Prehistoric archaeology of hunter-gatherer societies in Mesoamerica and American Southeast; comparative analysis of urban form and service provision; social inequality; complex adaptive systems; cultural evolution.

I am interested in using agent based modelling and systematic data collection to understand diachronic human-environment interactions in the Maya region of Guatemala, Mexico, and Belize.

Envrionmental Archaeology, Fire Ecology, GIS, Agent-based modeling, Geoarchaeology

Applying agent-based models to archaeological data, using modern ethnoarchaeological data as an analog for behavior.

My research aims to explore the potential of network science for the archaeological discipline. In my review work I confront the use of network-based methods in the archaeological discipline with their use in other disciplines, especially sociology and physics. In my archaeological work I aim to develop and apply network science techniques that show particular potential for archaeology. This is done through a number of archaeological case-studies: archaeological citation networks, visibility networks in Iron Age and Roman southern Spain, and tableware distribution in the Roman Eastern Mediterranean.

General Question:
Without Central Control is self organization possible?

Specific Case:

Considering the seemingly preplanned, densely aggregated communities of the prehistoric Puebloan Southwest, is it possible that without centralized authority (control), that patches of low-density communities dispersed in a bounded landscape could quickly self-organize and construct preplanned, highly organized, prehistoric villages/towns?

Northwest Coast Archaeology
Complex Hunter-Gatherers
Social Learning
Lithic Technologies
Sedentism