Maria Franklin

Maria Franklin is a professor of anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin. She is a historical archaeologist whose work includes Black-Feminist theory, African Diaspora studies and race and gender.

Education She received her PhD in 1997 from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research includes work on plantation-related sites in the Chesapeake at Colonial Williamsburg, and the study of foodways in African American households in Texas.

From 2010-2013, she served on the board of directors of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

She is a member of the editorial board for American Antiquity.

Selected publications Franklin, M. 1997. “Power to the people”: sociopolitics and the archaeology of black Americans. Historical Archaeology 31(3), 36-50.

Franklin, M. 2001. A Black feminist-inspired archaeology? Journal of Social Archaeology 1(1), 108-125.

Franklin, M. and McKee, L. 2004. African Diaspora Archaeologies: Present Insights and Expanding Discourses. Historical Archaeology 38(1):1-9.

Franklin, M. 2004 An Archaeological Study of the Rich Neck Slave Quarter and Enslaved Domestic Life. Colonial Williamsburg Research Publications. Dietz Press, Richmond, VA.

Franklin, M., & Lee, N. 2019. Revitalizing Tradition and Instigating Change: Foodways at the Ransom and Sarah Williams Farmstead, c. 1871–1905. Journal of African Diaspora Archaeology and Heritage 8(3), 202-225.

Franklin, M. 2020. Enslaved Household Variability and Plantation Life and Labor in Colonial Virginia. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 24(1), 115-155.

Franklin, M., & Lee, N. 2020. African American descendants, community outreach, and the Ransom and Sarah Williams Farmstead Project. Journal of Community Archaeology & Heritage 7(2), 135-148.