at The University of Southern Mississippi

Dr. Marie Danforth is a physical anthropologist interested in skeletal biology, particularly nutrition and disease indicators. Her research areas include the Mayan region and the southeastern United States. Dr. Danforth's course offerings include undergraduate Introduction to Physical Anthropology, Mesoamerican Cultures, and Forensic Anthropology and graduate-level Bioarchaeology, Medical Anthropology and the Seminar in Physical Anthropology. She is also faculty sponsor for Mississippi's Beta Chapter of Lambda Alpha.

Recent publications

M.E. Danforth, A. Thompson.( in press) Estimation of Handedness Using Standard Osteometrics. To appear in Journal of Forensic Sciences in January 2008.

M.E. Danforth, G.D. Wrobel, and K.P. Jacobi, (in press) Health and the Transition to Agriculture in the Deep South: Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee. To appear in Ancient Health: The Skeletal Indicators of Economic and Political Intensification, edited by MN Cohen and G Kramer-Crane. University Press of Florida, Gainesville, in November 2007.

M.E. Danforth. 2005. Prehistoric Human Remains Recovered on the Mississippi Gulf Coast: A Bioarchaeological Analysis. Mississippi Archaeology 40(1):107-124.

M.L.Powell, M.E.Danforth, K.P.Jacobi, and L.E.Eisenberg 2004. “Syphilis in Mound Builders’ Bones”: Treponematosis in the Central Southern United States. In: Debunking the Myth of Syphilis: The Natural History of Treponematosis in North America, edited by M.L. Powell and D.C..Cook, pp 117-161. University of Florida Press, Gainesville.

Carter, C., A.M.Siedell, D.P..Craig, E. Boudreaux, K.L.Burleigh, J.A. Gardner, S.L. Young, and M.E. Danforth 2004. A Bioarchaeological Analysis of the French Colonial Burials at the Moran Gallery, Biloxi. Mississippi Archaeology 39(1):39-68.

Danforth, M.E. 2004. African-American Men, Women and Children in Nineteenth Century Natchez: A Study of City Cemetery Sexton’s Records. In: Engendering African-American Archaeology, edited by J. Galle and A.L. Young, pp 237-263. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.

Wrobel, G.D., and M.E. Danforth 2002. Estimating Sex of Maya Skeletons by Discriminant Function Analysis of Long Bone Measurements from the Protohistoric Maya Site of Tipu, Belize. Ancient Mesoamerica 13:255-263.

Jacobi, K.P. and Danforth, M.E. 2002. Test of Interobserver Scoring Patterns in Porotic Hyperostosis and Cribra Orbitalia. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, 12:248-258.

Danforth, M.E. 1999. Coming Up Short: Stature and Nutrition in the Prehistoric Maya. Reconstructing Ancient Maya Diet, edited by C D White. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.

Danforth, M.E. 1999. Nutrition and Politics in Prehistory. Annual Review of Anthropology, 28:1-25.

Danforth, M.E., K.P. Jacobi and M.N. Cohen. 1997. Gender and Health Among the Maya of Tipu, Belize. Ancient Mesoamerica 8:13-22.

Danforth, M.E. 1997. Childhood Health Patterns in the Late Classic Maya: Analysis of Enamel Microdefects. Bones of the Maya: Skeletal Studies of an Ancient People, S.L. Whittington and D.M. Reed (eds.), pp. 127-138. Smithsonian Press, Washington.

Danforth, M.E. and D. Cook.1994. The Human Remains from Carter Ranch Pueblo, Arizona: Health in Isolation. American Antiquity 59:88-101.

Courses Taught ANT 101. Introduction to Anthropology ANT 241. Introduction to Physical Anthropology ANT 317. Peoples and Cultures of Mesoamerica ANT 342. Forensic Anthropology ANT 441/541. Human Variation ANT 442/542. Medical Anthropology ANT 445/545. Bioarchaeology ANT 641. Seminar in Physical Anthropology

Physical Anthropology Lab
Research and Teaching Collections
Zooarchaeology Reference Collection
Scanning Electron Microscope (at Polymer Science)

Office: LAB 435
Phone: (601) 266-5629
Fax: (601) 266-6373
Email: m.danforth@usm.edu