California

Current Research and Affiliations

WSMOP: The Western Santa Monica Mountains-Oxnard Plain Project

CIIRG:  Channel Islands Interdisciplinary Research Group ~~~ link coming soon!

Past Research
My prior research in California focused on testing ideas of social complexity and employed archaeological collections from several institutions in southern California. I examined groundstone tools (mortars, pestles, manos and metates) as a proxy for determining subsistence and exchange patterns. At the time of European contact, the Chumash of coastal southern California had achieved a chiefdom level of sociopolitical organization. I used the plant processing equipment to test whether the patterns of exchange documented by European visitors coincided with the Middle to Late Period transition, as some archaeologists believe the Chumash developed a chiefdom level of social complexity by the onset of the Late Period. My results can be found in The Origins of a Pacific Coast Chiefdom: The Chumash of the Channel Islands, J. E. Arnold, editor, University of Utah Press.