Elizabeth J. Monroe

About Elizabeth

Dr. Monroe currently serves as W&MCAR interim co-director. From 2004 to 2022, as a project archaeologist, she supervised investigations of prehistoric and historic sites. Along with her expertise in archaeology, she is a qualified zooarchaeologist and has a Ph.D. in Anthropology (2003) from Washington University. Dr. Monroe has conducted fieldwork and laboratory and faunal analysis on sites ranging from North Carolina to the Southwest.

Notable projects include survey of the entire Colonial Parkway corridor from Yorktown to Jamestown; survey to locate the 18th-century courthouse site at Guilford Courthouse National Military Park near Greensboro, North Carolina; survey and testing at the John Marshall Birthplace site in Fauquier County and at the James Monroe Birthplace site in Westmoreland County, Virginia; testing in the mansion yard of Shirley Plantation, the Chiles Homesite in southern Maryland, and Tusculum plantation site in Amherst County, Virginia; and data recovery at a Middle Woodland oyster shell midden in Westmoreland County. She also has directed dozens of archaeological surveys across Virginia.

Dr. Monroe has an excellent reputation for customer relations as well as public outreach, engaging the general public with lively presentations on archaeology and guiding groups on site tours. She regularly presents formal papers at conferences of professional and scholarly organizations.