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Introduction

My primary area of research is the Northwest Coast of North America. I study human-environment interactions at the landscape level by exploring the intersection of long-term settlement histories and environmental changes. I have an interest in the earliest environments and peopling of the Northwest Coast. I am curious about how certain engagements with the landscape can be generative of new aspects of social organization. I am interested in studying shoreline change, understood broadly: both ‘naturally-' driven shoreline change resulting from shifting sea levels and other geomorphological processes, and ‘culturally-’ driven shoreline change resulting from human modification. Using geoarchaeological and geological methods, I reconstruct histories of post-glacial relative sea level change on the north Coast of British Columbia to  survey for archaeological sites associated with paleoshorelines to understand how people occupied dynamic coastal landscapes with shifting shore elevations. I also study how the ancient inhabitants of the Northwest Coast themselves dramatically altered shoreline landforms through the deposition of vast amounts of shell and other cultural sediments to construct idealized habitation places.

Research

Most of my current research is in the territories of the Ts’msyen peoples in northern coastal British Columbia. I have worked for years in and around the Prince Rupert Harbour with Dr. Andrew Martindale (UBC) and the Lax Kw’alaams and Metlakatla Nations. Collectively, we have studied the paleoenvironmental/relative sea level histories of the region, the early and middle Holocene archaeological record, and long-term trends in settlement patterns of what came to be one of the most densely populated areas in coastal north America prior to European colonization.

I began my research at 51ÉçÇøºÚÁÏas a post-doctoral researcher participating in community-engaged research with Dr. Dana Lepofsky and 51ÉçÇøºÚÁÏDoctoral alumni/Gitga’at scholar Dr. Spencer Greening in the territory of the Gitga'at First Nation. Most recently I have expanded this project to the outer islands of the territory, where we are exploring early postglacial landscapes and earliest peopling of the area. This research is structured by an inquiry into culturally-significant locations for the Gitga’at today, places where there are deep-time connections between the past and the present through oral histories and archaeology.

I am also currently engaged in research into Ice Age paleoecology, sea level, and archaeology on northern Vancouver Island with Dr. Duncan McLaren and Daryl Fedje, as well a participant in survey and excavations of early Neolithic sites in northwest Jordan with Dr. Ted Banning of the University of Toronto and Chalcolithic agro-pastoral villages in northern Iraq with Dr. Gil Stein of the University of Chicago.

Other Activities

As well as my archaeological research I have a passion for Middle Eastern and Central Asian history, geopolitics, and food, and I have spent much time travelling and learning about those regions. I enjoy being out on the ocean, camping, and music that is probably a little heavier than one would expect.

Publications

Publications are available here.