J D Speth

Biographic Data

ID11240
NAMEJ D Speth
GIVEN NAMESJ D
FAMILY NAMESpeth
SIGNATURESPETH J D
AFFILIATIONSUniversity of Michigan
ORCID0000-0002-8166-7899
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS64
TOTAL CITATIONS1212
AUTHOR COUNT64
EDITOR COUNT0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR1971
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2026
H-INDEX13

  • Did Clovis foragers hunt megafauna, scavenge their carrion, or both – And can we tell the difference

    Open AccessM I Eren, D J Meltzer et al.ARTICLEJournal of Archaeological Science…2026

    There are currently 15 well-documented Late Pleistocene localities in North America in which Clovis points are found associated with proboscidean remains. These localities are routinely assumed to represent evidence that Clovis foragers hunted proboscideans, and in turn are often invoked as evidence for a human role in the extinction of Pleistocene large mammals. Such assumptions have never been thoroughly tested, nor have archaeologists fully co…

  • Modern human origins

    Open AccessJ D SpethARTICLEQuaternary Environments and Humans2026

    As proxies for the emergence of "modern human behavior," archaeologists typically rely on changes in technological complexity and/or the first appearance of symbolic items or practices. In this paper, I examine both approaches and conclude that neither, as currently envisioned, is likely to provide the answers archaeologists seek. Technological complexity is always a work in progress, and deciding where to place the boundary between "pre-modern" …

  • Mid- to northern latitude hunting economies

    Open AccessJ D SpethARTICLEQuaternary Environments and Humans2025

    Mid- to northern latitude hunting peoples could not consume more than ~300 g of protein per day (~1,200 kcal). Exceeding that limit could lead within a week or two to a debilitating, even lethal condition known as "rabbit starvation." The remaining energy deficit had to be filled using non-protein sources, mostly animal fat. To minimize the risk of rabbit starvation, hunting peoples typically consumed diets in which protein remained well below 30…

  • Human membership in the large carnivore guild

    Open AccessJ D SpethARTICLEQuaternary Environments and Humans2024

    Conventional wisdom holds that when humans began acquiring meat on a regular basis, whether by hunting or by scavenging, they became part of the large carnivore guild and, as a consequence, faced greatly increased levels of potentially life-threatening competition with other predators. This paper offers an alternative view based on fundamental nutritional and metabolic differences between humans, who are descended from primates of largely vegetar…

  • Jeffrey R. Parsons (October 9, 1939–march 19, 2021)

    Open AccessL J Gorenflo, D L Nichols et al.ARTICLEAncient Mesoamerica2022

    An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button

  • The Study of Hunter-Gatherers in the American Southwest

    J D SpethCHAPTERPerspectives on Southwestern…2019

    The archaeological record of the Southwest documents the presence of hunter-gatherers in the region for over nine millennia, extending from at least as early as Clovis times well into the Christian era. The close and inevitable dependence of southwestern archaeology on insights drawn from ethnology has been evident for decades. Given the time-depth and richness of the southwestern archaeological record, the study of the region&s;s prehistoric for…

  • Neanderthals, vitamin C, and scurvy”

    Open AccessJ D SpethARTICLEQuaternary International2018Cited by: 7References: 25

  • Hunting Pressure, Subsistence Intensification, and Demographic Change in the Levantine Late Middle Paleolithic

    J D SpethCHAPTERHuman Paleoecology in the…2017

  • Years of communal bison hunting in western North America

    J D Speth, Umberto Albarella et al.BOOKOxford Handbook of Zooarchaeology2017Cited by: 1

    For the past 13,000 years Indians in the North American Great Plains hunted bison (Bison bison and B. antiquus) in large communally organized drive operations. This chapter briefly describes the taxonomy of fossil and living bison, the behaviour of modern bison, and what is known from ethnohistoric and archaeological sources about the ways that Indians conducted these drives, including the use of foot surrounds, cliff jumps, arroyo traps, and pou…

  • Stratégies de subsistance et fonction de site au Paléolithique moyen récent

    Liliane Meignen, J D Speth et al.ARTICLEPaléorient2017Cited by: 2

    La longue séquence moustérienne de la grotte de Kébara (Mt Carmel, Israël) permet de s’interroger sur la place que ce site a pu jouer dans l’organisation des territoires sur une période de 12 000 ans environ à la fin du Paléolithique moyen. Les études interdisciplinaires réalisées dans ce site à la suite des fouilles dirigées par O. Bar-Yosef et B. Vandermeersch entre 1982 et 1990 mettent en évidence des changements dans les comportements de subs…

  • Middle Palaeolithic Diets

    Eugène Morin, J D Speth et al.CHAPTEROxford Handbook of the…2016

    This chapter examines the evidence for diet amongst Middle Palaeolithic foragers in Europe and south-west Asia from c. 300,000 to 40,000 years ago, concentrating on faunal and isotopic approaches. Published faunal evidence shows that Middle Palaeolithic hominins in both regions hunted a relatively narrow range of medium- to large-sized ungulates, with occasional exploitation of megaherbivores more evident in open sites than in caves and rockshelt…

  • Introduction

    Open AccessJ L Clark, J D SpethCHAPTERZooarchaeology and Modern Human…2013

  • Middle Paleolithic Large-Mammal Hunting in the Southern Levant

    J D SpethCHAPTERZooarchaeology and Modern Human…2013

  • Thoughts about hunting

    Open AccessJ D SpethARTICLEQuaternary International2012Cited by: 23References: 20

  • Middle Palaeolithic subsistence in the Near East

    J D Speth, John SpethARTICLEHunter Gatherer Research2012Cited by: 46References: 134

    This paper presents an overview of major trends and contributions of faunal studies to our understanding of Neanderthal and anatomically modern human lifeways and adaptations in the Near East. Prior to the 1980s, Near Eastern Middle Palaeolithic zooarchaeology served primarily as an adjunct discipline, a largely palaeontological means of reconstructing palaeoenvironments and as a tool for determining the relative age of sites. Faunal reports were…

  • Spatial organization of Middle Paleolithic occupation X in Kebara Cave (Israel)

    Open AccessJ D Speth, Liliane Meignen et al.ARTICLEQuaternary International2011Cited by: 49References: 27

  • Big-Game Hunting

    J D SpethCHAPTERPaleoanthropology and Archaeology…2010

  • The Other Side of Protein

    J D SpethCHAPTERPaleoanthropology and Archaeology…2010

  • Protein and Taste

    J D SpethCHAPTERPaleoanthropology and Archaeology…2010

  • Protein and Breast Milk

    J D SpethCHAPTERPaleoanthropology and Archaeology…2010

  • Protein and Pregnancy

    J D SpethCHAPTERPaleoanthropology and Archaeology…2010

  • DHA and the Developing Brain

    J D SpethCHAPTERPaleoanthropology and Archaeology…2010

  • Were Big-Game Hunters Targeting Fat?

    J D SpethCHAPTERPaleoanthropology and Archaeology…2010

  • Other Problems with High-Protein Intakes

    J D SpethCHAPTERPaleoanthropology and Archaeology…2010

  • Fat in Infancy

    J D SpethCHAPTERPaleoanthropology and Archaeology…2010