Leland Greer Ferguson

Leland Greer Ferguson, 81, died Wednesday, March 15, 2023. Dr. Ferguson was born December 14, 1941, the son of the late Archie Franklin Ferguson and Esther Brigman Ferguson, and grew up in Winston-Salem, North Carolina with his older brother Adrian Edward Ferguson. From his youth, he was an arrowhead collector and outdoorsman. Growing up in the Sputnik era, as a teenager he was drawn into mechanical and aerospace engineering, completing his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at NC State.

Amidst the tumult of the 1960s and the civil rights movement, he returned to the wellspring of excitement from his youth, diving into archaeology and earning a PhD from UNC Chapel Hill. After a two-year stint teaching archaeology at Florida Atlantic University, he worked as a research and teaching faculty member at the University of South Carolina for 30 years.

In the 1970s, he transitioned from the prehistoric archaeology of American Indian platform mounds to the historical archaeology of colonoware pottery made by enslaved African Americans. His work highlighted the material culture of everyday people that had been unexamined by previous archaeologists, and led him to write award-winning books such as God’s Fields and Uncommon Ground, today read by anthropology students across the United States. After semi-retiring in 2002, he worked as an Old Salem research associate for 13 years, illuminating the murky relationship between slavery and religious ideals in the Moravian community of his childhood hometown, Winston-Salem.

In the mid-1970s, he bought an old, run-down cotton farm along the banks of Cedar Creek in northern Richland County, where he resided ever since, surrounded by friends and neighbors. In recent years, he explored wellness practices such as yoga, meditation, and gardening; and his interests in the outdoors were given new expression through his painting, wildlife photography, nature writing, birding, and poetry. He was active in Westminster Presbyterian Church and the Downtown Church of Columbia, as well as a joyful participant in Trinity United Methodist Church and the “church of nature” in Blythewood’s Cedar Creek.

Dr. Ferguson is survived by his loving wife Aline Allston Ferguson and by his children, Sam Ferguson and Amy Cook; son-in-law John-Garrett Cook; cat Lily; and dog Gryff, all of Blythewood. He loved his children dearly. He is also survived by many friends, relatives, and neighbors.

A service will be held at 2 p.m. on March 18, at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Columbia, South Carolina, with a reception and visitation to follow. Memorial donations may be made to Westminster Presbyterian Church, 1715 Broad River Road, Columbia, SC 29210 or to the charity of your choice.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.dunbarfuneralhomedevine.com for the Ferguson family.