Department of Anthropology
114 Macbride Hall
Iowa City, IA 52242-1322
Phone: 319-335-0522
Fax: 319-335-0653
Email: anthropology at uiowa.edu
Background:
Higher Education:
Fort Lewis College, Durango, Colorado
8/2001-12/2004
BA in Anthropology
Summa Cum Laude
My main interests include subsistence studies (specifically zooarchaeology), the American Southwest (especially the Basketmaker and early Pueblo periods), the history of archaeology and archaeologists, pseudoarchaeology, and the presentation of archaeology in popular media.
I am currently analyzing the faunal remains from the Darkmold Site, a Basketmaker II site just north of Durango, Colorado. The Basketmaker II period of the American Southwest represents a vital part of prehistory, as it defines the time when Southwesterners first started domesticating corn and is thus the transition between mobile hunter-gatherers and increasingly sedentary agriculturalists. In addition, the end of the Basketmaker II period is marked by several important changes: the hunting technology shifted from an atlatl and dart to the bow-and-arrow (allowing for more efficient hunting), domesticated beans were added to the diet providing the people with more readily available vegetable protein, and turkeys were domesticated and were thus easily accessible sources of meat and/or eggs. My current research, then, seeks to test theories regarding the possible dietary changes that occur as groups become increasingly sedentary and dependent on domestic resources.
Publication: Press Zooarchaeological Analysis of the Faunal Remains from the Testing of Four Sites in the Piñon Canyon Maneuver Site: 5LA3333, 5LA4417, 5LA5612, 5LA6108. In Evaluative Testing of Four Sites on the Pinon Canyon Maneuver Site, Los Animas County, Colorado, compiled by Mona Charles et al. Fort Lewis College, Durango, Colorado.