Project Personnel:
Principal Investigators:
Timothy A. Kohler (SPI) is a professor in the Department of Anthropology, Washington State University, where he has taught since 1978 after receiving his Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Florida, Gainesville. From 1978 to 1985 he was involved with William D. Lipe, also of Washington State, on the WSU portions of the Dolores Archaeological Program in southwestern Colorado. His niche in that project was to design the probabilistic sampling program, study the use of wood resources (with Meredith Matthews) and (with Janet Orcutt, Eric Blinman, and Ken Petersen) the relationship of population placement to estimated prehistoric agricultural productivity, and to brush-hog large portions of Grass Mesa Village. Since that time he has directed archaeological research in Bandelier National Monument (in conjunction with Robert P. Powers, NPS). Since 1994 he has been an External Faculty member at the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) where he has become interested in agent-based modeling (Kohler and Gumerman 2000).
Kennth E. Kolm (CO-PI) specializes in the fields of hydrogeology, hydrologic and environmental systems analysis, and ecosystem characterization. Since 1998, Dr. Kolm holds a research geologist/hydrologist appointment with the Environmental Research Division, Applied Geosciences and Environmental Management Section, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois, USA. Since 2002, Dr. Kolm is also an Adjunct Professor with Washington State University where he conducts research in environmental systems analysis and paleoenvironmental implications for ancient cultural systems with a multidisciplinary, multi-institutional research team sponsored by the National Science Foundation. From 1983 - 2001, he was an Associate Professor at the Colorado School of Mines, Golden, Colorado, USA. In the period 1980-1991, Dr. Kolm was also a Research Hydrologist and Contract Researcher with the U. S. Geological Survey, Water Resources Division, Lakewood, Colorado, USA.
Robert G. Reynolds received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science, specializing in Artificial Intelligence, in 1979 from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His thesis topic concerned the simulation of the origins of agriculture in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico using a Genetic Algorithms framework. His co-advisors were Kent V. Flannery (Museum of Anthropology) and John H. Holland (Dept. of Computer Science). Since then he has continued his interests in developing computational models of Cultural Evolution in the Department of Computer Science at Wayne State University. Dr. Reynolds developed a framework, Cultural Algorithms, in which to express and computationally test various theories of social evolution. He has applied these techniques to problems concerning the origins of the state in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico (with Kent Flannery), the origins of language (with Robert Whallon), and hunter-gatherer decision-making. He has co-authored a book, Flocks of the Wmani (1989, Acadmeic Press), with Joyce Marcus and Kent V. Flannery that concerns the agent-based modeling of llama exchange rituals in the Peruvian Andes. He has received funding from both government (NSF) and industry (Ford Motor Company) to support his work.
Mark D. Varien (CO-PI) is the director of research at the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center in Cortez, Colorado. Varien joined the staff at Crow Canyon in 1987, where he contributes to the Center’s mission to conduct archaeological research, provide public education programs, and promote Native American involvement in archaeological research and public education. He has been a professional archaeologist since 1976, conducting fieldwork in Guatemala, New Zealand, Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Oregon. He served as a crew chief for the Dolores Archaeological Project in southwestern Colorado and as a project director for the Zuni Archaeology Program, a Zuni Indian tribal enterprise in Zuni, New Mexico. At Crow Canyon he directed the Sand Canyon Archaeological Project Site Testing Program, which led to numerous publications. He received a B.A. in Archaeological Studies (1976 University of Texas, Austin), a M. A. in Anthropology (1984 University of Texas, Austin), and a Ph.D. in Anthropology (1997 Arizona State University). His current professional interests include the archaeology of the southwestern United States, site formation processes, household and community organization, patterns of sedentism and mobility, settlement patterns and the formation of cultural landscapes, human impact on the environment, social theory, public education programs about archaeology, and Native American involvement in archaeology.
Other Ph.D:
Donna M. Glowacki is a doctoral candidate at Arizona State University in Tempe,
who, as a research associate with Crow Canyon Archaeological Center in Cortez,
Colorado, served as the 2002 Community Center Survey crew chief for the Village
Project. Her dissertation research focuses on understanding social relationships
among pueblos in the Mesa Verde region using settlement pattern variability
and ceramic exchange. She has been doing archaeological field work in the Mesa
Verde region for 9 years and prior to that worked in Ohio and Wisconsin for
four years.
C. David Johnson is a doctoral candidate and the Village Project research
assistant in the Department of Anthropology, Washington State University. He
came to the project after earning an MA in archaeology, using GIS and remote
sensing to research possible functions of Mesa Verde region tower structures
within the Village Project study area. Prior to arriving at WSU he worked as
an archaeologist at Mesa
Verde National Park and Hovenweep National Monument. His dissertation project
will incorporate the influences of critical natural resources into modeling
prehispanic household settlement patterns in the study area.
Dr. Ziad Kobti is an assistant professor in the School of Computer Science at the University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada. He received his Ph.D. from Wayne State University, Michigan (2004), specializing in modeling hierarchical human social networks and cultural evolution. He received his B.Sc. Honors with a double major in Biological and Computer Sciences (1996) and an M.Sc. in Computer Science (1999) from the University of Windsor. He is an active researcher and lecturer at the University of Windsor and a researcher at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at Wayne State University. Industrial work experience includes programmer/analyst positions on large scale corporate software systems and independent IT consultant. Profiled projects include a national award winning critical-time client/server and distributed database software solution for the emergency freight trucking industry, government funded civil and environmental engineering software, technial educator and corporate trainer in community college and industry.
Graduate Students:
Jason A. Cowan is a MA student and a Village Project research assistant
in the Department of Anthropology at Washington State University. His MA research
involves looking at ground stone technology along the Owyhee River in Southeastern
Oregon. Prior to coming to WSU, Jason has worked on several cultural research
management projects in the Pacific Northwest.
Schaun M. Smith is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Geology and Geological
Engineering at the Colorado
School of Mines (Advisor- Dr Kenneth E. Kolm ). Mr. Smith holds a B.S. in
Geological Sciences from the University of Texas, an MS in Geology from Louisiana
Tech University, and an MS in Environmental Science and Engineering from Colorado
School of Mines. As a Technical Assistant III affiliated with Washington State
University, he is supporting the Four-Corners project with research involving
watershed-scale hydrogeologic analysis and paleohydrologic mathematical modeling
of groundwater resources as they relate to prehistoric settlements. Mr. Smith
is also a Vice President with the environmental engineering firm of Blasland,
Bouck & Lee located in their Golden, Colorado office. He is a licensed Professional
Geologist in the states of Utah, Wyoming, Kansas, and Wisconsin.
Michael G. Spitzer is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Anthropology at Washington
State University. He received his M.A. from Colorado State University in 1979.
He attended Southern Methodist University in the Ph.D. program for 2 years before
he left to work in contract archaeology. His prior work was predominately in
lithic analysis, reliability studies, and statistical consulting. He has a strong
interest in the use of statistics/mathematics in archaeological research, having
completed 37 upper division units in statistics and mathematics. He is currently
engaged in studies of social networks and population in the Anasazi Southwest.
Other Associates:
Sean Steele is a member of the education department at the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center in Cortez, CO. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin—Oshkosh in 2001 with a B.S. in Anthropology. He is currently working on a number of projects at Crow Canyon that use multimedia technology to teach and present archaeological information to the public. In conjunction with Elaine Davis, he will be working on the educational curriculum portion of the NSF grant. Sean’s interests in education go beyond the classroom, as he is the club coach for Tri-City Soccer in Cortez.
Aaron Wright .............
Lorene Yap, who received her Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University, has been working with Tim Kohler on reciprocal exchange and other topics for several years. Now retired from the World Bank, she brings to the current project experience in economic development, simulation modeling, and applied microeconomics.
