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Photo by Ryan E. Young
Dr. Justin Dunnavant is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at UCLA. His current research in the US Virgin Islands investigates the relationship between ecology and enslavement in the former Danish West Indies. In addition to his archaeological research, Justin is co-founder of the Society of Black Archaeologists and an AAUS Scientific SCUBA Diver. In 2021, he was named a National Geographic Emerging Explorer and inducted into The Explorers Club as one of “Fifty People Changing the World that You Need to Know About.” Last year, he was awarded the 2022 Stafford Ellison Wright Black Alumni Scholar-in-Residence at Occidental College. His research has been featured on Netflix's "Explained," Hulu's "Your Attention Please" and in print in American Archaeology, Science Magazine, and National Geographic Magazine.
🗞IN THE NEWS🗞
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BY SPECTRUM NEWS STAFF CALIFORNIA PUBLISHED 9:07 AM PT JUL. 11, 2024. https://spectrumnews1.com/ca/la-west/news/2024/07/11/african-american-graves-ucla-
From skateparks to neglected historic sites and marine sanctuaries, UCLA professor Justin Dunnavant set himself on a venturous path at an early age.
UCLA Professor Justin Dunnavant and a group of students, staff, and faculty delve into the Kinsey African American Art & History Collection, an invaluable community resource that sheds light on the African American experience throughout history.
Nat Geo Explorer and archaeologist Justin Dunnavant sits down with Grammy-nominated trumpeter Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah to discuss ancestral memory, creating new instruments, and stretch music—an expansion of jazz.
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The Lyons’ family story is one that centers on land, site and action. Together with their community of allies, they were stalwarts for equity, freedom, social justice and progress in a time when the stakes were at their highest. In Land/Site/Legacy, the work of invited speakers, Dr. Justin Dunnavant, Tomashi Jackson, and Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah, is connected to notions of land, site specificity, and community. The conversation will consider each of the panelists’ path-breaking work and strategies in visual art, archaeology, music and their intersections.
Justin Dunnavant is Lead Scientist and Principal Investigator on the Nautilus EV voyage investigating the maritime cultural heritage of Hawai’i. The maritime heritage team is comprised of archaeologists, underwater photographers, and educators who will create virtual 3D models of key cultural heritage sites in the region. Using photography, video, field notes, and other evidence, the team will design and post a real-time “digital mosaic” of the trip and create related curriculum for primary and post-secondary classrooms.
The UCLA maritime archaeologist finds a new lens for exploring Black culture through the discovery of lost slave ships — and the secrets they carry.
Some 12.5 million Africans were abducted into slavery from the 16th to 19th centuries. About 1.8 million died in shipwrecks in the Atlantic Ocean. Justin discusses efforts to find the shipwrecks and better understand these crimes and what we can learn of the victims.
From the 16th to the 19th centuries, European slave traders forcibly uprooted millions of African people and shipped them across the Atlantic in conditions of great cruelty. Today, on the bottom of the world’s oceans lies the lost wrecks of ships that carried enslaved people from Africa to the Americas.
Justin Dunnavant is an Assistant Professor, archaeologist and National Geographic Explorer. Justin shares with Dan the incredible project that he is a part of - a group of specialist black divers who are dedicated to finding and documenting some of the thousands of slave ships wrecked in the Atlantic Ocean during the transatlantic slave trade. They also unearth the history of a former Danish slave colony in the Virgin Islands and discuss Justin’s research about the African Diaspora and Marcus Garvey’s Black Star Line.
MOBILE COUNTY, Ala. (WPMI) — Alabama Historical Commission has provided updates on recovery of the Clotilda.
The sediment was screened by SEARCH maritime archaeologists led by co-principal investigator Dr. Justin Dunnavant into a holding tank on board the barge. Screening allows us to recover small artifacts but none were observed today. The sediment will be contained in the holding tank until it can be placed in burlap bags and returned to the vessel.