Research & Fieldwork
While I maintain a variety of archaeological projects in California and around the world, current projects include an ~1.5 million dollar cooperative agreement with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) to identify submerged paleolandforms and cultural resources along the New World Pacific Coast in California and Oregon. Although a variety of additional goals and outcomes are expected, our study will synthesize offshore geological and geophysical data from southern California and central Oregon, conduct sonar mapping, offshore coring, and terrestrial archaeological surveys, refine local sea-level models, and improve our ability to identify submerged natural and cultural resources on the continental shelf.
Smithsonian archaeologist Torben Rick, Channel Islands Park archaeology Kristin Hoppa, and I were awarded a Western National Parks and Monuments grant to map, radiocarbon date, and sample archaeological sites along western San Miguel Island at Pt. Bennett. Pt. Bennett is one of the largest seal and sea lion rookeries in the world and our work is designed to salvage information from sites being damaged by pinniped activities and investigate the long history of human-sea mammal interactions on the island.
Torben Rick, a number of colleagues, and I are collaborating on an archaeological survey, radiocarbon dating, and small-scale sampling project on the Jack and and Laura Dangermond Preserve, a nature reserve in central California managed by The Nature Conservancy. Our work, in cooperation with TNC and Chumash consultants, is designed to help better understand the deep history of the region and manage precious cultural resources on the preserve. The first publication on this project is available here.
In collaboration with Torben Rick and Christine France at the Smithsonian Institution and Matthew McCarthy at UC-Santa Cruz, we were awarded an NSF archaeology and archaeometry grant titled Coupling Archaeological Shell and Novel Isotope Approaches to Reconstruct Impact and Nearshore Productivity Change. Our research seeks to understand when and why cultural complexity arose along the Santa Barbara Channel and any links it may have to past changes in climate. We will draw on the analysis of novel molecular/isotopes (compound-specific isotopes of amino acids) in shells obtained from archaeological sites.
Details about on-going and past projects can be found on my Google Scholar and Researchgate accounts:
Smithsonian archaeologist Torben Rick, Channel Islands Park archaeology Kristin Hoppa, and I were awarded a Western National Parks and Monuments grant to map, radiocarbon date, and sample archaeological sites along western San Miguel Island at Pt. Bennett. Pt. Bennett is one of the largest seal and sea lion rookeries in the world and our work is designed to salvage information from sites being damaged by pinniped activities and investigate the long history of human-sea mammal interactions on the island.
Torben Rick, a number of colleagues, and I are collaborating on an archaeological survey, radiocarbon dating, and small-scale sampling project on the Jack and and Laura Dangermond Preserve, a nature reserve in central California managed by The Nature Conservancy. Our work, in cooperation with TNC and Chumash consultants, is designed to help better understand the deep history of the region and manage precious cultural resources on the preserve. The first publication on this project is available here.
In collaboration with Torben Rick and Christine France at the Smithsonian Institution and Matthew McCarthy at UC-Santa Cruz, we were awarded an NSF archaeology and archaeometry grant titled Coupling Archaeological Shell and Novel Isotope Approaches to Reconstruct Impact and Nearshore Productivity Change. Our research seeks to understand when and why cultural complexity arose along the Santa Barbara Channel and any links it may have to past changes in climate. We will draw on the analysis of novel molecular/isotopes (compound-specific isotopes of amino acids) in shells obtained from archaeological sites.
Details about on-going and past projects can be found on my Google Scholar and Researchgate accounts:
