Angele Montana, M.A., RPA

Project Manager

 

            Ms. Montana received her B.A. in Anthropology in 1989 from the University of New Orleans.  Her undergraduate field school was completed under the direction of Dr. Richard Shenkel of the University of New Orleans.  This field school consisted of the excavation of several prehistoric shellmidden sites in Jean Lafitte National Park Barataria Preserve located in Marrero, Louisiana.

 

            In 1990, Ms. Montana entered the Master's program at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, focusing on the prehistory of the southeastern United States, as well as human osteology and bioarchaeology.  She served as an assistant supervisor at the university's summer field school, and as an undergraduate instructor in the anthropology department where she taught Anthropology 101, Introduction to Anthropology.  While at USM, Ms Montana assisted Dr. H Edwin Jackson in the supervision of an archaeological field school that took place at several prehistoric sites along the Leaf River in southern Mississippi.  Her master's thesis, An Analysis and Interpretation of the Shellfish Remains (Rangia cuneata) from the Diamondhead Site (22Ha550), focused on growth-line seasonality analysis of the shellfish remains from that site, as well as issues related to local exploitation of estuarine resources.  The results of her analysis were the subject of a paper given at the 1993 Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, St. Louis.  During her time at USM, Ms. Montana also co-authored a paper for publication in Mississippi Archaeology on the bioarchaeology of the prehistoric Kellogg Village burials from northern Mississippi.

 

            After completing her M.S., Ms. Montana spent several years in the employ of RCG&A, Inc. as a laboratory analyst and archaeologist.  While at RCG&A, Miss Montana gained extensive experience as a lithic analyst as a result of the Phase I, II, and III excavations of the Florida Gas Transmission Pipeline Project, a project that stretched from Texas to Florida.  In addition to her lithic analysis skills, while at RCG&A, she also gained additional experience in the analysis of aboriginal ceramics from Louisiana, Florida, Alabama and Tennessee.  In addition, Ms Montana assisted in the analysis of faunal materials from several sites including those from the Phase III Discovery Site (16Lf66) located in Larose, Louisiana.  During her biomass calculations of the faunal materials from 16LF66, she was the first to use data collected from live alligators and crocodiles to calculate the biomass of the alligator remains recovered from the Discovery Site.  Ms. Montana also participated in a symposium on the Discovery Site at the 1999 meeting of the Southeastern Archaeological Conference in Pensacola, Florida.  In addition while at RCG&A, Ms. Montana analyzed historic period faunal remains from sites such as an 18^th century tavern in Maryland as well as from the SS Kentucky, a Civil War period steamship whose excavation was sponsored by the USACE Vicksburg District.  In addition to her analytical experience obtained while at RCG&A, Ms. Montana also served as an Assistant Project manager and conducted archaeological survey and excavation throughout the southeastern United States.  Other specialties performed by Ms. Montana while in the employ of RCG&A consisted of architectural and cemetery surveys.  As a result of one of the cemetery surveys, Ms. Montana co-authored a paper on the Iron Cross grave marker as a French Roman Catholic Hallmark in Southern Louisiana at the 2000 Society for Historical Archaeology’s Annual Conference on Historical and Underwater Archaeology in Quebec, Canada.  In addition to her archaeological experience, while ay RCG&A, Ms. Montana participated in several architectural surveys in Louisiana and documented individual buildings in the course of her archaeological survey projects throughout the southeastern United States.  While at RCG&A, she especially gained valuable experience in evaluating both rural and urban buildings of southern Louisiana.  In the course of her architectural work in southern Louisiana, Ms. Montana participated in a reconnaissance survey of historic buildings locates along Lake Pontchartrain in Mandeville, Louisiana. 

 

            In April of 2004, Ms. Montana accepted a position at Earth Search, Inc.  Since that time she has directed the Sky Lake survey project, and ran and participated in numerous other Phase I surveys and Phase II excavations, and continued to exercise her analytic abilities for a variety of company projects.  She has analyzed prehistoric ceramic and lithic artifacts recovered by ESI from 16SC2 (the Sims Site), 16SJ2, from 22Ha613, 22Hu539, the Troyville Site, Jackson Barracks, as well as from sites located during survey for the Continental Connector Pipeline Project, the Bush Highway Project, and from various sites throughout Louisiana and Mississippi.  She has also analyzed faunal materials from the St. Thomas and D Day Museum Projects, Jackson Barracks, The Kingsly House as well as from numerous small projects.  After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Ms Montana worked in Cameron Parish on behalf of FEMA and the USACE as part of the storm cleanup archaeological monitoring process.  Part of her duties in Cameron Parish consisted of recording historic buildings that were affected by Hurricane Rita.  She also participated in the post Katrina architectural survey of several of New Orleans Historic Districts including the newly proposed Eastlake District.  After the surveys of new districts were completed in 2005, Ms. Montana served ESI and FEMA as a Project Manager for the architectural survey of “red tag” buildings.  These surveys consisted of buildings in St. Bernard and Orleans parishes that have been slated for demolition.  In addition, she participated in a reconnaissance or “windshield” survey of historic buildings in rural Jasper, Johnson, and Smith Counties in southern Mississippi.  Ms. Montana served as Project manager for ESI and FEMA for the architectural resurvey of the entire Esplanade Ridge NRHD as well as parts of the Lower Garden District NRHD and the Carrollton NRHD.  Most recently, she conducted an architectural survey for the proposed SR601 project area in Jasper County, Mississippi.  Ms. Montana has authored multiple reports based upon projects to which she contributed during her professional exploits, and is a Registered Professional Archaeologist.