Martha Zierden

Martha Zierden is Curator emeritus at The Charleston Museum, with 40 years of experience conducting archaeological research in the South Carolina Lowcountry. Zierden served as Curator of Historical Archaeology for The Charleston Museum from 1981 to 2023, managing the permanent curation of the Museum's archaeological collections. She has excavated over 25 historic sites in downtown Charleston and 10 rural plantation sites. She is the author of over 50 archaeological site reports as well as numerous scholarly publications and books. These include Charleston: An Archaeology of Life in a Coastal Community (University Press of Florida, 2016) and the National Science Foundation-funded Emergence and Evolution of Carolina’s Colonial Cattle Economy (Charleston Museum, 2022), both volumes coauthored with zooarchaeologist Elizabeth Reitz. A long-time resident of McClellanville, working on the Santee Delta is Martha’s retirement goal.