David Zeanah
Biographic Data
| ID | 4863295 |
|---|---|
| NAME | David Zeanah |
| GIVEN NAMES | David |
| FAMILY NAME | Zeanah |
| SIGNATURE | ZEANAH D |
| AFFILIATIONS | California State University, Sacramento |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1944-4555 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 168 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Gender convergent labor and technological change at the Pleistocene to Holocene Transition in the Great Basin
Great Basin wetlands allowed both genders to reliably hunt prey during the PHT. • Women butchered game and processed hides when hunting conflicted with childcare. • Middle Holocene desiccation triggered gendered labor divergence. • Women processed plants with high handling costs as men assumed prey handling tasks. • Reorganization of gendered labor explains key technological shifts. Specialized flake tools and eyed bone needles occur in Great Bas…
A New Open-Air Paleoindian Site in the Central Great Basin of North America
An open-air Paleoindian site in Grass Valley, Nevada is associated with a pre-Mazama paleosol containing Western Stemmed and Concave Base projectile points. Radiocarbon assays suggest occupation occurred sometime from the end of the Younger Dryas through the Early Holocene. The timing of the occupation is significant for understanding hunter-gatherer adaptations to the formation and desiccation of local wetlands. Notably, these are the earliest r…
Food Production and Domestication Produced Both Cooperative and Competitive Social Dynamics in Eastern North America
Recent research emphasises the importance of both within-group cooperation and between-group competition for human sociality, past and present. We hypothesise that the shift from foraging to food production in eastern North America provided novel socioecological conditions that impacted interpersonal and intergroup interactions in the region, inspiring both greater cooperation as well as competition. We predict that (1) successful exploitation of…
Variability in the organization and size of hunter-gatherer groups: Foragers do not live in small-scale societies
Early human occupation of a maritime desert, Barrow Island, North-West Australia
Mosaics of fire and water: The co-emergence of anthropogenic landscapes and intensive seed exploitation in the Australian arid zone
In arid Australia, the antiquity, role and ecological contexts of ‘firestick’ farming in seed-based foraging economies remain unclear. We use Landsat imagery to analyse effects of contemporary Martu hunting fires on seed-bearing grasses and forbs. Today, Martu rarely harvest wild seeds but inadvertently foster patches of grass when they burn to hunt burrowing monitor lizards. Therefore, anthropogenic seed patches need only be by-products of fires…
Foraging Models, Niche Construction, and the Eastern Agricultural Complex
Some proponents of niche construction challenge the validity of optimality models for investigating agricultural origins, but offer no alternative strategy for understanding the economic context of human foraging decisions. They refer to the Eastern Agricultural Complex as an example of how seed cultivation can result from resource enhancement rather than population-induced resource depression, contradicting a prediction inferred from the prey ch…
Martu ethnoarchaeology: Foraging ecology and the marginal value of site structure
Diesel and damper: Changes in seed use and mobility patterns following contact amongst the Martu of Western Australia
Megafauna in a continent of small game: Archaeological implications of Martu Camel hunting in Australia's Western Desert
Risky Pursuits: Martu Hunting and the Effects of Prey Mobility: Reply to Ugan and Simms
We recently demonstrated that prey size is not a reliable predictor of post-encounter return rates for resources Martu hunters regularly handle in Australia’s Western Desert (Bird et al. 2009). Ugan and Simms are skeptical of our calculations of these returns, especially in our inclusion of tracking as pursuit time. Here we review how these variables were recorded and calculated, update the analysis with more data, and clarify the importance of p…
Sexual division of labor and central place foraging: A model for the Carson Desert of western Nevada
Central Place Foraging and Prehistoric Pinyon Utilization in the Great Basin
Thinking outside the box: A new perspective on diet breadth and sexual division of labor in the Prearchaic Great Basin
The archaeological record of the Pleistocene/Holocene transition (PHT) demonstrates that the technology and mobility of Prearchaic hunter-gatherers differed dramatically from later Holocene foragers, suggesting a hunting-oriented subsistence. However, meager PHT faunal assemblages imply a generalized, broad-spectrum diet. Ethnographic analogy fails to provide a behavioral framework for understanding this discrepancy because the resource structure…
Thinking outside the box: A new perspective on diet breadth and sexual division of labor in the Prearchaic Great Basin
The archaeological record of the Pleistocene/Holocene transition (PHT) demonstrates that the technology and mobility of Prearchaic hunter-gatherers differed dramatically from later Holocene foragers, suggesting a hunting-oriented subsistence. However, meager PHT faunal assemblages imply a generalized, broad-spectrum diet. Ethnographic analogy fails to provide a behavioral framework for understanding this discrepancy because the resource structure…
Variability in the organization and size of hunter-gatherer groups: Foragers do not live in small-scale societies
Diesel and damper: Changes in seed use and mobility patterns following contact amongst the Martu of Western Australia
Mosaics of fire and water: The co-emergence of anthropogenic landscapes and intensive seed exploitation in the Australian arid zone
In arid Australia, the antiquity, role and ecological contexts of ‘firestick’ farming in seed-based foraging economies remain unclear. We use Landsat imagery to analyse effects of contemporary Martu hunting fires on seed-bearing grasses and forbs. Today, Martu rarely harvest wild seeds but inadvertently foster patches of grass when they burn to hunt burrowing monitor lizards. Therefore, anthropogenic seed patches need only be by-products of fires…
Foraging Models, Niche Construction, and the Eastern Agricultural Complex
Some proponents of niche construction challenge the validity of optimality models for investigating agricultural origins, but offer no alternative strategy for understanding the economic context of human foraging decisions. They refer to the Eastern Agricultural Complex as an example of how seed cultivation can result from resource enhancement rather than population-induced resource depression, contradicting a prediction inferred from the prey ch…
Risky Pursuits: Martu Hunting and the Effects of Prey Mobility: Reply to Ugan and Simms
We recently demonstrated that prey size is not a reliable predictor of post-encounter return rates for resources Martu hunters regularly handle in Australia’s Western Desert (Bird et al. 2009). Ugan and Simms are skeptical of our calculations of these returns, especially in our inclusion of tracking as pursuit time. Here we review how these variables were recorded and calculated, update the analysis with more data, and clarify the importance of p…
Central Place Foraging and Prehistoric Pinyon Utilization in the Great Basin
Thinking outside the box: A new perspective on diet breadth and sexual division of labor in the Prearchaic Great Basin
The archaeological record of the Pleistocene/Holocene transition (PHT) demonstrates that the technology and mobility of Prearchaic hunter-gatherers differed dramatically from later Holocene foragers, suggesting a hunting-oriented subsistence. However, meager PHT faunal assemblages imply a generalized, broad-spectrum diet. Ethnographic analogy fails to provide a behavioral framework for understanding this discrepancy because the resource structure…
Sexual division of labor and central place foraging: A model for the Carson Desert of western Nevada
Risky Pursuits: Martu Hunting and the Effects of Prey Mobility: Reply to Ugan and Simms
We recently demonstrated that prey size is not a reliable predictor of post-encounter return rates for resources Martu hunters regularly handle in Australia’s Western Desert (Bird et al. 2009). Ugan and Simms are skeptical of our calculations of these returns, especially in our inclusion of tracking as pursuit time. Here we review how these variables were recorded and calculated, update the analysis with more data, and clarify the importance of p…
Megafauna in a continent of small game: Archaeological implications of Martu Camel hunting in Australia's Western Desert
Diesel and damper: Changes in seed use and mobility patterns following contact amongst the Martu of Western Australia
Martu ethnoarchaeology: Foraging ecology and the marginal value of site structure
Early human occupation of a maritime desert, Barrow Island, North-West Australia
Mosaics of fire and water: The co-emergence of anthropogenic landscapes and intensive seed exploitation in the Australian arid zone
In arid Australia, the antiquity, role and ecological contexts of ‘firestick’ farming in seed-based foraging economies remain unclear. We use Landsat imagery to analyse effects of contemporary Martu hunting fires on seed-bearing grasses and forbs. Today, Martu rarely harvest wild seeds but inadvertently foster patches of grass when they burn to hunt burrowing monitor lizards. Therefore, anthropogenic seed patches need only be by-products of fires…
Foraging Models, Niche Construction, and the Eastern Agricultural Complex
Some proponents of niche construction challenge the validity of optimality models for investigating agricultural origins, but offer no alternative strategy for understanding the economic context of human foraging decisions. They refer to the Eastern Agricultural Complex as an example of how seed cultivation can result from resource enhancement rather than population-induced resource depression, contradicting a prediction inferred from the prey ch…
Variability in the organization and size of hunter-gatherer groups: Foragers do not live in small-scale societies
Food Production and Domestication Produced Both Cooperative and Competitive Social Dynamics in Eastern North America
Recent research emphasises the importance of both within-group cooperation and between-group competition for human sociality, past and present. We hypothesise that the shift from foraging to food production in eastern North America provided novel socioecological conditions that impacted interpersonal and intergroup interactions in the region, inspiring both greater cooperation as well as competition. We predict that (1) successful exploitation of…
A New Open-Air Paleoindian Site in the Central Great Basin of North America
An open-air Paleoindian site in Grass Valley, Nevada is associated with a pre-Mazama paleosol containing Western Stemmed and Concave Base projectile points. Radiocarbon assays suggest occupation occurred sometime from the end of the Younger Dryas through the Early Holocene. The timing of the occupation is significant for understanding hunter-gatherer adaptations to the formation and desiccation of local wetlands. Notably, these are the earliest r…
Gender convergent labor and technological change at the Pleistocene to Holocene Transition in the Great Basin
Great Basin wetlands allowed both genders to reliably hunt prey during the PHT. • Women butchered game and processed hides when hunting conflicted with childcare. • Middle Holocene desiccation triggered gendered labor divergence. • Women processed plants with high handling costs as men assumed prey handling tasks. • Reorganization of gendered labor explains key technological shifts. Specialized flake tools and eyed bone needles occur in Great Bas…
Geography (11 works) · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology (11 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (9 works) · Biology (9 works) · Ecology (8 works) · Foraging (8 works) · Archaeology (7 works) · Wildlife Ecology and Conservation (7 works) · Ecology (5 works) · Optimal foraging theory (5 works)