Quick Facts
Biography
William Francis Romain (born 1948) is an American archaeologist, archaeoastronomer, and author. William Romain received his Ph.D. in archaeology from the University of Leicester and M.A. degree in anthropology from Kent State University. He is Director of The Ancient Earthworks Project. He specializes in the study of ancient religions, cognitive archaeology, and archaeoastronomy. William Romain pioneered the use of LIDAR technology for the analyses of ancient earthworks - most notably those of the Eastern Woodlands. In 2011 Romain led a team of archaeologists(collectively known as The Serpent Mound Project) in an investigation of Serpent Mound, in Adams County, Ohio. This was the first major investigation of the effigy in more than one hundred years and included Geoprobe coring, hand coring, limited excavation, ground-penetrating radar, and electric resistivity analysis. Among the results were new radiocarbon dates for the effigy suggesting it was built about 2,300 years ago by people of the Early Woodland period. Romain is a past advisor to the Board of Trustees for the Heartland Earthworks Conservancy, former research associate with the Newark Earthworks Center at Ohio State University and past recipient of the Archaeological Society of Ohio's Robert Converse award for Outstanding Contributions to Ohio Archaeology.
Books
- An Archaeology of the Sacred: Adena-Hopewell Astronomy and Landscape Archaeology (The Ancient Earthworks Project, 2015)
- Shamans of the Lost World: A Cognitive Approach to the Prehistoric Religion of the Ohio Hopewell (AltaMira Press, 2009)
- Mysteries of the Hopewell: Astronomers, Geometers, and Magicians of the Eastern Woodlands (University of Akron Press, 2000)