Skip to main content
Kristrina Shuler

Kristrina Shuler

Associate Professor

Sociology, Anthropology & Social Work

Kristrina Shuler

Contact Me

334-844-2825

kas0007@auburn.edu

7052 Haley Center

Office Hours

By Appointment

Education

PhD, Southern Illinois University Carbondale

MA, University of Southern Mississippi

BA, University of South Carolina

About Me

Kristrina Shuler is a biological anthropologist who specializes in bioarchaeology to reconstruct information about the health and nutrition of past populations. She has conducted research on populations from the Caribbean, Latin America, and the Southeastern U.S.

Shuler regularly teaches courses such as Biological Anthropology, Forensic Anthropology, Medical Anthropology, Bioarchaeology, and Introduction to Anthropology. In 2015, Shuler was named Auburn University Honors College Professor of the Year and concurrently received the College of Liberal Arts Award for Teaching Excellence. She was inducted into the College of Liberal Arts Academy of Outstanding Teachers in 2023.

Research Interests

Biological Anthropology, Bioarchaeology, Health and Nutrition

Publications

Books
  • Hodge Shannon C., and Kristrina A. Shuler, eds. 2018. Bioarchaeology of the American Southeast: Recent Approaches to Bridging Health and Identity in the Past. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. ISBN 978-0817319915
Articles & Chapters
  • Laffoon JE, Shuler K, Millard AR, Connelly JN, Schroeder H. 2020. “Isotopic evidence for anthropogenic lead exposure on a 17th/18th century Barbadian plantation." American Journal of Physical Anthropology171(3): 529-538.
  • Shuler, Kristrina A., Hannes Schroeder, and William D. Stevens. 2019. “Health and life histories of enslaved sugar producers. Bioarchaeology of the Newton Plantation, Barbados.” In Pre-Colonial and Post-Contact Archaeology in Barbados: Past, Present and Future Research Directions, edited by de Waal, Maaike S., Niall Finneran, and Matthew C. Reilly with Douglass Armstrong and Kevin Farmer, 269-286. Netherlands: Sidestone Press. ISBN 978-9088908460.
  • Shuler, Kristrina A., Emily Jateff, Eric C. Poplin, Ralph Bailey Jr., Charles Philips Jr., and Eric Sipes. 2018. “A Tale of Two Cemeteries: Bioarchaeology and cultural resources management at the Citadel.” In Bioarchaeology of the American Southeast: Recent Approaches to Bridging Health and Identity in the Past, edited by Shannon C. Hodge and Kristrina A. Shuler, 165-196. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. ISBN 978-0817319915.
  • White, J. Alyssa, and Kristrina A. Shuler. 2016. “An analysis of stature in the Lower Mississippi River Valley during the transition to agriculture.” Mississippi Archaeology47: 21-56.
  • Shuler, Kristrina A., and Hannes Schroeder. 2013. “Evaluating alcohol related birth defects in the past: Skeletal and biochemical evidence from a colonial rum producing community in Barbados, West Indies.” International Journal of Paleopathology3: 235-242.
  • Schroeder, Hannes, Kristrina A. Shuler, and Simon Chenery. 2013. “Childhood lead exposure in an enslaved African community in Barbados: Implications for birthplace and health status.”American Journal of Physical Anthropology 150: 203–209.
  • Davis, C. Brady, Kristrina A. Shuler, Marie E. Danforth, and Kelsey E. Herndon. 2013. “Patterns of interobserver error in the scoring of entheseal changes.” International Journal of Osteoarchaeology23: 147–151.
  • Shuler, Kristrina A., Peng Zeng, and Marie E. Danforth. 2012. “Upper limb musculoskeletal stress markers with the transition to agriculture in the southeastern United States: a view from Moundville and the central Tombigbee River Valley.” Homo: Journal of Comparative Human Biology63 (6): 413–434.
  • Shuler, Kristrina A., Shannon C. Hodge, Marie E. Danforth, J. Lynn Funkhouser, Christina B. Stantis, Danielle N., and Peng Zeng. 2012. “In the shadow of Moundville: A bioarchaeological view of the transition to agriculture in the central Tombigbee valley of Alabama and Mississippi.” Journal of Anthropological Archaeology31 (4): 586–603.
  • Shuler, Kristrina A., Marie E. Danforth, and Jeffrey Auerbach. 2011. “Challenges in approaches to skeletal stature estimation: An example from prehistoric eastern Mississippi and western Alabama.” Southeastern Archaeology30 (2): 377-389.
  • Shuler, Kristrina A. 2011. “Life and death on a Barbadian sugar plantation: Historic and bioarchaeological views of infection and mortality at Newton Plantation.” International Journal of Osteoarchaeology21: 66-81.
  • Shuler, Kristrina A. 2009. “Childhood stress response in males and females from precontact communities of the central Tombigbee river valley.” Mississippi Archaeology41: 81-106.
  • Schroeder, Hannes, Jane A. Evans., Tamsin O’Connell, Kristrina A. Shuler, and Robert E. M. Hedges. 2009. “Trans-Atlantic slavery: Isotopic evidence for forced migration to Barbados.” American Journal of Physical Anthropology139: 547-557.
  • Shuler, Kristrina A., Ralph Bailey Jr., and Charles Philips Jr. 2006. “A history of the phosphate mining industry in the Lowcountry of South Carolina with a focus on the Ashley Phosphate Company.” South Carolina Antiquities38 (1&2): 20-52.
  • Shuler, Kristrina A. 2005. “Nutritional health of enslaved Africans from Newton Plantation, Barbados: New data.”Journal of the Barbados Museum & Historical Society LI: 166-186.
  • Danforth, Marie E., Kristrina Shuler Herndon, and Kathryn B. Propst. 1993. “A preliminary study of patterns of replication in scoring of linear enamel hypoplasias.” International Journal of Osteoarchaeology3: 297-302.