Joan Brenner Coltrain
Biographic Data
| ID | 84203 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Joan Brenner Coltrain |
| GIVEN NAMES | Joan Brenner |
| FAMILY NAME | Coltrain |
| SIGNATURE | COLTRAIN J B |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Utah |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2461-5136 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 36 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 403 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 36 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1994 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
Drought, Population Pressure, and Inequality Drive Intergroup Conflict in the Precontact North American Southwest
To anticipate relationships between future climate change and societal violence, we need theory to establish causal links and case studies to estimate interactions between driving forces. Here, we couple evolutionary ecology with a machine-learning statistical approach to investigate the long-term effects of climate change, population growth, and inequality on intergroup conflict among farmers in the North American Southwest. Through field invest…
Climate and oceanic condition changes influence subsistence economic adaptation through intensification on the Central Andean coasts
Turkey domestication and provisioning in the Mesa Verde Region (US Southwest), Pueblo I to Pueblo III (725-1280 CE)
Late Holocene tule elk (Cervus canadensis nannodes) resource depression and distant patch use in central California
Previous research has documented declines in the abundance of high-return resources including tule elk (Cervus canadensis nannodes) over the past three millennia in central California, suggesting the occurrence of resource depression. We test the hypothesis that hunting depressed tule elk in this setting by articulating stable isotope analyses from 88 directly dated tule elk specimens with data on the age structure and skeletal part representatio…
Defining isotopic signatures of potential procurement sources
Socioecological Dynamics Structuring the Spread of Farming in the North American Basin-Plateau Region
The spread of agriculture is a major driver of social and environmental change throughout the Holocene, yet experimental and ethnographic data indicate that farming is less profitable than foraging, so why would individuals choose to adopt agriculture leading to its expansion? Ideal distribution models offer one framework to answer this question: Individuals should adopt less profitable subsistence strategies and occupy more marginal environments…
Evidence for a winter-snowpack derived water source for the Fremont maize farmers of Range Creek Canyon, Utah, USA
We present results of multiproxy analysis of a sediment core collected from Billy Slope Meadow, a spring-fed wet meadow in Range Creek Canyon, Utah. Range Creek Canyon was the home to Fremont maize farmers between roughly 1200 and 800 cal BP (AD 750–1150). Stable carbon isotope analysis of core sediments from Billy Slope Meadow indicate the Billy Slope Meadow site was used as a field for maize agriculture during that time. Some scholars have sugg…
The character of conflict
OBJECTIVES: This study uses osteological and radiocarbon datasets combined with formal quantitative analyses to test hypotheses concerning the character of conflict in the Nasca highlands during the Late Intermediate Period (LIP, 950-1450 C.E.). We develop and test osteological expectations regarding what patterns should be observed if violence was characterized by intragroup violence, ritual conflict, intermittent raiding, or internecine warfare…
Interdisciplinary Analysis of the Lehi Horse
Although recognized as one of the most significant cultural transformations in North America, the reintroduction of the horse to the continent after AD 1492 has been rarely addressed by archaeological science. A key contributing factor behind this limited study is the apparent absence of equine skeletal remains from early historic archaeological contexts. Here, we present a multidisciplinary analysis of a horse skeleton recovered in Lehi, Utah, o…
Reevaluation of Basketmaker II origins
A Potential Oxygen Isotope Signature of Maize Beer Consumption
The consumption of alcohol in the past is a much-studied subject, largely because alcoholic beverages play an important role in numerous sociopolitical institutions. While alcoholic beverages have been widely acknowledged to be an important component of society, the ability to recognize alcohol intake in ancient contexts has proven difficult. As a result, many authors investigating ancient alcohol have used indirect indicators to reconstruct cons…
Preliminary evidence for the efficacy of the Canine Surrogacy Approach in the Great Lakes
Revisiting Hogup Cave, Utah
The remarkable finds from the trans-Holocene archaeological record excavated at Hogup Cave, Utah, helped define our understanding of Great Basin prehistory. However, many scholars doubt the integrity of the site's depositional sequence and resulting chronological interpretations. To resolve these concerns, we produce several Bayesian chronological models combining 14 new radiocarbon dates with the results of past dating efforts. We first present …
Thule whaling at Point Barrow, Alaska
The stable and radio-isotope chemistry of southeastern Utah Basketmaker II burials
A Late Holocene Population Bottleneck in California Tule Elk (Cervus elaphus nannodes)
Geographic variation in bone carbonate and water δ18O values in Mendoza, Argentina and their relationship to prehistoric economy and settlement
A re-assessment of Basketmaker II cave 7
Invited response to K. Ryan’s comments on Coltrain et al. (2004) and Coltrain (2009)
Stable isotopes, diet, and taphonomy
Variation in collagen stable nitrogen values in black-tailed jackrabbits (Lepus californicus) in relation to small-scale differences in climate, soil, and topography
Temporal and Dietary Reconstruction of Past Aleut Populations
A recent accelerator radiocarbon study of Eastern Aleutian human remains that Ales Hrdlicka collected in the 1930s contradicts his long-standing assertion that brachycranic Neo-Aleut people, moving west along the island chain at ca. 1000 BP, replaced the dolichocranic Paleo-Aleut population. Radiocarbon dates for Paleo-Aleut individuals ranged from ca. 3400 to 400 cal BP, covering the entire temporal span of the study and indicating that Paleo-Al…
Stable isotope chemistry, population histories and Late Prehistoric subsistence change in the Aleutian Islands
Overdone overkill – the archaeological perspective on Tasmanian megafaunal extinctions
Alaska Peninsula Stable Isotope and Radioisotope Chemistry
Purified bone collagen from a small suite of human remains recovered at three sites on the Alaska Peninsula (Port Moller, Brooks River, and Mink Island) were analyzed for stable carbon and nitrogen isotope chemistry and were accelerator radiocarbon dated. Because samples sizes were small and faunal isotope chemistry lacking, results should be considered preliminary. However, these data indicate that each locality was represented by a somewhat dif…
The stable and radio-isotope chemistry of southeastern Utah Basketmaker II burials
Climate and Diet in Fremont Prehistory
Research reported here is based on the stable isotope (δ 13 C,δ 15 N) and radiocarbon chemistry of Fremont burials from wetlands lining the eastern shores of the Great Salt Lake (GSL). Bone collagen stable isotope signatures covary with reliance on maize and intake of animal protein, facilitating useful reconstructions of past diet. Among the GSL Fremont, economic strategies vary over time with an initial increase in reliance on maize (A.D. 400–8…
Variation in collagen stable nitrogen values in black-tailed jackrabbits (Lepus californicus) in relation to small-scale differences in climate, soil, and topography
Sealing, whaling and caribou
The Stable- and Radio-Isotope Chemistry of Western Basketmaker Burials
The timing and degree of reliance on maize agriculture in the Four Corners region of the American Southwest has been a central issue in studies that examine the origins of Puebloan society. Both diffusionist (various, but see Wills 1995) and migrationist (Berry and Berry 1986; Matson 1991) models have been proposed to explain the processes responsible for the movement of maize (Zea mays) north into the Four Corners region. This paper reports bone…
Overdone overkill – the archaeological perspective on Tasmanian megafaunal extinctions
Geographic variation in bone carbonate and water δ18O values in Mendoza, Argentina and their relationship to prehistoric economy and settlement
Hrdlička's Aleutian Population-Replacement Hypothesis
In a 1945 monograph, Hrdlika argued that, at 1,000 BP, PaleoAleut people on Umnak Island were replaced by NeoAleut groups moving west along the island chain. His argument was based on cranial measurements of skeletal remains from Chaluka Midden and mummified remains from Kagamil and Ship Rock burial caves. By the 1980s, researchers had concluded that the transition demonstrated by Hrdlika, from a high oblong to a lowvaulted wide face, was merely …
Inferring Population Continuity Versus Replacement with aDNA
In The Aleutian and Commander Islands and Their Inhabitants (Philadelphia: Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology, 1945), Hrdlička proposed a population replacement event in the Aleutian Islands approximately 1,000 years ago based on a perceived temporal shift in cranial morphology. However, the archaeological record indicates cultural, and presumed population, continuity for more than 4,000 years. We use mtDNA haplogroup data in the series of p…
Sealing, whaling and caribou revisited
The first archaeological evidence for death by spearing in Australia
An Aboriginal man done to death on the dunes 4000 years ago was recently discovered during excavations beneath a bus shelter in Narrabeen on Sydney's northern beaches. The presence of backed microliths and the evidence for trauma in the bones showed that he had been killed with stone-tipped spears. Now we know how these backed points were used. A punishment ritual is implied by analogies with contact-period observations made in the eighteenth cen…
Stable isotopes, diet, and taphonomy
Stable isotope chemistry, population histories and Late Prehistoric subsistence change in the Aleutian Islands
Alaska Peninsula Stable Isotope and Radioisotope Chemistry
Purified bone collagen from a small suite of human remains recovered at three sites on the Alaska Peninsula (Port Moller, Brooks River, and Mink Island) were analyzed for stable carbon and nitrogen isotope chemistry and were accelerator radiocarbon dated. Because samples sizes were small and faunal isotope chemistry lacking, results should be considered preliminary. However, these data indicate that each locality was represented by a somewhat dif…
Revisiting Hogup Cave, Utah
The remarkable finds from the trans-Holocene archaeological record excavated at Hogup Cave, Utah, helped define our understanding of Great Basin prehistory. However, many scholars doubt the integrity of the site's depositional sequence and resulting chronological interpretations. To resolve these concerns, we produce several Bayesian chronological models combining 14 new radiocarbon dates with the results of past dating efforts. We first present …
Reevaluation of Basketmaker II origins
Evidence for a winter-snowpack derived water source for the Fremont maize farmers of Range Creek Canyon, Utah, USA
We present results of multiproxy analysis of a sediment core collected from Billy Slope Meadow, a spring-fed wet meadow in Range Creek Canyon, Utah. Range Creek Canyon was the home to Fremont maize farmers between roughly 1200 and 800 cal BP (AD 750–1150). Stable carbon isotope analysis of core sediments from Billy Slope Meadow indicate the Billy Slope Meadow site was used as a field for maize agriculture during that time. Some scholars have sugg…
Oxygen isotopes in cellulose identify source water for archaeological maize in the American Southwest
Thule whaling at Point Barrow, Alaska
A Late Holocene Population Bottleneck in California Tule Elk (Cervus elaphus nannodes)
Stable isotope and protein analyses of Cuddie Springs Genyornis
Stable isotopes and proteins in Genyornis remains from Cuddie Springs are too depleted for dating, but this does not imply the bones are older than surrounding sediments
Late Holocene tule elk (Cervus canadensis nannodes) resource depression and distant patch use in central California
Previous research has documented declines in the abundance of high-return resources including tule elk (Cervus canadensis nannodes) over the past three millennia in central California, suggesting the occurrence of resource depression. We test the hypothesis that hunting depressed tule elk in this setting by articulating stable isotope analyses from 88 directly dated tule elk specimens with data on the age structure and skeletal part representatio…
The character of conflict
OBJECTIVES: This study uses osteological and radiocarbon datasets combined with formal quantitative analyses to test hypotheses concerning the character of conflict in the Nasca highlands during the Late Intermediate Period (LIP, 950-1450 C.E.). We develop and test osteological expectations regarding what patterns should be observed if violence was characterized by intragroup violence, ritual conflict, intermittent raiding, or internecine warfare…
A re-assessment of Basketmaker II cave 7
Defining isotopic signatures of potential procurement sources
Burkina Faso herdsmen and optimal foraging theory
Climate and Diet in Fremont Prehistory
Research reported here is based on the stable isotope (δ 13 C,δ 15 N) and radiocarbon chemistry of Fremont burials from wetlands lining the eastern shores of the Great Salt Lake (GSL). Bone collagen stable isotope signatures covary with reliance on maize and intake of animal protein, facilitating useful reconstructions of past diet. Among the GSL Fremont, economic strategies vary over time with an initial increase in reliance on maize (A.D. 400–8…
Sealing, whaling and caribou
Stable isotope and protein analyses of Cuddie Springs Genyornis
Stable isotopes and proteins in Genyornis remains from Cuddie Springs are too depleted for dating, but this does not imply the bones are older than surrounding sediments
Oxygen isotopes in cellulose identify source water for archaeological maize in the American Southwest
Hrdlička's Aleutian Population-Replacement Hypothesis
In a 1945 monograph, Hrdlika argued that, at 1,000 BP, PaleoAleut people on Umnak Island were replaced by NeoAleut groups moving west along the island chain. His argument was based on cranial measurements of skeletal remains from Chaluka Midden and mummified remains from Kagamil and Ship Rock burial caves. By the 1980s, researchers had concluded that the transition demonstrated by Hrdlika, from a high oblong to a lowvaulted wide face, was merely …
The first archaeological evidence for death by spearing in Australia
An Aboriginal man done to death on the dunes 4000 years ago was recently discovered during excavations beneath a bus shelter in Narrabeen on Sydney's northern beaches. The presence of backed microliths and the evidence for trauma in the bones showed that he had been killed with stone-tipped spears. Now we know how these backed points were used. A punishment ritual is implied by analogies with contact-period observations made in the eighteenth cen…
The Stable- and Radio-Isotope Chemistry of Western Basketmaker Burials
The timing and degree of reliance on maize agriculture in the Four Corners region of the American Southwest has been a central issue in studies that examine the origins of Puebloan society. Both diffusionist (various, but see Wills 1995) and migrationist (Berry and Berry 1986; Matson 1991) models have been proposed to explain the processes responsible for the movement of maize (Zea mays) north into the Four Corners region. This paper reports bone…
Patterns of faunal extinction and paleoclimatic change from mid-Holocene mammoth and polar bear remains, Pribilof Islands, Alaska
Cave, a lava tube cave on St. Paul Island in the Pribilofs, has recently produced a mid-Holocene vertebrate faunal assemblage including woolly mammoth, polar bear, caribou, and Arctic fox. Several dates on the mammoth remains converge on 5700 14 C yr BP. These dates, ~ 2300 yr younger than mammoth dates previously published from the Pribilof Islands, make these the youngest remains of proboscideans, and of non-extinct Quaternary megafauna, recove…
Sealing, whaling and caribou revisited
Inferring Population Continuity Versus Replacement with aDNA
In The Aleutian and Commander Islands and Their Inhabitants (Philadelphia: Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology, 1945), Hrdlička proposed a population replacement event in the Aleutian Islands approximately 1,000 years ago based on a perceived temporal shift in cranial morphology. However, the archaeological record indicates cultural, and presumed population, continuity for more than 4,000 years. We use mtDNA haplogroup data in the series of p…
Temporal and Dietary Reconstruction of Past Aleut Populations
A recent accelerator radiocarbon study of Eastern Aleutian human remains that Ales Hrdlicka collected in the 1930s contradicts his long-standing assertion that brachycranic Neo-Aleut people, moving west along the island chain at ca. 1000 BP, replaced the dolichocranic Paleo-Aleut population. Radiocarbon dates for Paleo-Aleut individuals ranged from ca. 3400 to 400 cal BP, covering the entire temporal span of the study and indicating that Paleo-Al…
Stable isotope chemistry, population histories and Late Prehistoric subsistence change in the Aleutian Islands
Overdone overkill – the archaeological perspective on Tasmanian megafaunal extinctions
Alaska Peninsula Stable Isotope and Radioisotope Chemistry
Purified bone collagen from a small suite of human remains recovered at three sites on the Alaska Peninsula (Port Moller, Brooks River, and Mink Island) were analyzed for stable carbon and nitrogen isotope chemistry and were accelerator radiocarbon dated. Because samples sizes were small and faunal isotope chemistry lacking, results should be considered preliminary. However, these data indicate that each locality was represented by a somewhat dif…
Invited response to K. Ryan’s comments on Coltrain et al. (2004) and Coltrain (2009)
Stable isotopes, diet, and taphonomy
Variation in collagen stable nitrogen values in black-tailed jackrabbits (Lepus californicus) in relation to small-scale differences in climate, soil, and topography
A Late Holocene Population Bottleneck in California Tule Elk (Cervus elaphus nannodes)
Geographic variation in bone carbonate and water δ18O values in Mendoza, Argentina and their relationship to prehistoric economy and settlement
A re-assessment of Basketmaker II cave 7
The stable and radio-isotope chemistry of southeastern Utah Basketmaker II burials
Thule whaling at Point Barrow, Alaska
Preliminary evidence for the efficacy of the Canine Surrogacy Approach in the Great Lakes
Revisiting Hogup Cave, Utah
The remarkable finds from the trans-Holocene archaeological record excavated at Hogup Cave, Utah, helped define our understanding of Great Basin prehistory. However, many scholars doubt the integrity of the site's depositional sequence and resulting chronological interpretations. To resolve these concerns, we produce several Bayesian chronological models combining 14 new radiocarbon dates with the results of past dating efforts. We first present …
Geography (34 works) · Archaeology (29 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (28 works) · Biology (21 works) · Isotope Analysis in Ecology (18 works) · Ecology (17 works) · Geology (15 works) · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology (14 works) · Population (11 works) · Radiocarbon dating (11 works)