Hello and welcome.
I am an Assistant Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Anthropology at Ball State University. My research and theoretical interests lie in the realm of exchange and how the social relations created and mediated through exchange provide means and incentives for increasingly complex and unequal social arrangements. My work has strong theoretical ties to political economic theory, cultural anthropological research, and evolutionary theory concerning cooperation in social organisms.
My archaeological research is situated in the archaic and early woodland periods in the Great Lakes and Midcontinent of North America, a period when increasingly complex ritual, social, and economic arrangements developed. However, I view these issues broadly and see that these processes characterize the development and functioning of human societies worldwide and throughout time. Accordingly, I have also used anthropological methods of participant observation and semi-structured interviews to examine exchange and political economy in contemporary communities - most recently in village societies among the Miao peoples of China.
My research suggests that exchange between members of different communities provides benefits and incentives for the development of inequality and the establishment of corporate groups that structure hereditary means of passing inequality through generations. As such, exchange can play an important part in the early transition from egalitarian to non-egalitarian societies while creating social institutions that pass on inequalities through time. Anthropologists view this transition as a critical one in the development of the types of complex societies that dominate the world today.
I have spent much of my career as an archaeologist with the US Forest Service, and my interest in this field began while working on the Ottawa National Forest in Michigan. It was here that I first encountered archaic copper production and exchange, and my interest grew in the social relations that were represented by these processes. I use trace element analysis, primarily a technique known as Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry, to examine the chemical composition of different copper artifacts and source samples and to then trace the relationships between communities, sources, and societies represented by the movement of copper artifacts between communities.
My work has been supported by several awards and grants, including research fellowships from the SRI Foundation and the Institute for Integrated Research in Materials, Environment, and Society (IIRMES), and grants from the National Science Foundation.
This Website
In this site, I present materials useful to researchers and educators interested in topics of exchange, political economy, North American prehistory, and chemical compositional analysis of prehistoric materials. You will find trace element composition data for prehistoric copper artifacts and source samples as well as a detailed discussion of my theoretical approaches to exchange and links or references to some of my publications. Other materials, including copies of my syllabi, may be of use to educators and others. If you have any questions, or are interested in learning more, please use the contact link to email me.
My archaeological research is situated in the archaic and early woodland periods in the Great Lakes and Midcontinent of North America, a period when increasingly complex ritual, social, and economic arrangements developed. However, I view these issues broadly and see that these processes characterize the development and functioning of human societies worldwide and throughout time. Accordingly, I have also used anthropological methods of participant observation and semi-structured interviews to examine exchange and political economy in contemporary communities - most recently in village societies among the Miao peoples of China.
My research suggests that exchange between members of different communities provides benefits and incentives for the development of inequality and the establishment of corporate groups that structure hereditary means of passing inequality through generations. As such, exchange can play an important part in the early transition from egalitarian to non-egalitarian societies while creating social institutions that pass on inequalities through time. Anthropologists view this transition as a critical one in the development of the types of complex societies that dominate the world today.
I have spent much of my career as an archaeologist with the US Forest Service, and my interest in this field began while working on the Ottawa National Forest in Michigan. It was here that I first encountered archaic copper production and exchange, and my interest grew in the social relations that were represented by these processes. I use trace element analysis, primarily a technique known as Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry, to examine the chemical composition of different copper artifacts and source samples and to then trace the relationships between communities, sources, and societies represented by the movement of copper artifacts between communities.
My work has been supported by several awards and grants, including research fellowships from the SRI Foundation and the Institute for Integrated Research in Materials, Environment, and Society (IIRMES), and grants from the National Science Foundation.
This Website
In this site, I present materials useful to researchers and educators interested in topics of exchange, political economy, North American prehistory, and chemical compositional analysis of prehistoric materials. You will find trace element composition data for prehistoric copper artifacts and source samples as well as a detailed discussion of my theoretical approaches to exchange and links or references to some of my publications. Other materials, including copies of my syllabi, may be of use to educators and others. If you have any questions, or are interested in learning more, please use the contact link to email me.