Education

Ph. D. Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
M. S. Geology (Quaternary Stratigraphy), University of Michigan
M. A. Anthropology, University of Michigan
B. A. Geology, Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota

Research Interests

egalitarian societies, ecological anthropology, economic decision-making, American Southwest, regional interaction, gender issues, community organization, geoarchaeology (site formation; land use; Quaternary stratigraphy, ceramic petrography)

Major Research Projects

* Archaeological fieldwork on aggregation, community formation and site spatial organization (excavations at Pueblo Blanco; with K. Spielmann and W. Graves of Arizona State University)

*Research regarding environmental risk and coping strategies in a changing social and economic landscape. Archaeological fieldwork at pithouse and early pueblo sites (Kite Site Pithouse Village, Kite Pueblo, Pueblo de la Mesa) in central New Mexico

*Various studies of the petrography of archaeological ceramics

Selected Recent Papers and Publications

Anthropological Perspectives on Anasazi Cannibalism: From Forensics to Foucault (Alison E. Rautman and Todd Fenton) (2001) Paper presented at the American Anthropological Associati

Strategies of Population Aggregation in Central New Mexico.(2001) Poster presented at the 66th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, New Orleans. on, Washington, DC.

Population Aggregation, Community Development, and Plaza Oriented Pueblos in the American Southwest (2000). Journal of Field Archaeology 27:271-283.

Reading the Body: Representations and Remains in the Archaeological Record (edited by Alison E. Rautman) (2000). University of Pennsylvania Press.

(Rautman and Lauren E. Talalay) Diverse Approaches to the Study of Gender in Archaeology. (2000) In Interpreting the Body: Insights from Anthropological and Classical Archaeology. University of Pennsylvania Press.

Hierarchy and Heterarchy in the American Southwest: A Comment on McGuire and Saitta (1996). American Antiquity 63(2):325-333.

The Pithouse to Pueblo Transition in the American Southwest: Implications for Gender Roles. In Women in Prehistory: North America and Mesoamerica, edited by Cheryl Claassen and Rosemary A. Joyce, pp. 100-118. University of Pennsylvania Press.

Risk, Reciprocity, and the Structure of Social Networks. In Evolving Complexity and Environmental Risk in the Prehistoric Southwest, edited by J. Tainter and B. B. Tainter. Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Science of Complexity, volume XXVI, pp. 197-222. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA

Regional Climate Records and Local Experience: "Drought" and the Decline of Dryfarming in Central New Mexico. (1994) Culture and Agriculture 49:12-15.

Resource Variability, Risk, and the Structure of Social Networks: An Example from the Prehistoric Southwest. (1993) American Antiquity 58(3):403-424.

Professional and honorary organizations

American Anthropological Society

Society for American Archaeology

Register of Professional Archaeologists

American Association of University Women

Phi Beta Kappa

Sigma Xi