Rhonda Smith
Senior Project Manager/Faunal Specialist
Rhonda Smith holds a B.A. in Anthropology from Tulane Unive rsity, where she graduated with honors and was named the Arden King Outstanding Student in Anthropology for 1990. While attending Tulane University, Smith was employed as Laboratory Technician for the Center for Archaeology from 1987 through the spring of 1990. In addition, she did lab work for the 1986 New Orleans Garbage Project and for the Tulane Archaeological field school in Antigua, West Indies.
Ms. Smith received a Master’s degree in Anthropology from the University of Georgia in 1996. While at the University of Georgia, Ms. Smith worked in the Zooarcheology Lab under the direction of Dr. Elizabeth Reitz, where she continued to develop her writing and leadership skills. Her lab duties included sorting, identifying, and analyzing vertebrate fauna material from a number of archeological sites. She worked with faunal collections from throughout the Southeast US, including Louisiana, Arkansas, Florida, and Georgia. She was also responsible for training new laboratory technicians in the Zooarcheology Lab, as well as assisting students in their Zooarcheology classes.
Smith was employed full-time at Earth Search from August 1990 through August 1992. Initially, she served as Laboratory Supervisor, overseeing two to four laboratory aids in processing artifacts and preparing them for permanent curation. However, because of her wish to acquire additional field experience prior to entering graduate school, she requested a field position in January 1991. Her experience included over 2000 acres of intensive survey and site definition at Fort Polk. Ms. Smith supervised crews of 3 to 8 individuals on surveys at Fort Polk. Her responsibilities included coordination of crew activities with the military to insure that fieldwork was completed in an efficient manner. In addition, Ms. Smith has supervised intensive survey and site definition crews in West Baton Rouge and Pointe Coupee parishes.
At the Pump Canal site, Ms. Smith was in charge of wet screening all soil from the 1 m x 4 m excavation unit. This included nested screening through 1/4, 1/8, and 1/16-inch mesh of a 1 m x 1 m area excavated in quadrants for faunal analysis. This project initiated her interest in prehistoric subsistence and seasonal adaptation; and her Master’s thesis was a comparison of the fauna from two archeological time periods at the Pump Canal site. She presented the results of her analyses at the 1996 SEAC and 1997 LAS meetings.
Ms. Smith also designed and implemented ESI’s public excavations at Orange Grove Plantation. In 1990 and 1991, over 1000 school children between the ages of 10 and 18 had the opportunity to excavate at the site under her supervision. She presented a paper on the public outreach program at Orange Grove at the 1991 SEAC. In 1995 and 1996, she acted as tour guide for the project. From 1996-2000 she supervised the excavations as well as the public outreach activities at the site, which included coordination of over 2000 children and adults who visited the site each year over a three-week period.
During her initial two years at ESI, Ms. Smith worked on a wide variety of historic and prehistoric sites. In addition to work mentioned above, she performed intensive survey for the Freeport-McMoRan Audubon Species Survival Center. Ms. Smith has participated in NRHP test excavations at 726-728 Toulouse Street, at the Cabildo, at Nina Plantation, at 16WBR12, and within the Holy Cross District. She has also performed intensive survey of over 1500 acres in the El Dorado National Forest, California. In the summer of 1995, she worked on the ESI crew for data recovery at 16JE218. Although she had no official management role at the site, her previous excavation and supervisory experience proved extremely helpful on this complex, large-scale project.
Ms. Smith rejoined the ESI staff full-time in December 1995. Since that time, she has served as Co-Project Manager for archeological data recovery at 16CT416, the Birds Creek site. Investigations at this small, non-mound, middle Coles Creek site included hand excavation of 16 1 m x 1 m units and mechanical stripping of over one-half of the site area within the impact corridor. The project also required considerable managerial skill; the fieldwork schedule was extremely tight and the crew consisted of nine individuals. Despite this, the project was completed ahead of schedule and within budget. Ms. Smith also served as Project Manager for cultural resources survey along U.S. Highway 190 in St. Tammany Parish and for intensive cultural resources survey and NRHP testing at Buena Vista Plantation. She served as Project Manager for intensive survey and test excavations for the Conrad Point Community Development, the cultural resources report for the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet New Lock and Connecting Channel, intensive survey of the Brady Canal Hydrologic Restoration Project, and NRHP testing of three sites for the Morgan City/Berwick Flood Proofing project. This last project involved complicated logistical planning and execution, since excavations at one of the sites required working more than 2 m below grade adjacent to the Atchafalaya River. Smith was responsible for maintaining OSHA excavation standards and insuring a safe work environment for the eight archeologists on the project. She was also a Field Supervisor for the data recovery excavations at Northbend Plantation
More recently, she has served as a Co-Project Manager for the data recovery at the St. Thomas Hope VI Development Project. She has served as Project Manager or Field Supervisor for numerous intensive cultural resources surveys for companies in the petroleum industry. She served as Project Manager for the intensive cultural resources survey of the Joint Emergency Services Training Center, East Baton Rouge Parish. This survey resulted in the identification of eight new archeological sites. One of these, 16EBR182, is a large prehistoric site that yielded unique types and varieties of ceramics, as well as types and varieties uncommon to the area. She has managed or supervised numerous projects for the Louisiana and Mississippi Departments of Transportation. These include the investigations of the proposed alternatives for Interstate 49 South, Bush to Interstate 12 corridor, and the CSX corridor. She is currently serving as Project Manager for the Regional Transit Authority’s (RTA) proposed Canal Boulevard Streetcar Terminal project. The proposed terminal will be constructed at the site of Charity Hospital Cemetery No. 2 (16OR108), which was in operation between 1849 and 1910. ESI undertook limited testing at 16OR108 to confirm the presence of intact burials. Ms. Smith was instrumental in the development of the research design for archeological mitigation and burial removal. She prepared the first draft of the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between RTA, the Federal Transit Authority (FTA), and the LA SHPO.
She served as Project Manager and helped develop the research design for archeological investigations in the Indian Bayou Area, West Atchafalaya Basin. Her experience in the development of probability models and research designs includes several projects in the Mississippi Delta for the Vicksburg District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and numerous projects throughout coastal Louisiana and the deltaic plain for the New Orleans District, USACE. Throughout the development of these models and research designs, Ms. Smith has become increasingly familiar with the dynamic geomorphology of the region and its dramatic effect on human settlement patterns.
She has authored or co-authored more than 115 cultural resources reports and papers. Ms. Smith has been responsible for training new Project Managers, Assistant Project Managers, and many field personnel hired at ESI. It is also her responsibility to edit the content of many of the cultural resources reports produced by ESI. Ms. Smith is RPA certified. She has completed both the Advisory Council’s Section 106 Review Course and the National Highway Institute’s NEPA and Transportation Decision Making training.
During the recovery efforts after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Ms. Smith served as a FEMA archeologist in Cameron and Calcasieu parishes. She was instrumental in developing the standard monitoring and recordation form used by FEMA archeologists working these disaster recoveries. She has also monitored FEMA demolition and cleanup projects in archeologically sensitive areas in Orleans and St. Tammany parishes. Prior to the demolition monitoring, Ms. Smith undertook FEMA required Asbestos Training and certification. Ms. Smith currently serves as the Project Manager for the Katrina Memorial Project. This project involves the construction of a mausoleum to house the remains of the unclaimed individuals who perished during Hurricane Katrina and her aftermath. The memorial was constructed at Charity Hospital Cemetery No. 1 (16OR175) on Canal Street, New Orleans. Because the cemetery is a state-owned NRHP eligible property, construction concerns were enormous. Ms. Smith prepared the monitoring plan and presented it to the Louisiana Archaeological Survey and Antiquities Commission (the Commission) and the Louisiana Division of Archaeology (Division) in order to obtain a construction permit. Ms. Smith supervised monitoring at the site and enforced all requirements of the Commission’s permit. These included no disturbance of the site below the level of the sod, the recordation of any exposed archeological deposits or human remains, the recovery and identification of such human remains, and the final re-interment of such remains in the mausoleum. She maintained open communication between the Memorial Group and the Division. This was all accomplished during an extremely tight deadline. Construction began with the removal of sod during the last week of June 2008 and the mausoleum was completed for the dedication ceremony on August 29, 2008 (the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina). Additional construction, such as landscaping and fencing, are ongoing and Ms. Smith supervises ESI’s on-call monitors for the project.
Additionally, Smith currently serves as the ESI Faunal Analyst. She has identified and analyzed vertebrate faunal materials recovered from a variety of historic sites. These include Villa Meilleur, the Darrow site, the North Bend Bridge site, Buena Vista Plantation, and Wilton Plantation. At the 1997 Southeastern Archaeological Conference, Ms. Smith presented a paper detailing the subsistence practices at Wilton Plantation during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. She analyzed the large vertebrate faunal collection from Northbend and a smaller collection from Old Hickory. She presented papers detailing the subsistence practices at these plantations at the 2001 Society for American Archaeology and 2002 Society for Historical Archaeology. She had the opportunity to analyze the vertebrate faunal collections from two prehistoric sites, 16EBR182 and 16LF269. Although these collections are small, their diversity is noteworthy. She supervised and participated in the faunal analyses of the assemblages from the St. Thomas Hope VI Development Project. More recently, Ms. Smith has supervised and participated in the analyses of faunal assemblages from the site of Jackson Barracks, New Orleans. She also supervised and participated in the analyses of the assemblages from the data recovery excavations at the Kingsley House (City Square 111/16OR221) a site in the Lower Garden District, which includes a late prehistoric component as well as several historic occupations.