I am an archaeologist working with early agricultural societies in southern Arizona and the Mediterranean. My interest is in the spread and development of farming and the impact that agricultural societies had on their landscapes. I specialize in the analysis of animal bones from archaeological sites, and I have used faunal remains to answer a variety of research questions about human/environmental interactions. For example, I have tracked increasing biodiversity in small animals as a result of canal irrigation among the Hohokam in the 12th and 13th centuries A.D. I have also studied the local extinction of large game species along the southern Portuguese coast during the 6th millennium B.C., and the many ways that early villagers in an extremely arid region of Jordan were able to sustain a mixed herding and farming way of life. My interests go beyond diet and environment – human interactions with the landscape tell us about prehistoric labor organization, social structure, mobility patterns, and beliefs. I also have a strong interest in the role of archaeological data in modern debates over environmental issues. Archaeology provides the best long-term data on human/environmental interactions that we have. We can learn from past successes, be warned by past failures, and, fundamentally, understand that our modern environments are the product of many millennia of human manipulation.

Selected Publications:

in prep The Archaeology of Anthropogenic Environments. (edited volume). Center for Archaeological Investigations Press, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.

2007 The Lagomorph Index: Rethinking Rabbit Ratios in Hohokam Sites. Kiva 73:7-30.

2007 Hunting Intensification and the Hohokam "Collapse". Journal of Anthropological Archaeologogy 26:109-132.

2005 Site Use Intensity, Cultural Modification of the Environment, and the Development of Agricultural Communities in Southern Arizona. American Antiquity 70:403-431.

2005 Old Bones: The Effects of Curation and Exchange on the Interpretation of Artiodactyl Remains in Archaeological Sites. Kiva 70:255-272.

2001 Social Change and Hunting during the Pueblo III to Pueblo IV Transition, East-Central Arizona. Journal of Field Archaeology 28:271-285.

Places I Work: