R Kyle Bocinsky
Biographic Data
| ID | 19245 |
|---|---|
| NAME | R Kyle Bocinsky |
| GIVEN NAMES | R Kyle |
| FAMILY NAME | Bocinsky |
| SIGNATURE | BOCINSKY R K |
| AFFILIATIONS | Crow Canyon Archaeological Center |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1862-3428 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 128 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Benefits of Niche Construction in Northern Rio Grande Pueblo Agriculture
How Many People Lived in the Chaco Regional System, and Why It Matters
Using a new approach to estimating its population assuming an Ideal Free Distribution, we suggest that even the highest estimates for the population served by the Chaco Regional System at its height have been somewhat too low. This complements recent findings that the US Southwest was greener and more productive for the millennium prior to about AD 1200 than afterwards, and that crude birth rates in this region, particularly in the San Juan Basin…
Settlement persistence in the prehispanic central Mesa Verde Region
A low-frequency summer temperature reconstruction for the United States Southwest, 3000 BC–AD 2000
Temperature variability likely played an important role in determining the spread and productive potential of North America’s key prehispanic agricultural staple, maize. The United States Southwest (SWUS) also served as the gateway for maize to reach portions of North America to the north and east. Existing temperature reconstructions for the SWUS are typically low in spatial or temporal resolution, shallow in time depth, or subject to unknown de…
How agricultural producers use local knowledge, climate information, and on-farm “experiments” to address drought risk
End-to-end Bayesian analysis for summarizing sets of radiocarbon dates
Archaeologists and demographers increasingly employ aggregations of published radiocarbon (14C) dates as demographic proxies summarizing changes in human activity in past societies. Presently, summed probability densities (SPDs) of calibrated radiocarbon dates are the dominant method of using 14C dates to reconstruct demographic trends. Unfortunately, SPDs are incapable of converging on the distribution that generated a set of radiocarbon measure…
A Landscape Perspective on Climate-Driven Risks to Food Security
Spatially and temporally unpredictable rainfall patterns presented food production challenges to small-scale agricultural communities, requiring multiple risk-mitigating strategies to increase food security. Although site-based investigations of the relationship between climate and agricultural production offer insights into how individual communities may have created long-term adaptations to manage risk, the inherent spatial variability of clima…
Refining Potential Source Regions via Combined Maize Niche Modeling and Isotopes
A Reply to Bellezza
Comparing Maize Paleoproduction Models with Experimental Data
In agrarian societies, such as the ancestral Pueblo of the Four Corners region of the US Southwest (c. AD 600–1300), the resilience of crops in the face of climate challenges was of paramount concern. Consequently, students of these societies have invested much effort in modeling the response of traditional crops to ancient weather patterns. Less effort has been made to evaluate the quality of those reconstructions with experimental studies. Here…
A Dialogue Between Empirical and Model-Based Agricultural Studies in Archaeology
How to Make a Polity (In the Central Mesa Verde Region)
The degree to which prehispanic societies in the northern upland Southwest were hierarchical or egalitarian is still debated and seems likely to have changed through time. This paper examines the plausibility of village-spanning polities in the northern Southwest by simulating the coevolution of hierarchy and warfare using extensions to the Village Ecodynamics Project's agent-based model. We additionally compile empirical data on the population s…
Twenty-first century approaches to ancient problems
By documenting how humans adapted to changes in their environment that are often much greater than those experienced in the instrumental record, archaeology provides our only deep-time laboratory for highlighting the circumstances under which humans managed or failed to find to adaptive solutions to changing climate, not just over a few generations but over the longue durée . Patterning between climate-mediated environmental change and change in …
Great Houses, Shrines, and High Places
Phenomenological archaeologists and GIS scholars have turned much attention to visibility-who can see whom, and what can be seen-across ancient landscapes. Visible connections can be relatively easy to identify, but they present challenges to interpretation. Ancient peoples created intervisible connections among sites for purposes that included surveillance, defense, symbolism, shared identity, and communication. In the American Southwest, many h…
Cultural and Genetic Contexts for Early Turkey Domestication in the Northern Southwest
The turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) was independently domesticated in Mesoamerica and the Southwest, the latter as the only case of Native American animal domestication north of Mexico. In the upland (non-desert) portion of the American Southwest, distinctive closely related mtDNA lineages belonging to haplogroup H1 (thought to indicate domestication) occur from ca. 1 A.D. (Basketmaker II period) through early historic times. At many sites, low freq…
The Social Consequences of Climate Change in the Central Mesa Verde Region
The consequences of climate change vary over space and time. Effective studies of human responses to climatically induced environmental change must therefore sample the environmental diversity experienced by specific societies. We reconstruct population histories from A.D. 600 to 1280 in six environmentally distinct portions of the central Mesa Verde region in southwestern Colorado, relating these to climate-driven changes in agricultural potenti…
A 5,500-Year Model of Changing Crop Niches on the Tibetan Plateau
The timing and mechanics of the spread of agriculture to the Tibetan Plateau-one of the most challenging environmental contexts on earth-is a focus of recent work and debate. Understanding the timing and spread of agriculture is basic to archaeology and history worldwide. Researchers seek evidence for the earliest, furthest, or highest occurrences of diagnostic elements. However, the Tibetan Plateau case illustrates a key flaw in current work: ar…
A 2,000-year reconstruction of the rain-fed maize agricultural niche in the US Southwest
Extrinsic site defensibility and landscape-based archaeological inference
Simulating Social and Economic Specialization in Small-Scale Agricultural Societies
We introduce a model for agent specialization in small-scale human societies that incorporates planning based on social influence and economic state. Agents allocate their time among available tasks based on exchange, demand, competition from other agents, family needs, and previous experiences. Agents exchange and request goods using barter, balanced reciprocal exchange, and generalized reciprocal exchange. We use a weight-based reinforcement mo…
The Social Consequences of Climate Change in the Central Mesa Verde Region
The consequences of climate change vary over space and time. Effective studies of human responses to climatically induced environmental change must therefore sample the environmental diversity experienced by specific societies. We reconstruct population histories from A.D. 600 to 1280 in six environmentally distinct portions of the central Mesa Verde region in southwestern Colorado, relating these to climate-driven changes in agricultural potenti…
A 5,500-Year Model of Changing Crop Niches on the Tibetan Plateau
The timing and mechanics of the spread of agriculture to the Tibetan Plateau-one of the most challenging environmental contexts on earth-is a focus of recent work and debate. Understanding the timing and spread of agriculture is basic to archaeology and history worldwide. Researchers seek evidence for the earliest, furthest, or highest occurrences of diagnostic elements. However, the Tibetan Plateau case illustrates a key flaw in current work: ar…
Cultural and Genetic Contexts for Early Turkey Domestication in the Northern Southwest
The turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) was independently domesticated in Mesoamerica and the Southwest, the latter as the only case of Native American animal domestication north of Mexico. In the upland (non-desert) portion of the American Southwest, distinctive closely related mtDNA lineages belonging to haplogroup H1 (thought to indicate domestication) occur from ca. 1 A.D. (Basketmaker II period) through early historic times. At many sites, low freq…
Great Houses, Shrines, and High Places
Phenomenological archaeologists and GIS scholars have turned much attention to visibility-who can see whom, and what can be seen-across ancient landscapes. Visible connections can be relatively easy to identify, but they present challenges to interpretation. Ancient peoples created intervisible connections among sites for purposes that included surveillance, defense, symbolism, shared identity, and communication. In the American Southwest, many h…
How to Make a Polity (In the Central Mesa Verde Region)
The degree to which prehispanic societies in the northern upland Southwest were hierarchical or egalitarian is still debated and seems likely to have changed through time. This paper examines the plausibility of village-spanning polities in the northern Southwest by simulating the coevolution of hierarchy and warfare using extensions to the Village Ecodynamics Project's agent-based model. We additionally compile empirical data on the population s…
End-to-end Bayesian analysis for summarizing sets of radiocarbon dates
Archaeologists and demographers increasingly employ aggregations of published radiocarbon (14C) dates as demographic proxies summarizing changes in human activity in past societies. Presently, summed probability densities (SPDs) of calibrated radiocarbon dates are the dominant method of using 14C dates to reconstruct demographic trends. Unfortunately, SPDs are incapable of converging on the distribution that generated a set of radiocarbon measure…
Comparing Maize Paleoproduction Models with Experimental Data
In agrarian societies, such as the ancestral Pueblo of the Four Corners region of the US Southwest (c. AD 600–1300), the resilience of crops in the face of climate challenges was of paramount concern. Consequently, students of these societies have invested much effort in modeling the response of traditional crops to ancient weather patterns. Less effort has been made to evaluate the quality of those reconstructions with experimental studies. Here…
A low-frequency summer temperature reconstruction for the United States Southwest, 3000 BC–AD 2000
Temperature variability likely played an important role in determining the spread and productive potential of North America’s key prehispanic agricultural staple, maize. The United States Southwest (SWUS) also served as the gateway for maize to reach portions of North America to the north and east. Existing temperature reconstructions for the SWUS are typically low in spatial or temporal resolution, shallow in time depth, or subject to unknown de…
A Landscape Perspective on Climate-Driven Risks to Food Security
Spatially and temporally unpredictable rainfall patterns presented food production challenges to small-scale agricultural communities, requiring multiple risk-mitigating strategies to increase food security. Although site-based investigations of the relationship between climate and agricultural production offer insights into how individual communities may have created long-term adaptations to manage risk, the inherent spatial variability of clima…
Refining Potential Source Regions via Combined Maize Niche Modeling and Isotopes
A Dialogue Between Empirical and Model-Based Agricultural Studies in Archaeology
How Many People Lived in the Chaco Regional System, and Why It Matters
Using a new approach to estimating its population assuming an Ideal Free Distribution, we suggest that even the highest estimates for the population served by the Chaco Regional System at its height have been somewhat too low. This complements recent findings that the US Southwest was greener and more productive for the millennium prior to about AD 1200 than afterwards, and that crude birth rates in this region, particularly in the San Juan Basin…
Simulating Social and Economic Specialization in Small-Scale Agricultural Societies
We introduce a model for agent specialization in small-scale human societies that incorporates planning based on social influence and economic state. Agents allocate their time among available tasks based on exchange, demand, competition from other agents, family needs, and previous experiences. Agents exchange and request goods using barter, balanced reciprocal exchange, and generalized reciprocal exchange. We use a weight-based reinforcement mo…
A 2,000-year reconstruction of the rain-fed maize agricultural niche in the US Southwest
Extrinsic site defensibility and landscape-based archaeological inference
Twenty-first century approaches to ancient problems
By documenting how humans adapted to changes in their environment that are often much greater than those experienced in the instrumental record, archaeology provides our only deep-time laboratory for highlighting the circumstances under which humans managed or failed to find to adaptive solutions to changing climate, not just over a few generations but over the longue durée . Patterning between climate-mediated environmental change and change in …
Great Houses, Shrines, and High Places
Phenomenological archaeologists and GIS scholars have turned much attention to visibility-who can see whom, and what can be seen-across ancient landscapes. Visible connections can be relatively easy to identify, but they present challenges to interpretation. Ancient peoples created intervisible connections among sites for purposes that included surveillance, defense, symbolism, shared identity, and communication. In the American Southwest, many h…
Cultural and Genetic Contexts for Early Turkey Domestication in the Northern Southwest
The turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) was independently domesticated in Mesoamerica and the Southwest, the latter as the only case of Native American animal domestication north of Mexico. In the upland (non-desert) portion of the American Southwest, distinctive closely related mtDNA lineages belonging to haplogroup H1 (thought to indicate domestication) occur from ca. 1 A.D. (Basketmaker II period) through early historic times. At many sites, low freq…
The Social Consequences of Climate Change in the Central Mesa Verde Region
The consequences of climate change vary over space and time. Effective studies of human responses to climatically induced environmental change must therefore sample the environmental diversity experienced by specific societies. We reconstruct population histories from A.D. 600 to 1280 in six environmentally distinct portions of the central Mesa Verde region in southwestern Colorado, relating these to climate-driven changes in agricultural potenti…
A 5,500-Year Model of Changing Crop Niches on the Tibetan Plateau
The timing and mechanics of the spread of agriculture to the Tibetan Plateau-one of the most challenging environmental contexts on earth-is a focus of recent work and debate. Understanding the timing and spread of agriculture is basic to archaeology and history worldwide. Researchers seek evidence for the earliest, furthest, or highest occurrences of diagnostic elements. However, the Tibetan Plateau case illustrates a key flaw in current work: ar…
Refining Potential Source Regions via Combined Maize Niche Modeling and Isotopes
A Reply to Bellezza
Comparing Maize Paleoproduction Models with Experimental Data
In agrarian societies, such as the ancestral Pueblo of the Four Corners region of the US Southwest (c. AD 600–1300), the resilience of crops in the face of climate challenges was of paramount concern. Consequently, students of these societies have invested much effort in modeling the response of traditional crops to ancient weather patterns. Less effort has been made to evaluate the quality of those reconstructions with experimental studies. Here…
A Dialogue Between Empirical and Model-Based Agricultural Studies in Archaeology
How to Make a Polity (In the Central Mesa Verde Region)
The degree to which prehispanic societies in the northern upland Southwest were hierarchical or egalitarian is still debated and seems likely to have changed through time. This paper examines the plausibility of village-spanning polities in the northern Southwest by simulating the coevolution of hierarchy and warfare using extensions to the Village Ecodynamics Project's agent-based model. We additionally compile empirical data on the population s…
A Landscape Perspective on Climate-Driven Risks to Food Security
Spatially and temporally unpredictable rainfall patterns presented food production challenges to small-scale agricultural communities, requiring multiple risk-mitigating strategies to increase food security. Although site-based investigations of the relationship between climate and agricultural production offer insights into how individual communities may have created long-term adaptations to manage risk, the inherent spatial variability of clima…
End-to-end Bayesian analysis for summarizing sets of radiocarbon dates
Archaeologists and demographers increasingly employ aggregations of published radiocarbon (14C) dates as demographic proxies summarizing changes in human activity in past societies. Presently, summed probability densities (SPDs) of calibrated radiocarbon dates are the dominant method of using 14C dates to reconstruct demographic trends. Unfortunately, SPDs are incapable of converging on the distribution that generated a set of radiocarbon measure…
Settlement persistence in the prehispanic central Mesa Verde Region
A low-frequency summer temperature reconstruction for the United States Southwest, 3000 BC–AD 2000
Temperature variability likely played an important role in determining the spread and productive potential of North America’s key prehispanic agricultural staple, maize. The United States Southwest (SWUS) also served as the gateway for maize to reach portions of North America to the north and east. Existing temperature reconstructions for the SWUS are typically low in spatial or temporal resolution, shallow in time depth, or subject to unknown de…
How agricultural producers use local knowledge, climate information, and on-farm “experiments” to address drought risk
How Many People Lived in the Chaco Regional System, and Why It Matters
Using a new approach to estimating its population assuming an Ideal Free Distribution, we suggest that even the highest estimates for the population served by the Chaco Regional System at its height have been somewhat too low. This complements recent findings that the US Southwest was greener and more productive for the millennium prior to about AD 1200 than afterwards, and that crude birth rates in this region, particularly in the San Juan Basin…
Benefits of Niche Construction in Northern Rio Grande Pueblo Agriculture
Geography (17 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (16 works) · Archaeology (14 works) · Agriculture (9 works) · Biology (9 works) · Ecology (8 works) · Environmental Science (7 works) · Ecology (6 works) · Cartography (5 works) · Climate change (5 works)