope. As new evidence comes to light, more and more of Smith’s statements that were generally accepted by the public are becoming questioned. It is thus surprising that history has so quickly accepted Smith at face value when a simple look at his contemporaries will tell a different story.

            George Percy, a governor of the Jamestown Fort said about Smith’s books "that many untruths concerning These proceedings have been formerly published wherein The Author hath not Spared to Appropriate many deserts to himself which he never Performed and stuffed his Relations with so many falsities and malicious detractions . . ."

            In 1661 “The Worthies of England” was published by Thomas Fuller which called Smith’s "perils, preservations, dangers, deliverances, they seem to me almost beyond belief, to some beyond truth. Yet we have two witnesses to attest them, the prose and the pictures, both in his own book; and it soundeth much to the diminution of his deeds, that he alone is the herald to publish and proclaim them." 

            When John Smith died in 1631, a satirical poem about him was published in the London Press entitled “The Legend of Captain Iones” by David Lloyd that poked fun of his autobiography (History).

            Not everything Smith has to say is false (for example the well). However, readers should take his writings with a grain of salt and the understanding that Smith will always represent himself in the best possible light, and may make occurrences more dramatic than they probably were (the “execution”). Smith has provided us with a lot of valuable information that would have been lost without him. Some of the information may have a slight bias or exaggeration, but that is a small price to pay for the great historical information Smith has provided.

 Future Topics to investigate:

Smith constantly put himself in the wrongly accused/they are all out to get me light: Example, When Smith was kidnapped and taken to Powhatan, all of his men were killed. Ratcliffe and the Council took this as a way of getting rid of Smith. Smith said,” Some no better than they should be, had plotted with the President, the next day to have put him to death . . . For the lives of Robinson and Emery, pretending the fault was his that led them to their ends, but he quickly took such order with such Lawyers, that he laid them by the heels till he sent some of them prisoners for England”. What we know now is that Christopher Newport had arrived in time bringing both supplies and new colonists and was able to arrange for the release of Smith.

John Smith’s Map of Virginia in 1608 (published in London 1612) With a Description of the Countrey, the Commodities, People, Government and Religion. It was extremely influential. However, Smith admitted he did not visit every Indian site. -Can archaeology confirm some of these Indian villages and thereby attest to the relative correctness of the map? http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/guides/rn28_johnsmith.pdf

Read: The Powhatan Confederacy, Past and Present by James Mooney (http://www.dinsdoc.com/mooney-1.htm)