JOEL W. GROSSMAN, Ph.D.
BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY – 2021
Andean and South American Archaeology: Dr. Grossman received his BA (1967) and his Ph.D. (1972) as a Fulbright/Special Career Fellow in Peruvian and North American archaeology from the University of California, Berkeley. He studied high altitude Andean archaeology with a specialization in the ceramics and
chronology of Initial Period through the Middle Horizon styles under John H Rowe and Dorothy Menzel
of the Institute of Andean Studies. His scientific accomplishments include major prehistoric and historic
discoveries throughout North America, the Andes of Peru, the Brazilian Amazon, Costa Rica and Puerto
Rico. In Peru, after leading a joint US-Peruvian expedition to find a pre-Inca mummy bundle in the
south-central Andes, he discovered a 3500-year sequence of buried Pre-Inca ceramic cultures at a hilltop site
called Waywaka in Andahuaylas, Apurimac, Peru. This layer cake of Pre-Inca settlements
revealed early pottery making, early gold working, and a gold workers tool kit, dating back in time
to the 16th century BC. - The antiquity of the gold has now been confirmed, by new high-resolution
AMS radiocarbon determinations, to date to before 1500 BC versus, as some had argued, a shallower
time depth of ca 1000 BC (Grossman 1972a&b, 1983, 2013, Grossman in press).
Early North American Prehistoric and Historic Archaeology: Dr. Grossman’s professional career
began early on. In 1965, and at the age of 21, he began managing and directing large scale multidisciplinary archaeological teams, often in adverse deep winter or severe desert conditions. On this first major dig, which took place in extreme heat of the California desert, he codirected the excavation of a deeply buried (beneath 12 feet of hard-pan, or “caliche”) early man, 7600 (+/- 200) -year-old, San Dieguito site in the San Joaquin Valley of California (Frederickson and Grossman 1977). His archaeological work in North America was also noted for the early 1978 deployment of Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) to map an historic site, concurrent on-site computerized conservation laboratories, stereooverhead and single camera photogrammetry for high speed, non-contact recording, and the firstgeneration computer transits (Grossman, 1978, 1980a, 2003, 2008b). These systems were initially deployed to develop a 3D color-coded underground radar map of a pre-Revolutionary port community called “Raritan Landing”, on the banks of the Raritan River, opposite modern New Brunswick, New Jersey. The buried settlement was revealed under three feet of laminated rock (shale) fill and flood silts, ahead of a multi-million-dollar work-stoppage (Grossman 1980a). Subsequently, between 1983 and 1985, Dr. Grossman was invited to direct the preliminary sensitivity evaluation, discovery, excavation, and analysis of the original shoreline block of the archaeological remains of the early17th century Dutch West India Company settlement discovered along the original shoreline blocks bordering Pearl and Broad Streets in Lower Manhattan. Found buried and preserved under-10 feet of 19th century four-course brick basement floors and overlying rubble fill, the deep winter excavation revealed the stone foundations and cobble-stone floors of the colony’s first warehouse and buildings made of distinctive imported yellow Dutch bricks. This major discovery included the residences of the settlements’ first company officials and a range of early double-barreled cisterns, each filled with dateable cultural and environmental evidence, making them well-preserved environmental time capsules of changing colonial habitats between the early17th and mid-19th centuries. In total, ca. 40,000 early Dutch, British and Native American artifacts were conserved, computer inventoried and exhibited. This critical colonial collection is now housed and curated in the New York State Museum in Albany, New York (Grossman 2011).
Applied Technology and Geospatial Approaches in Archaeology: Dr. Grossman is internationally
recognized as a pioneer in the planning and implementation of advanced applied technology solutions in
archaeology (Grossman 2008b). His work is noted for the deployment of a range of high precision
geospatial solutions to issues of complex site identification, definition, and documentation. These
include, concurrent on-site total 3D data control and conservation, and the use of GIS-based 3D terrain
modeling to project archaeological sensitivity from ancient landscape reconstructions (Grossman 2003,
2008a & b; 2011, Figure 8.1; Grossman et al. 2015). Dr. Grossman has spent over five decades
directing large-scale emergency rescue excavations of unexpected discoveries in the path of critical
infrastructure programs throughout the United States, the Andes of Peru, the Amazon and the Caribbean
for Municipal, State, US Government, and international agencies (UNESCO, OAS), principally for the
USEPA and Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) (Frederickson and Grossman 1977, Grossman 1980,
Grossman et al 1985, 1990, 1991, Grossman 2002, 2004). Dr. Grossman developed advanced expertise
in the excavation, analysis, and computerized documentation of deeply stratified historic archaeological
sites in complex urban settings. This record included the use of “historic GIS” to target surviving
remains in partially disturbed historic and prehistoric archaeological sites. In addition to targeting the
surviving 17th century remains of the original Dutch West India Company block at Pearl Street, another
exciting discovery under New York City utilized “historic GIS” to target the location and survival of
New York City’s original ca 1730-1760-era Alms House found buried and preserved a foot under the
modern asphalt of City Hall Park…next to the Mayor's office (Grossman et al. 1991). In another case, in Fort Edward, NY., geophysics (resistivity, EM-38) and computer mapping were used to plot the distribution of hundreds of prehistoric pits, hearths and burials across a large (400,000 sq ft) Iroquois site and under that, a series of deeply buried, 3500-year-old pre-Iroquois hearths. The Federally mandated Grossman and Associates emergency archaeological mitigation project at Fort Edward used early GIS (the computer georeferencing of historic maps to modern digital satellite or aerial images) to finally pinpoint, expose and georeference the exact location of the triangular southern bastion of the 18th Century Revolutionary War-era historic Fort Edward, and by extrapolation...the layout and orientation of the entire fort complex. (Grossman et al 1990; Grossman et al. 2015). Finally, much of his large-scale site-discovery work focused on using dated archaeological chronologies to reconstruct changing prehistoric and historic botanical and landscape history (see Grossman 2008a, 2011; Grossman et al 1985; 2015). His 2011 article on the ethnobotanical reconstruction of the Dutch West India Company site included a 3D paleoenvironmental terrain model (Grossman 2011: Figure 8.1) of the indigenous landscape of Lower Manhattan as a targeting tool to reconstruct the ecology and environmental context of the colonial Dutch settlement (Grossman et al 1985; Grossman 2011). See profile of Dr. Grossman in the December 2016 online issue of GeoDataPoint both as an archaeologist and as a specialist in applied geospatial technology.
Contaminated Historic and Prehistoric Archaeology - The “Superfund Program”: In addition to his
discoveries in predominantly uncontaminated natural and urban contexts, Dr. Grossman was called upon
to plan and direct the first major U.S. Government-mandated archaeological investigations of
contaminated Superfund sites in North America (Grossman 1991a, b, c & d, 1994a&b,1996a, 2008b,
2011). Between 1978 and 1989, many of the US Government projects under his direction involved the
belated “discoveries under construction”, however, after 1989, most of his large-scale projects involved
the investigation of National Register-eligible archaeological sites found under contaminated Superfund
settings. Between 1989 and 1995, he directed the HAZMAT discovery, definition, excavation and
documentation of a buried and contaminated, cadmium-laced, Civil War-era “Super Gun” testing facility
at the Superfund site of West Point Foundry in Cold Spring, New York, opposite West Point on the
Hudson River (Grossman 1991a, 1992a, 1993b, 1994a&b; 2008b, 2019). In addition to the investigation
of a number of terrestrial contaminated archaeological sites throughout the Northeast, Dr. Grossman also directed extensive coring-based marine and geophysical investigations of the Hudson River waterfront of the West Point Foundry with side-scan sonar and magnetometers to plot the location of submerged boats, barges and marine artifacts ahead of cadmium dredging and cleanup operations (Grossman et al.1992a; 1993b; Grossman 1994a & b, Grossman et.al. 2019). Trace element analysis of the historic marine cores established the depth of Civil War sediments relative to that of the overlying layer of Cadmium (Grossman et al. 2019). Dr. Grossman's applied technology innovations in the HAZMAT program culminated in the archaeological and historical investigation of the highly sensitive Superfundsite of the WWI-era US Radium Corporation and its associated radium landfill deposits, in central New Jersey (Grossman et al. 1991d; 1996a).
International Training and Speaking Venues: Dr. Grossman has served as a scientific advisor to
municipal, state, national and international agencies. He has served as a UNESCO scientist to the
Peruvian Institute of Culture and policy advisor to the U.S. Congressional Office of Technology
Assessment. He has been invited to speak before the United Nations and to be an American delegate as
part of the United States State Department People to People exchange program with Russia. He was
subsequently invited back by Russian archaeologists working in the Caucasus to help train them in
historic archaeology and to present a scientific paper comparing the high-altitude inter-mountain valleys
of the Andes of Peru to similar upland valleys of the Caucasus mountains at the first post-Soviet
archaeology conference held in Stavropol, southern Russia. Likewise, in 2009, he was invited to speak
in Amsterdam on his discovery of the Dutch West India Company block beneath lower Manhattan and
to help celebrate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of Henry Hudson in New Amsterdam in 1609.
Conducted as part of the Dutch Visiting Scholars program, the prestigious international exchange was
sponsored by the Dutch National AWAD (Atlantic World and the Dutch) and Netherlands Institute of
Heritage. In addition to his own research work in the south-central Andean highlands, he was invited by
the Peruvian government to spearhead a joint United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) and the Organization of American States (OAS) project, together with the
Peruvian Andres-Bello Fund. This international initiative conducted geophysical and chemical field tests
at twelve Pre-Inca, Inca and colonial sites. The goal of this field program was to test the viability of
various terrestrial geophysical remote sensing technologies (conductivity, magnetics and ground
penetrating radar (GPR) to identify buried remains in different environments throughout the Peruvian
highlands and coast. The program prioritized the import of including hands-on training of Peruvian
archaeologists in geophysics. These soil chemistry and resistivity geophysical field tests were conducted
in tandem with the presentation by Dr. Grossman of a series of seminars to senior archaeologists of the
Peruvian National Institute of Culture (INC) of Peru. These seminars focused on the role of applied
technology in archaeology in general, and on modern strategies for the investigation of historic and
colonial sites, in particular (Grossman et.al.1983; 2019, in press 2021). This 1983 field and training
initiative (during the Sendero Luminoso war in the highlands of Peru) remains innovative to this day and
is being highlighted in modern discussions of future applied technology initiatives in contemporary
Peru.
Publications: Dr. Grossman has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals in Andean and North
American prehistoric and historic archaeology, geophysics (Grossman 1980, 2013, Grossman et al.
1983, 2021), Civil War intelligence history (Grossman 1994), paleo-ethnobotany and 3D environmental
reconstruction (Grossman 1972a&b, 1983, 2011, Grossman et al. 2015), artifact seriation and
chronology (Grossman 1972a&b, 2013a&b,), and a range of applied technology and geospatial solutions
in archaeology (Grossman 1980, 1983, 2008a&b, 2011, Grossman et al. 2019). He also served as the
editor and author of the annual review of new discoveries in New World archaeology for Encyclopedia
Britannica for sixteen years. Many of his published annual Britannica summaries of new discoveries and
his other publications in archaeology are now available for on-line download under the Publications tab
of his web site: www.GeospatialArchaeology.com.
