Jordan E. Davis, M.A.
Historical Archaeologist
My name is Jordan E. Davis (M.A.), a PhD Student in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin, working at the intersections of Historical, African Diaspora, and Black Feminist Archaeology. My research centers on Black American experiences of slavery, emancipation, and (un)freedom in Central Texas during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I am currently directing the Kincheonville Archaeological and Heritage Landscape Project (KAHLP) in Austin, TX. Beyond my doctoral studies, I am a long-term and active member of the Society of Black Archaeologists. My advisor is Dr. Maria Franklin.
The Kincheonville Archaeological and Heritage Landscape Project (KAHLP) aims to document and help steward the historical and living heritage landscapes of Kincheonville – a rural freedom community founded by formerly enslaved African Americans seven miles south of Austin, Texas, shortly after the U.S. Civil War. This interdisciplinary project combines archival research; archaeological investigations; geospatial analysis; and oral history narratives to explore the material traces, memories, and legacies of everyday life in Kincheonville from the immediate post-Emancipation period through the present.
Our archaeological investigations are centered at Stephenson Nature Preserve and Outdoor Education Center, a nature preserve owned and managed by the City of Austin Parks and Recreation Department. Located immediately north of Zion Rest Missionary Baptist Church, this 147-acre preserve contains material traces of several centuries of natural and cultural history. Based on deeds, census records, and other archival and oral historical narratives, several African American families with ties to Kincheonville owned, cultivated, and lived on this landscape in the years after Emancipation through the early 1940s.
This project is sponsored by the City of Austin Parks and Recreation Department and the Texas Historical Commission.
For more information, please send an email to jed3867@my.utexas.edu.
