Charles Egeland
Associate Dean for Research, College of Arts & Sciences
Dean's Office - Arts and Sciences
Email Address: cpegelan@uncg.edu
Phone: 336.334.4758
Areas of Expertise
Human evolution, archaeology, paleontology, forensic anthropology
About me
As an anthropologist, I am interested in how humans interact with their environments. My focus is the Pleistocene, or “Ice Age,” which lasted from 2.6 million years ago to about 12,000 years ago. I specialize in the analysis of ancient animal remains, which are a rich archive of past environments and human behavior. Ultimately, I seek to identify how humans reacted to, and used technology and culture to actively construct, their environments over long periods of time. I believe strongly, to borrow from Barbara Kingslover’s novel The Lacuna, that “the past is all we know of the future.” Looking back in time offers a depth to our understanding of human-environment interactions that allows us to appropriately contextualize—and provide potential solutions to—the issues we face today. As Associate Dean for Research for the College of Arts and Sciences, I assist faculty in reaching their scholarly goals.
Education
Ph.D. Anthropology, Indiana University
Research Interests
- Human Evolution
- Paleolithic Archaeology
- Zooarchaeology
- Vertebrate Taphonomy
- Paleoenvironmental Studies
- Hunter-Gatherer Ecology
- Community Engagement
Student Research
From UNCG News
Books
Deconstructing Olduvai: A Taphonomic Study of the Bed I Sites. (with M. Domínguez-Rodrigo and R. Barba, Springer, 2007)
Articles
- Egeland, C.P., Fadem, C.M., Nicholson, C.M., Byerly, R.M. (2025) Spatial analysis and neotaphonomy of two landscape bone assemblages in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Tanzania. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 61, 104093.
- CP Egeland, Briana L. Pobiner, Stephen R. Merritt, and Suzanne Kunitz (2024), Actualistic Butchery Studies in Zooarchaeology: Where We’ve Been, Where We Are, and Where We Want to Go, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 73:101565
- Manuel Domínguez-Rodrigo, CP Egeland,Lucía Cobo-Sánchez, Enrique Baquedano, and Richard C. Hulbert Jr. (2022), Sabertooth Carcass Consumption Behavior and the Dynamics of Pleistocene Large Carnivoran Guilds, Scientific Reports 12:6045
- CP Egeland and Travis Rayne Pickering (2020), Cruel Traces: Bone Surface Modifications and Their Relevance to Forensic Science, WIREs Forensic Science 3: e1400
- CP Egeland, Manuel Dominguez-Rodrigo, Travis Rayne Pickering, Colin G. Menter, and Jason L. Heaton (2018), Hominin Skeletal Part Abundances and Claims of Deliberate Disposal of Corpses in the Middle Pleistocene, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, 115: 4601-4606
Current Projects
My research revolves around three major projects. The first is the analysis of Early Pleistocene sites from Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, and Swartkrans, South Africa. Both are part of UNESCO World Heritage Sites and preserve important records of regional climate change and human evolution over the past two million years. The second is the study of modern bones on savanna landscapes. As animals die and decompose, the bones they leave behind reflect the ecological dynamics of specific times and places. I therefore use these bones as models for ancient environments, archives of climate change, and sources of information for land-use and conservation policy. The third project is an NSF-funded study that brings together a team of archaeologists and computer, data, and cognitive scientists to reconstruct how Ice Age hunter-gatherers used social networks to navigate post-glacial environments in western Europe.