Peter Stahl

Interests

I am an archaeologist working in the neotropics with interests in historical ecology, tropical forest ecology, zooarchaeology, vertebrate taphonomy, and Amazonian ethnography. I have participated in field projects throughout the Western Hemisphere and Africa. I received the Ph. D in Anthropology from the University of Illinois in 1984.

Current Project

Over the years, most of my research contributions have come from Ecuador. My current projects include Early Holocene zooarchaeology of Las Vegas assemblages in southwestern Ecuador, and excavations and analyses of Formative archaeological contexts in the southern highlands. We are currently in the early planning stages of a multi-year archaeological/historical ecological project in the Galápagos Islands. I also collaborate with Clark Erickson (University of Pennsylvania) in his research projects in the Amazonian Department of the Beni, Bolivia.

2012-13 Courses

Fall 2012: ANTH 391 Ethnology: Indigenous Peoples of the Amazon, ANTH 392 Archaeology: Vertebrate Taphonomy

Spring 2013: ANTH 392 A01 Archaeology of the Amazon, ANTH 392 A02: Archaeology of Domstication

Selected Publication

2012 Interactions Between Humans and Endemic Canids in Holocene South America. Journal of Ethnobiology 32:108-127.

2012 (with G Larson et al.) Rethinking dog domestication by integrating genetics, archaeology, and biogeography. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 109:8878-8883.

2012 (with D. M. Pearsall) Late Pre-Columbian Agroforestry in the Tropical Lowlands of Western Ecuador. Quaternary International 249:43-52.

2012 (with D. M. Pearsall), The Origins and Spread of Early Agriculture and Domestication: Environmental and Cultural Considerations. In, The SAGE Handbook of Environmental Change: Vol. 2, Human Impacts and Responses, edited by John A. Matthews, Patrick J. Bartlein, Keith R. Briffa, Alastair G. Dawson, Anne De Vernal, Tim Denham, Sherilyn Fritz, and Frank Oldfield, pp. 328-354. Sage, London.

2011 Ethnobiology, Historical Ecology, the Archaeofaunal Record, and Interpreting Human Landscapes. In Ethnobiology, edited by E.N. Anderson, D. Pearsall, E. Hunn, and N. Turner, pp. 97-114. Wiley-Blackwell, New York.

2011 Periodic Volcanism, Persistent Landscapes, and the Archaeofaunal Record in the Jama Valley of Western Ecuador. In Sustainable Lifeways: Cultural Persistence in an Ever-Changing Environment, edited by Naomi Miller, Kate Moore and Kathleen Ryan, pp. 273-309. University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Philadelphia

2011    Archaeofaunal Remains. In, Excavations at Cerro de Trincheras, Sonora, México. Vol. 1, edited by Randall H. McGuire and Elisa Villalpando, pp. 323-387.  Archaeological Series 204. Arizona State Museum, Tucson.

2010 The Arawak Diaspora. Latin American Antiquity 21: 217-223.

2010 (with A. Oyuela Caycedo, and J. S. Raymond) Cerro Narrío y Max Uhle: El arqueólogo como agente del desarrollo de la arqueología Ecuatoriana. In Max Uhle (1856-1944) Evaluaciones de sus Investigaciones y Obras, edited by Peter Kaulicke, Manuela Fischer, Peter Masson, and Gregor Wolff, pp. 359-377. Fondo Editorial, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima.

2009 Adventive Vertebrates and Historical Ecology in the Pre-Columbian Neotropics. Diversity 1: 151-165.

2009 Zooarchaeology. In Art and Archaeology of Challuabamba, Ecuador, edited by Terence Grieder pp. 165-206. University of Texas Press, Austin.

2008 South American Animal Domesticates. In Handbook of South American Archaeology, edited by Helaine Silverman and William H. Isbell, pp. 121-130. Springer, New York.

2008 The Contributions of Zooarchaeology to Historical Ecology in the Neotropics. Quaternary International 180:5-16.

2008 Vertebrate Analysis. In Encyclopedia of Archaeology, Vol. 3, edited by Deborah M. Pearsall, pp. 2173-2180. Academic Press, New York.

2007 (A. Oyuela-Caycedo) Early Prehistoric Sedentism and Seasonal Animal Exploitation in the Caribbean Lowlands of Colombia. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 26:329-349

2006 (with M. C. Muse, and Florencio Delgado-Espinoza) New Evidence for Pre-Columbian Muscovy Duck Cairina moschata from Ecuador. Ibis 148:657-663.

2006 Microvertebrate Synecology and Anthropogenic Footprints in the Forested Neotropics. In, Time and Complexity in Historical Ecology: Studies from the Neotropical Lowlands, edited by William Balée and Clark Erickson, pp. 127-149. Columbia University Press, New York.

2005 Selective Faunal Provisioning in the Southern Highlands of Formative Ecuador. Latin American Antiquity 16:313-328.

2005 An Exploratory Osteological Study of the Muscovy Duck (Cairina moschata) (Aves: Anatidae) with Implications for Neotropical Archaeology. Journal of Archaeological Science 32 (6): 915-929.

2004 Greater Expectations. Nature 432: 561-562.

2004 (with N. D. Smoke) Post-burial Fragmentation of Microvertebrate Skeletons. Journal of Archaeological Science 31 (8): 1093-1100.

2004 (with A. B. Stahl) Ivory production & consumption in Ghana in the early second millennium AD Antiquity 78 (299): 86-101.

2003 Pre-Columbian Andean Animal Domesticates at the Edge of Empire. World Archaeology 34 (3): 470-483.

2003 The Zooarchaeological Record from Formative Ecuador. In, Archaeology of Formative Ecuador, edited by J.S. Raymond and R. Burger, pp. 175-212. Trustees for Harvard University, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington D.C.

2003 Prehistoric Societies: Food Producers. In Encyclopedia of Food and Culture, Vol. 3, edited by Solomon H. Katz and William W. Weaver, pp. 137-141. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.