The University of Utah Archaeological Center is a research and teaching arm of the Department of Anthropology. Originally founded in 1948 as the "Statewide Archaeological Survey," its original mission was to investigate the prehistoric archaeology of Utah. It was renamed in 1978 and its mission broadened. The Archaeological Center now coordinates research that explores past and present human behavior from the perspective of evolutionary ecology. Research involves studying modern hunter-gatherers and their archaeological record. Resulting data is then used in archaeological studies of prehistoric hunter-gatherers and simple agriculturalists who occupied Utah and adjacent regions for nearly 10,000 years.

The Center, in partnership with the Utah Museum of Natural History (UMNH), coordinates the research activities in Range Creek Canyon. Data and artifacts collected by the Center are curated by the UMNH and are available for study by competent scholars. Reports of the Center's activities appear regularly in the professional literature. Opportunities for student participation in the Center's research are available.

For more information on the Archaeological Field School in Range Creek Canyon visit:
Archaeology Field School

Staff and associates

Director: James F. O'Connell

Manager:  Shannon Arnold Boomgarden

Associated Faculty

Jack M. Broughton (PhD U Washington 1995; Asst. Prof). Zooarchaeology, evolutionary ecology, paleozoogeography; western North America..
This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

Joan Brenner Coltrain (PhD U Utah 1997; Research Assoc. Prof.). Archaeological method and theory, stable isotope chemistry; Great Basin, eastern Arctic. This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

Kristen Hawkes (PhD U Washington 1976; Prof). Behavioral ecology, sociobiology, hunter-gatherers. This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

Duncan Metcalfe (PhD U Utah 1987; Assoc. Prof). Archaeological method and theory, evolutionary ecology; western North America. This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

James F. O'Connell (PhD UC Berkeley, 1971; Prof). Hunter-gatherer ecology, archaeological method and theory; Australia, Africa, North America. This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

Richard R. Paine (PhD U Pennsylvania, 1992; Asst. Prof). Archaeology, prehistoric demography, complex societies, human/land relationships; Mesoamerica, Europe. This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

Alan R. Rogers (PhD U New Mexico 1982; Prof). Population genetics, evolutionary ecology. This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

Associated Students

Current Projects

Economic Utility of Geophytes in the Intermountain West Database

Some recent publications

To view the Archaeological Center Report of Activities 1998-2002, including a complete list of publications by associated faculty and students, click here.

Books and monographs

Journal articles and book chapters

Bliege Bird, R., and D. W. Bird
2002. Aboriginal burning regimes and hunting strategies in Australia's West Desert. Proceedings of the Royal Society, Ser. B. (in press).

Blurton Jones, N. G., K. Hawkes and J. F. O'Connell
2000. Antiquity of post-reproductive life: Are there modern impacts on hunter-gatherer post-reproductive life spans? American Journal of Human Biology 14:184-205.

Broughton, J. M.
2002. Pre-Columbian human impact on California vertebrates: Evidence from old bones and implications for wilderness policy. In Wilderness and Political Ecology: Aboriginal Influences and the Original State of Nature , edited by C.E. Kay, and R. T. Simmons. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press (in press).

2002. Human optimal foraging strategies: An overview. Encyclopedia of Evolution , edited by M. Pagel, pp. 521-523. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

2002. Why didn't native Californians farm? Encyclopedia of Evolution , edited by M. Pagel, pp. 522. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

2002. Measuring resource depression with archaeological faunas: Insights from the Emeryville Shellmound vertebrate record. World Archaeology 34:60-83.

Broughton, J. M., and J. F. O'Connell
1999 On evolutionary ecology, selectionist archaeology, and behavioral archaeology. American Antiquity 62:153-165.

Coltrain, J. B., M. Geoffrey Hayes, and D. H. O'Rourke
2002. Sealing, whaling and caribou: The skeletal isotope chemistry of eastern Arctic foragers. Arctic Anthropology (submitted).

Coltrain, J. B., and S. W. Leavitt
2002. Climate and diet in Fremont prehistory: Economic variability and abandonment of maize agriculture in the Great Salt Lake Basin. American Antiquity 67:1-33.

Harpending, H. C., and A. R. Rogers
2000. Genetic perspectives on human origins and differentiation. Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics 1:361-385.

Harpending, H., M. Batzer, M. Gurven, L. Jorde, A Rogers and S. Sherry
1998 Genetic traces of ancient demography. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science USA 95:1961-1967.

Hawkes, K.
2002. Mating, parenting and the evolution of human pair bonds. In Kinship and Behavior in Primates , edited by B. Chapais and C. Berman. Oxford: Oxford University Press (in press).

2002. Grandmothers and the evolution of human longevity. American Journal of Human Biology (in press).

2001. Is meat the hunter's property? Ownership and explanations ofhunting and sharing. In Meat-eating and Human Evolution , edited by C. Stanford and H. Bunn, pp. 219-236. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

2000. Big game hunting and the evolution of egalitarian societies: Lessons from the Hadza. In Hierarchies in Action: Cui Bono? , edited by M. Diehl. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Occasional Paper 27:59-83. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.

Lupo, K. D., and J. F. O'Connell
2001. Cut and tooth mark distributions on large animal bones: Ethnoarchaeological data from the Hadza and their implications for current ideas about early human carnivory. Journal of Archaeological Science 29:85-109.

Metcalfe, D.
1998. An archaeological assessment. In Visions of the Grand Staircase - Escalante: Examining UtahÕs Newest National Monument , edited by Robert B. Keiter, Sarah B. George, and Joro Walker, pp. 31-40. Salt Lake City: Publishers Press.

O'Connell, J. F.
2000. An emu hunt. In Australian Archaeologist: Collected Papers in Honour of Jim Allen , edited by A. Anderson and T. Murray, pp. 172-181. Division of Archaeology and Natural History, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies. Canberra: Australian National University.

O'Connell, J. F., and F. J. Allen
1998. When did humans first arrive in Greater Australia, and why is it important to know? Evolutionary Anthropology 6:132-146. [Reprinted (2002) in The Human Evolution Source Book (2nd Ed.), R. Ciochon & J. Fleagle, Eds. NJ: Prentice Hall.]

O'Connell, J. F., K. Hawkes and N. G. Blurton Jones
2002. Meat-eating, grandmothering and the evolution of early human diets. In Human Diet: Its Origin and Evolution , edited by P. Unger and M. Teaford, pp. 49-60. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey.

1999. Grandmothering and the evolution of Homo erectus. Journal of Human Evolution 36:461-485. [Reprinted (2002) in The Human Evolution Source Book (2nd Ed.), edited by R. Ciochon & J. Fleagle, NJ: Prentice Hall.]

O'Connell, J. F., K. Hawkes, K. Lupo and N. G. Blurton Jones
2002. Male strategies and Plio-Pleistocene archaeology. Journal of Human Evolution 43:831-872.

Paine, R. R.
2002. Demography. In Handbook of Archaeological Methods, edited by H. D. G. Maschner and C. Chippindale. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press (in press).

2002. Origins of agriculture. In The Oxford Encyclopedia of Evolution , edited by Mark Pagel, pp. 15-19. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

2002. Demography and human disease. In The Oxford Encyclopedia of Evolution, edited by Mark Pagel, pp. 280-282. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

2002. Population trends. In The Oxford Encyclopedia of Evolution, edited by Mark Pagel, pp. 926-930. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Paine, R. R., and H. C. Harpending
1998. The effect of sample bias on paleodemographic fertility estimates. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 105:231-240.

Rogers, A. R.
2001. Order emerging from chaos in human evolutionary genetics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (USA) 98:779-780.

2001. How should fertility vary with wealth? Human Behavior and Evolution (in press).

2000. On the value of soft bones in faunal analysis. Journal of Archaeological Science 27:635-639.

2000. On equifinality on faunal analysis. American Antiquity 65:709-723.

2000. Analysis of bone counts by maximum likelihood. Journal of Archaeological Science 27:111-125.

Rogers, A. R. and J. M. Broughton.
2001. Selective transport of animal parts by ancient hunters: A new statistical method and an application to the Emeryville Shellmound fauna. Journal of Archaeological Science 28:763- 773.

Intermountain Antiquities Computer System (IMACS) Guide

Pocket- or reduced-size manuals are available from the Archaeological Center at $40.00 ea. as long as the current supply lasts. To order, call 801 581 8663 or write to: