Stephen E Nash
Biographic Data
| ID | 84221 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Stephen E Nash |
| GIVEN NAMES | Stephen E |
| FAMILY NAME | Nash |
| SIGNATURE | NASH S E |
| AFFILIATIONS | Denver Museum of Nature and Science |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 87 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1996 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Tree-Ring Dating
The science of dendrochronology, or tree-ring dating, provides archaeologists with the most accurate, precise, and therefore reliable dates available to guide their analyses. In the 1920s through 1940s, dendroarchaeology research on “tree-time” forced archaeologists to radically revise their understanding of the prehistoric past. However, the history of archaeological tree-ring dating has until now been woefully inadequate. This chapter is excerp…
Pushing Boundaries in Southwestern Archaeology
The University Press of Colorado, including the Utah State University Press imprint, publishes forty to forty-five new titles each year, with the goal of facilitating communication among scholars and providing the peoples of the state and region with a fair assessment of their histories, cultures, a
The Curious Douglas-Fir (Pseudotsuga Menziesii) Trees in Schulman Grove, Mesa Verde National Park, Southwestern Colorado, USA
In 1954, archaeologists James Allen Lancaster and Don Watson and dendrochronologist Edmund Schulman asserted that a small grove of Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii [Mirbel] Franco var. glauca [Beissener] Franco) trees in Navajo Canyon on the west side of Chapin Mesa in Mesa Verde National Park contained evidence of stone-axe-cut tree limbs. In 1965, archaeologists Robert Nichols and David Smith published an article entitled 'Evidence of Prehist…
NAGPRA at 30
On November 16, 1990, US President George H.W. Bush signed into law the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). This federal legislation marked the culmination of decades of debate among scientists, curators, and Native American leaders and activists over the control of ancestral human remains and sacred, funerary, and communally owned objects. Anthropologists have now investigated myriad aspects of NAGPRA, from its under…
P-XRF compositional analysis of obsidian from O Block Cave, New Mexico
Re-evaluating the Mimbres Region Prehispanic Chronometric Record
Many decades of archaeological research in the Mimbres region have resulted in hundreds of chronometric dates obtained from contexts dating prior to A.D. 1450, but until now these data have not been compiled into a single database. Using dendrochronological, radiocarbon, and archaeomagnetic dates, we analyze each of the chronometric data sets to identify patterns and biases that help us better understand the tempo and duration of fundamental tran…
John Beach Rinaldo
During an archaeological career that spanned four decades, John Beach Rinaldo (1912-1999) made substantive contributions to the delineation and definition of the Mogollon Culture, the culture history of west-central New Mexico and east-central Arizona, and the identification of material relationships between precolumbian cultures and modern-day Zuni. For a variety of reasons, Rinaldo is overshadowed by his Field Museum collaborator Paul Sidney Ma…
Identification and dendrochronology of wood found at the Ziegler Reservoir fossil site, Colorado, USA
Over 300 wood fossils were collected from the Ziegler Reservoir fossil site near Snowmass Village in central Colorado, USA. Wood fossils range from fragments of stems and branches only a few centimeters in diameter and length to whole logs >50 cm diameter and >10 m length. Many of the fossils were collected from a “beach” horizon, where they appear to have been washed up on the side of the interglacial lake and buried. The wood is mainly fir ( Ab…
Summary of the Snowmastodon Project Special Volume A high-elevation, multi-proxy biotic and environmental record of MIS 6–4 from the Ziegler Reservoir fossil site, Snowmass Village, Colorado, USA
In North America, terrestrial records of biodiversity and climate change that span Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage (MIS) 5 are rare. Where found, they provide insight into how the coupling of the ocean–atmosphere system is manifested in biotic and environmental records and how the biosphere responds to climate change. In 2010–2011, construction at Ziegler Reservoir near Snowmass Village, Colorado (USA) revealed a nearly continuous, lacustrine/wetland…
Signal Strength In Sub-Annual Tree-Ring Chronologies from Pinus ponderosa In Northern New Mexico
The creation of chronologies from intra-annual features in tree rings is increasingly utilized in dendrochronology to create season-specific climate histories, among other applications. A conifer latewood-width network has recently been developed for the southwestern United States, but considerable uncertainty remains in understanding site and species differences in signal strength and sample depth requirements. As part of the 22nd annual North A…
Anthropology
This is Chapter 7 of the comprehensive history of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, published in the Denver Museum of Nature & Science Annals vol. 4
Hannah Marie Wormington
Hannah Marie Wormington's (1914–1994) archaeological career spanned six decades. She made many important contributions to the development of North American archaeological method, theory, and knowledge, particularly in the study of Paleoindian and Archaic cultures across the American West. This paper offers a critical analysis of Wormington's contributions to archaeological research, collections acquisition and curation, and exhibition and outreac…
Moments, Movements, and Metaphors
Paul Sidney Martin identified two 'watershed' moments in his career: (1) his adoption of the tenets of the New Archaeology and (2) the changes he made in his approach to pedagogy at the Vernon field school. We explore the relationship between these two watershed moments using Martin's archival record. We find that, rather than being watershed moments, these changes have deeper roots in the trajectory of Martin's work and career and moreover are c…
A Future for Museum Anthropology
Fundamentals of tree‐ring research. James H. Speer
Civic Engagements in Museum Anthropology
Nagpra After Two Decades
A Conflicted Legacy
Paul Sidney Martin excavated archaeological sites in southwestern Colorado for the State Historical Society of Colorado and the Field Museum of Natural History between 1927 and 1938, although he began working for museums in 1925. His work in three realms-research, exhibition and outreach, and collections-helped redefine the role of the museum anthropologist at a time when archaeological research, particularly that based in museums, was in transit…
A Future for Museum Anthropology
Research Opportunities at the Field Museum
Archaeological Tree-Ring Dating at the Millennium
A slice through time
Southwestern (U.S.A.) Archaeological Tree-Ring Dating
Dendrochronology, the science of assigning precise and accurate calendar dates to annual growth rings in trees (Stokes and Smiley 1968), was the first independent dating technique available to prehistorians. Archaeological tree-ring dating came of age at a time when North American archaeologists concerned themselves primarily with time/space systematics (Willey and Sabloff 1980) and yet had no absolute and independent dating techniques availab…
Great Excavations
Great Excavations: Tales of Early Southwestern Archaeology, 1 888-1939, is an "intentionally selective" account of eight major archaeological expeditions to the Southwest in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It succeeds in achieving the goals set forth in the prologue. The reader is taken on an "armchair tour"  of early Southwestern excavations in the hope that the resulting "basic understanding of what the early archaeologists did" will …
A Cutting-Date Estimation Technique for Ponderosa Pine and Douglas Fir Wood Specimens
The interpretation of noncutting tree-ring dates from archaeological sites often proves problematic, and many sites in the Southwest may be more securely dated if cutting dates can be reliably estimated. Analysis of 54 ponderosa pine and 46 Douglas fir specimens reveals that the relationship between heartwood and sapwood in these species is sufficiently structured that regression analysis can be used to estimate the number of sapwood rings, and b…
NAGPRA at 30
On November 16, 1990, US President George H.W. Bush signed into law the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). This federal legislation marked the culmination of decades of debate among scientists, curators, and Native American leaders and activists over the control of ancestral human remains and sacred, funerary, and communally owned objects. Anthropologists have now investigated myriad aspects of NAGPRA, from its under…
Re-evaluating the Mimbres Region Prehispanic Chronometric Record
Many decades of archaeological research in the Mimbres region have resulted in hundreds of chronometric dates obtained from contexts dating prior to A.D. 1450, but until now these data have not been compiled into a single database. Using dendrochronological, radiocarbon, and archaeomagnetic dates, we analyze each of the chronometric data sets to identify patterns and biases that help us better understand the tempo and duration of fundamental tran…
Nagpra After Two Decades
A Conflicted Legacy
Paul Sidney Martin excavated archaeological sites in southwestern Colorado for the State Historical Society of Colorado and the Field Museum of Natural History between 1927 and 1938, although he began working for museums in 1925. His work in three realms-research, exhibition and outreach, and collections-helped redefine the role of the museum anthropologist at a time when archaeological research, particularly that based in museums, was in transit…
A Cutting-Date Estimation Technique for Ponderosa Pine and Douglas Fir Wood Specimens
The interpretation of noncutting tree-ring dates from archaeological sites often proves problematic, and many sites in the Southwest may be more securely dated if cutting dates can be reliably estimated. Analysis of 54 ponderosa pine and 46 Douglas fir specimens reveals that the relationship between heartwood and sapwood in these species is sufficiently structured that regression analysis can be used to estimate the number of sapwood rings, and b…
Archaeological Tree-Ring Dating at the Millennium
A Future for Museum Anthropology
Civic Engagements in Museum Anthropology
Moments, Movements, and Metaphors
Paul Sidney Martin identified two 'watershed' moments in his career: (1) his adoption of the tenets of the New Archaeology and (2) the changes he made in his approach to pedagogy at the Vernon field school. We explore the relationship between these two watershed moments using Martin's archival record. We find that, rather than being watershed moments, these changes have deeper roots in the trajectory of Martin's work and career and moreover are c…
A Future for Museum Anthropology
P-XRF compositional analysis of obsidian from O Block Cave, New Mexico
Is Curation a Useful Heuristic
Southwestern (U.S.A.) Archaeological Tree-Ring Dating
Dendrochronology, the science of assigning precise and accurate calendar dates to annual growth rings in trees (Stokes and Smiley 1968), was the first independent dating technique available to prehistorians. Archaeological tree-ring dating came of age at a time when North American archaeologists concerned themselves primarily with time/space systematics (Willey and Sabloff 1980) and yet had no absolute and independent dating techniques availab…
Great Excavations
Great Excavations: Tales of Early Southwestern Archaeology, 1 888-1939, is an "intentionally selective" account of eight major archaeological expeditions to the Southwest in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It succeeds in achieving the goals set forth in the prologue. The reader is taken on an "armchair tour"  of early Southwestern excavations in the hope that the resulting "basic understanding of what the early archaeologists did" will …
A Cutting-Date Estimation Technique for Ponderosa Pine and Douglas Fir Wood Specimens
The interpretation of noncutting tree-ring dates from archaeological sites often proves problematic, and many sites in the Southwest may be more securely dated if cutting dates can be reliably estimated. Analysis of 54 ponderosa pine and 46 Douglas fir specimens reveals that the relationship between heartwood and sapwood in these species is sufficiently structured that regression analysis can be used to estimate the number of sapwood rings, and b…
A slice through time
Archaeological Tree-Ring Dating at the Millennium
Research Opportunities at the Field Museum
Nagpra After Two Decades
A Conflicted Legacy
Paul Sidney Martin excavated archaeological sites in southwestern Colorado for the State Historical Society of Colorado and the Field Museum of Natural History between 1927 and 1938, although he began working for museums in 1925. His work in three realms-research, exhibition and outreach, and collections-helped redefine the role of the museum anthropologist at a time when archaeological research, particularly that based in museums, was in transit…
A Future for Museum Anthropology
Fundamentals of tree‐ring research. James H. Speer
Civic Engagements in Museum Anthropology
A Future for Museum Anthropology
Signal Strength In Sub-Annual Tree-Ring Chronologies from Pinus ponderosa In Northern New Mexico
The creation of chronologies from intra-annual features in tree rings is increasingly utilized in dendrochronology to create season-specific climate histories, among other applications. A conifer latewood-width network has recently been developed for the southwestern United States, but considerable uncertainty remains in understanding site and species differences in signal strength and sample depth requirements. As part of the 22nd annual North A…
Anthropology
This is Chapter 7 of the comprehensive history of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, published in the Denver Museum of Nature & Science Annals vol. 4
Hannah Marie Wormington
Hannah Marie Wormington's (1914–1994) archaeological career spanned six decades. She made many important contributions to the development of North American archaeological method, theory, and knowledge, particularly in the study of Paleoindian and Archaic cultures across the American West. This paper offers a critical analysis of Wormington's contributions to archaeological research, collections acquisition and curation, and exhibition and outreac…
Moments, Movements, and Metaphors
Paul Sidney Martin identified two 'watershed' moments in his career: (1) his adoption of the tenets of the New Archaeology and (2) the changes he made in his approach to pedagogy at the Vernon field school. We explore the relationship between these two watershed moments using Martin's archival record. We find that, rather than being watershed moments, these changes have deeper roots in the trajectory of Martin's work and career and moreover are c…
Identification and dendrochronology of wood found at the Ziegler Reservoir fossil site, Colorado, USA
Over 300 wood fossils were collected from the Ziegler Reservoir fossil site near Snowmass Village in central Colorado, USA. Wood fossils range from fragments of stems and branches only a few centimeters in diameter and length to whole logs >50 cm diameter and >10 m length. Many of the fossils were collected from a “beach” horizon, where they appear to have been washed up on the side of the interglacial lake and buried. The wood is mainly fir ( Ab…
Summary of the Snowmastodon Project Special Volume A high-elevation, multi-proxy biotic and environmental record of MIS 6–4 from the Ziegler Reservoir fossil site, Snowmass Village, Colorado, USA
In North America, terrestrial records of biodiversity and climate change that span Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage (MIS) 5 are rare. Where found, they provide insight into how the coupling of the ocean–atmosphere system is manifested in biotic and environmental records and how the biosphere responds to climate change. In 2010–2011, construction at Ziegler Reservoir near Snowmass Village, Colorado (USA) revealed a nearly continuous, lacustrine/wetland…
John Beach Rinaldo
During an archaeological career that spanned four decades, John Beach Rinaldo (1912-1999) made substantive contributions to the delineation and definition of the Mogollon Culture, the culture history of west-central New Mexico and east-central Arizona, and the identification of material relationships between precolumbian cultures and modern-day Zuni. For a variety of reasons, Rinaldo is overshadowed by his Field Museum collaborator Paul Sidney Ma…
Re-evaluating the Mimbres Region Prehispanic Chronometric Record
Many decades of archaeological research in the Mimbres region have resulted in hundreds of chronometric dates obtained from contexts dating prior to A.D. 1450, but until now these data have not been compiled into a single database. Using dendrochronological, radiocarbon, and archaeomagnetic dates, we analyze each of the chronometric data sets to identify patterns and biases that help us better understand the tempo and duration of fundamental tran…
P-XRF compositional analysis of obsidian from O Block Cave, New Mexico
NAGPRA at 30
On November 16, 1990, US President George H.W. Bush signed into law the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). This federal legislation marked the culmination of decades of debate among scientists, curators, and Native American leaders and activists over the control of ancestral human remains and sacred, funerary, and communally owned objects. Anthropologists have now investigated myriad aspects of NAGPRA, from its under…
The Curious Douglas-Fir (Pseudotsuga Menziesii) Trees in Schulman Grove, Mesa Verde National Park, Southwestern Colorado, USA
In 1954, archaeologists James Allen Lancaster and Don Watson and dendrochronologist Edmund Schulman asserted that a small grove of Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii [Mirbel] Franco var. glauca [Beissener] Franco) trees in Navajo Canyon on the west side of Chapin Mesa in Mesa Verde National Park contained evidence of stone-axe-cut tree limbs. In 1965, archaeologists Robert Nichols and David Smith published an article entitled 'Evidence of Prehist…
Pushing Boundaries in Southwestern Archaeology
The University Press of Colorado, including the Utah State University Press imprint, publishes forty to forty-five new titles each year, with the goal of facilitating communication among scholars and providing the peoples of the state and region with a fair assessment of their histories, cultures, a
Archaeology (18 works) · History (14 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (12 works) · Geography (10 works) · History (10 works) · Tree-ring climate responses (9 works) · Biology (7 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Dendrochronology (7 works) · Sociology (6 works)