William Balco, Ph.D.

Anthropology

Office: BBH 136
Phone: (773) 442-5863
Email: w-balco@neiu.edu

ANTH 213 – Introduction to Archaeology

ANTH 252 – North American Archaeology

ANTH 306 – The Rise of Complex Societies: The Archaeology of State Formation and Urbanization

Expertise

Archaeology

Research Interests

My research interests focus on archaeological methods and theory, settlement and landscape, social complexity, complex social entanglements, social transformation, identity, households, foodways, feasting, and the paleoenvironments that past people lived within. My research in North America is focused on Middle Woodland, Late Woodland, and Oneota populations in the upper Midwest and Middle Woodland populations in the Southeast. Likewise, my research in the Mediterranean focuses on the Elymi of western Sicily. Finally, I aim to engage students and the public in the process of archaeological investigations, demonstrating archaeology is a “team sport” with social significance to living populations.

Education

Ph.D., Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2012

M.A., Anthropology, Northern Illinois University, 2007

B.A., History, Northern Illinois University, 2004

B.A., Anthropology, Northern Illinois University, 2004

Selected Publications

Balco, W.M., A.M. Saleh, R.W. Edwards, and C.L. Zweig. 2026. Revisiting the Mounds of Lake Benton: An Archival and Geospatial Examination. Plains Anthropologist. DOI: 10.1080/00320447.2026.2700860

Balco, W.M. 2023. Feasting Transformed: Commensal Identity Expression and Social Transformation in Iron Age and Archaic Western Sicily. In Adoption, Adaptation, and Innovation in Pre-Roman Italy: Paradigms for Cultural Change, edited by Jeremy Armstrong and Aaron Rhodes-Schroder, pp. 221-233. Archaeology of the Mediterranean World, Vol. 3, Brepols Publishers, Turnhout, Belgium.

Balco, W.M. 2023. Negotiating Social Entanglements through Feasting in Iron Age and Archaic Western Sicily. Layers: Archeologia, Territorio, Contesti 8:21-41.

Bigman, D., D. Day, and W. Balco. 2022. The Roles of Macro- and Micro-Scale Geophysical Investigations to Guide and Monitor Excavations at a Middle Woodland Site in Northern Georgia, USA. Archaeological Prospection 29(2):243-257.

Kolb, M.J. and W.M. Balco. 2021. Indigenous urbanism in Iron Age western Sicily. In Making Cities: Economies of Production and Urbanization in Mediterranean Europe,1000-500 BC, edited by Margarita Gleba, Bela Dimova, and Beatriz Marin Aguilera, pp. 281-295. McDonald Institute Monograph Series, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK.

Balco, W.M., S.D. Kirk, and M.J. Kolb. 2020. A Pixelated Landscape Survey in the Forest: Merging Space, Time, and Context at Monte Bonifato, Sicily. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 33(2020):Article 102515.

Noble, E., J. McManus, A. Mead, H. Mead, C. Seminack, W. Balco, T. Bennett, N. Crain, C. Duckworth, T. Malasek, J. Pearson, P. Rhinehart, M. Ussery, Y. Sun, J. Patterson, and D. Patterson. 2020. Enamel Isotopes Reveal Late Pleistocene Ecosystem Dynamics in Southeastern North America. Quarternary Science Reviews 236(2020):Article 106284.

Kolb, M.J., S.D. Kirk, and W.M. Balco. 2019. Labor Mobilization and Medieval Castle Construction at Salemi, Western Sicily. In Architectural Energetics in Archaeology: Analytical Expansions and Global Explorations, edited by E.M. Abrams and L. McCurdy, pp. 114-137. Routledge: London and New York.

Balco, W.M. 2018. Thinking Beyond Imitation: Mixed-style Vessels in Ancient Western Sicily. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 31(2):180-202.

Balco, W.M. and M. O’Leary. 2018. All Ditches Should Lead to the Mines: Historical GIS of Hydraulic Mining Features in Lumpkin County, Georgia. Early Georgia 46(1 and 2):5- 27.

Balco, W.M., C. Worick, and C. Shaw. 2018. Collaborative Archaeology: Bridging the Professional-Avocational Divide. Journal of Community Archaeology and Heritage 5(1):30-44.

Balco, W.M. 2012. Tri-nodal Social Entanglements in Iron Age Sicily: Material and Social Transformation. Field Notes: A Journal of Collegiate Anthropology 3(1):24-35.

Balco, W.M. and M.J. Kolb. 2009. Loomweights as Material Culture Indicators: A Western Sicilian Case Study. In SOMA 2008: Proceedings of the XII symposium on Mediterranean archaeology, Eastern Mediterranean University, Famagusta, North Cyprus, 5-8 March 2008, edited by Hakan Oniz, pp. 177-182. BAR International Series 1909. Archaeopress, Oxford.

Balco, W.M. 2009. Neolithic Cultural Hybridity: Social Entanglements and the Development of Hybrid Culture in the Western Mediterranean. Field Notes: A Journal of Collegiate Anthropology 1:1-16.

Additional Information

Professional Affiliations and Memberships:

Society for American Archaeology

European Association of Archaeologists

Midwest Archaeological Conference

Southeastern Archaeological Conference

Wisconsin Archeological Society

Wisconsin Archeological Survey

Society for Georgia Archaeology