About

Jessi Halligan is an Associate Professor at Texas A&M University in the College of Arts and Sciences, serving as the Associate Director of the Center for the Study of the First Americans and the Archaeology Program Coordinator. Her research focuses on geoarchaeology, landscape reconstruction, sediment analysis, site context analysis, submerged landscapes, site preservation, and chronologies and dating techniques related to archaeology. She specializes in Late Pleistocene cultures and the peopling of the New World, early Holocene culture change, lithic analysis, and underwater archaeology techniques, including remote sensing and artifact conservation. Halligan's work involves spatial analysis and GIS in archaeology, digital data management, and digital artifact analysis. Her current research projects include studying the Late Pleistocene landscapes and peoples of Florida, submerged landscapes of Lake Erie, and reevaluating guidelines for identifying submerged pre-contact archaeological sites in the Gulf of Mexico. She holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Texas A&M University and an A.B. in Anthropology from Harvard University. She has authored numerous publications, including a co-authored book on maritime and underwater archaeology, and has contributed to advancing understanding of submerged landscapes and early human activity in North America.

Research topics

• Archaeology
• Paleontology
• Geology
• Geography
• Oceanography
• Ecology

Selected publications

• Volcanic forcing of global climate cooling at the Younger Dryas onset preserved in North American sediments

  Science Advances · 2026-04-29

  articleOpen access

  The Younger Dryas (YD; ~12.9 to 11.7 thousand years) marks an abrupt return to near-glacial conditions during the last deglaciation, yet its cause remains debated. One possible scenario, the YD impact hypothesis, proposes an extraterrestrial trigger. However, growing geochemical and stratigraphic evidence points toward a volcanic origin. This study presents the 187 Os/ 188 Os isotope and highly siderophile element (HSE) data from the Page-Ladson (PL) site (8JE591) in Florida, a well-dated, continuous sedimentary record spanning the YD onset. The onset in the PL profile is marked by unradiogenic osmium coincident with elevated Os and Re concentrations and a Cl-chondrite–normalized HSE pattern with a compositional range and signature closely matching volcanic aerosol patterns. When integrated with comparable records from Hall’s Cave and the Debra L. Friedkin site in Texas, the unradiogenic 187 Os/ 188 Os ratios align across multiple depositional environments and correlate with a cluster of major bipolar volcanic eruptions (~12.98 to 12.87 thousand years) documented in Greenland and Antarctic ice cores whose cumulative radiative forcing exceeds the most volcanically active intervals of the Common Era. The magnitude and hemispheric asymmetry of this volcanic activity imply forcing of sufficient magnitude capable of disrupting the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation and triggering rapid Northern Hemisphere cooling. These findings provide multiproxy, regionally consistent evidence for a volcanically driven perturbation at the onset of the YD, offering a robust alternative to impact-based explanations.

  PublisherDOI

• Theoretical and Methodological Contributions from Researching the Earliest Southeastern Record

  PaleoAmerica · 2024-10-01

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Page-Ladson Site, Florida

  Encyclopedia of earth sciences series/Encyclopedia of earth sciences · 2024-01-01 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Early Holocene archaeology of Florida: geospatial approaches to understanding Bolen mobility

  Southeastern Archaeology · 2023-01-02 · 2 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Three of the most influential archaeological models in the southeastern US have argued that early foragers organized their lifeways via seasonal movement along major drainage basins; around access to raw material sources, crossing drainage basins; or around group foraging needs, following central place foraging models. We examine the distribution of Early Holocene Bolen sites in Florida in light of these models by combining Florida Master Site File data with avocational collection data and conducting spatial analyses. It is not clear to what extent the models are applicable to this low-relief area with comparatively ubiquitous toolstone, little data on seasonality, and rivers that likely were not flowing. Our analyses suggest that Bolen site distribution is highly patterned, with a few extremely large sites clustered around water sources and numerous single artifact finds in more remote areas. Our interpretation is that Bolen represents a population increase coincident with greater surface water availability that facilitated regular aggregations. The spacing of large sites indicates to us local-group territories, each of which had toolstone resources and reliable water. North Florida may present a more general organizing principle that applies throughout the Southeast: water, seasonal variation, and toolstone availability.

  PublisherDOI

• The weathering and scavenging of keratin

  Journal of Archaeological Science Reports · 2023-01-05 · 1 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Inundated Freshwater Settings

  Encyclopedia of earth sciences series/Encyclopedia of earth sciences · 2023-11-28

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Crossing the waterline: Integrating terrestrial and submerged site investigations in the Aucilla River, Florida

  2023-03-17

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Over the past decade, research in the Aucilla River of northwestern Florida, USA, has focused upon understanding the geoarchaeological context of numerous formerly-terrestrial, now-inundated sinkhole spring sites and the landscapes surrounding them. Dozens of terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene-aged diagnostic artifacts have been recovered from this river, some in association with drowned terrestrial soils and intact dateable stratigraphy. Currently-terrestrial sites have thus far proven nearly undateable and are often conflated and deflated, but they provide evidence of extensive and resilient lifeways along the Aucilla River basin over thousands of years. The wealth of paleoenvironmental proxy data recovered from the drowned landscapes can help to explicate where, why, and how some sites have preserved while others have not. These data further suggest how people were adjusting to their changing environments over the more than 14,000 years they have been occupying the Aucilla River basin. This paper details the methods utilized to work on both sides of the waterline to reach a more holistic understanding of geoarchaeological context and human societies in the Aucilla River basin.

  PublisherDOI

• Submerged inland landscapes of the Aucilla basin, Northwest Florida, USA: populating the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene landscape

  World Archaeology · 2022 · 2 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Archaeology
  • Geology
  • Paleontology

  Archaeological data have demonstrated that modern Florida was occupied by at least 14,550 years ago, but evidence of Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene peoples (ca. 14,600–8,000 cal B.P.) is limited to far inland and upland settings, as more than half of Florida’s peninsula was drowned between ca. 21,000–6,000 cal B.P. Rising aquifer levels of the Late Pleistocene allowed some interior sites to preserve within forming river channels, especially some springfed sinkholes that became the Aucilla River of northwest Florida. Terrestrial sites are poorly preserved in comparison, containing stone tools in mixed and/or undateable stratigraphy. Geospatial analysis of the 92 early sites in the Aucilla basin demonstrates that the underwater sites are crucial to provide a more robust understanding of early people, as the earliest sites are found only underwater, and the preponderance of the multicomponent sites also are inundated.

  PublisherDOI

• The Weathering and Scavenging of Keratin

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2022-01-01

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Contributions of Submerged Archaeologi cal Research to the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene Record of the Southeast

  University of Alabama Press eBooks · 2022-08-03 · 2 citations

  book-chapter
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Michael R. Waters

  Velocity Clinical Research (United States)

  13 shared

• Angelina G. Perrotti

  4 shared

• Sarah A. Allaun

  Heritage Preservation

  3 shared

• Todd A. Surovell

  University of Wyoming

  3 shared

• Joshua M. Feinberg

  University of Minnesota

  3 shared

• Thomas A. Jennings

  3 shared

• Chase M. Mahan

  University of Wyoming

  3 shared

• Mark D. Bourne

  2 shared

Labs

• Center for the Study of the First AmericansPI

Education

• PhD, Anthropology

  Texas A&M University

  2012

• AB, Anthropology

  Harvard University

  2000