"Archaeology at Freedmen's Cemetery in Alexandria: Rediscovering Hidden History Under a Gas Station" is the subject of the John M. Turner Lecture in the Humanities to be delivered by Dr. Pamela Cressey at 7:30 p.m. March 24 at Sydnor Performance Hall in Schewel Hall at Lynchburg College.
The lecture, sponsored by the John M. Turner Lecture Series, is free and open to the public. A reception will follow.
Cressey has been the city archaeologist in Alexandria, Va., since 1977. Her recent discoveries include the oldest artifact found in Alexandria, a 13,000-year-old prehistoric stone tool, unearthed in August 2007.
After receiving a bachelor of arts degree in history from UCLA, Cressey studied historical archaeology at the University of Iowa where she earned both her master's and doctorate degrees.
She has served as president and a member of the Board of Directors of the Society for Historical Archaeology, the largest scholarly group concerned with the archaeology of the modern world (A.D. 1400-present). She served two terms on the Virginia State Review Board of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources. Cressey has also been an adjunct faculty member of The George Washington University since 1979.
In 2002, she authored a the book, Walk and Bike the Alexandria Heritage Trail, A Guide to a Virginia's Town Hidden Past, which takes people through 23 miles and 9,000 years of archaeology and history. She has recently completed a book for Oxford University Press about Alexandria in the "Digging for the Past" series in which only a few other world-class archaeological sites are represented, such as Mesa Verde, Machu Picchu, Stonehenge, Valley of the Kings, and the Acropolis.
The City of Alexandria has been recognized with three prestigious awards honoring its archaeological program under Cressey's tenure: The Governor's Award for Environmental Excellence, the Entrepreneurial American Achievement Award from Partners for Livable Communities, and a historic preservation award from the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities.
Cressey has appeared in numerous television interviews, as well as in feature articles in the New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, Washington Post, Historic Preservation Magazine and Washingtonian.
For more information on her work and the museum in Alexandria, visit http://oha.alexandriava.gov/archaeology/. For more about Freedmen's Cemetery, see http://oha.alexandriava.gov/archaeology/ar-freedmens_cemetery.html.