Veronica Peterson 孙美华
is an historical archaeologist and food scholar.
She earned her PhD in anthropology at Harvard University.
Peterson explores home cooking and community care in the Chinese diaspora. She combines archival research, oral history, ethnography, and archaeological methods to look at the cooking choices, changes, and effects on communities as people make homes in different places.
Peterson, Veronica. 2024. “Circulation in Four Walnuts from the Sarah Pike Conger Collection.” Journal of Material Culture 29(4):OnlineFirst. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/13591835241298218
Fong, Kelly N., Laura W. Ng, Jocelyn Lee, Veronica L. Peterson, Barbara L. Voss. 2022. “Race and Racism in the Archaeology of Chinese American Communities.” Annual Review of Anthropology 51(1):233-250. DOI: 10.1146/annurev-anthro-041320-014548
Pike-Tay, A., X. Ma, Y. Hou, F. Liang, M. Lin and V. Peterson. 2014. “Combining Odontochronology, Tooth Wear Assessment, and Linear Enamel Hypoplasia (LEH) Recording to Assess Pig Domestication in Neolithic Henan, China.” International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 26(1):68-77. DOI: 10.1002/oa.2395
“Remembering the Forgotten Chinese Railroad Workers.” SAPIENS. 22 Aug 2019
"Seeing Like an Archaeologist." Republic of Letters. 9 Sep 2025
The Chuckwagon (Detail). Harvey Dunn. 1915. Denver Art Museum.
This is a project investigating home cooking and community care in the late 19th and early 20th century Chinese diaspora. How did people use cooking to form and maintain extended communities from home villages to labor housing to Chinatowns and other neighborhoods? This project uses archaeological, historical, and ethnographic methods in northern California and Guangdong Province.
