Professor Nigel Brush Retires

Also retiring at the end of the spring semester is Dr. Nigel Brush, professor of Geology.

Growing up in Coshocton County surrounded by house-sized blocks of sandstone and fields speckled with flint and arrowheads, Dr. Brush developed an early interest in geology and archaeology.

After graduating from West Holmes High School, he entered the Cincinnati Bible Seminary, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in English Bible, and held student ministries in Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky. His interest in Christian Apologetics later resulted in the publication of two books: The Limitations of Scientific Truth (2005) and The Limitations of Theological Truth (2019).

At The Ohio State University, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology and also took master's-level classes in Anthropology, he participated in the excavation of an Early Woodland (Adena) burial mound, a Late Woodland village at the Water Plant Site, and also worked in the archaeology lab with data from the Malyan Project in Iran. As a student at the University of Southampton in England, where he received a Master of Arts in Archaeological Method and Theory, he worked on a rescue excavation at Stonehenge. Dr. Brush received his doctorate in Anthropology at UCLA and worked as a research associate in the UCLA Radiocarbon Laboratory, as an accessioner in the Haines Museum of Cultural History, and participated in a UCLA field school excavation of a rock shelter in the Santa Monica Mountains above Malibu.

After returning to Ohio to conduct his dissertation research, Dr. Brush surveyed a 200-square-mile area in Holmes and Coshocton counties and located some 300 rock shelters that had been utilized by Native Americans. He subsequently conducted excavations at 30 of these sites with the help of volunteers, teachers from local schools, and students from The Ohio State University, The University of Akron-Wayne College, Kent State University and The College of Wooster, where he taught classes in anthropology, geology and environmental studies. In order to house and display the artifacts being recovered from these excavations, he helped found the Killbuck Valley Museum of Natural History and served as its curator for 10 years. During this period, he also conducted excavations at three 19th-century sites along the Ohio-Erie Canal in Summit County and excavated the Martins Creek Mastodon in Holmes County.

While at Ashland University, Dr. Brush began surveying the Walhonding Valley in Coshocton County, located 20 Late Prehistoric villages and conducted excavations at five of these sites. In order to facilitate this work, he and three colleagues founded the Ashland/Wooster/Columbus Archaeological and Geologic Consortium that would eventually involve more than 100 amateurs, semi-professionals, and professionals in various projects, including the excavation of the Cedar Fork Mastodon in Morrow County and field work at the Serpent Mound Impact Crater in Adams County. This work resulted in 24 articles and two book chapters. In retirement, Dr. Brush hopes to continue working on some of these projects and develop a career in writing.