SECTION 4: CURRICULUM VITAE AND LIST OF COLLABORATORS
Ronald H. Towner
Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research
and
School of Anthropology
CHRONOLOGY OF EDUCATION
1997 Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85712. GPA: 4.0. Ph.D. Dissertation title: The Dendrochronology of the Navajo Pueblitos of Dinétah. Committee Co-Chairs: Jeffrey S. Dean and J. Jefferson Reid.
1986 Master of Arts in Anthropology, Washington State University, Pullman WA 99164. GPA: 3.7. M.A. Thesis title: The Basin Creek Site: A Biface Lithic Technology from Central Idaho. Committee Chair: J. Jeffrey Flenniken.
1979 Bachelor of Arts degree in History, Lewis & Clark College, Portland, OR 97219. GPA: 3.0. Major Advisor: Stephen D. Beckham.
1976 Attended Colorado College, Colorado Springs, CO 80903.
CHRONOLOGY OF EMPLOYMENT
2011-2016 Associate Professor of Dendrochronology and Anthropology, Agnese and Emil W. Haury Endowed Chair in Archaeological Dendrochronology, Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research and School of Anthropology, The University of Arizona, Tucson.
2009-2011 Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721
1999-2011 Adjunct Assistant Research Professor, Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721
HONORS AND AWARDS (2011-2016)
None
SERVICE AND OUTREACH (2011-2016)
(See Section 8 of Promotion and Tenure Dossier for more detailed discussion of Service/Outreach activities)
Service: SW Archaeological Tree-Ring Dating Program
A critical component of my engagement with the local, regional, national, and international dendrochronology community is the Southwest Archaeological Tree-ring Dating Program. It is briefly described here and also in Secions 5 and 8 of this dossier as it contains elements of Research, Service, and Outreach.
Partially funded by NSF-Archaeometry Laboratory Support Grants (see below Research Grants and Contracts), the program conducts analysis and dating of wood and charcoal from prehistoric and historic archaeological contexts submitted by both UA students and faculty, and outside researchers from governmental, private, tribal, and nonprofit organizations. We receive approximately 4000 sample submissions per year, and generate hundreds of new dates from archaeological sites. In pursuit of this activity, LTRR has become the leading processor of archaeological tree-ring materials, the primary source of dendrochronological dates in western North America. The integration of the dating program into the full range of dendrochronological activity at the Laboratory creates a unique interdisciplinary context that maximizes the scientific value of archaeological tree-ring samples and chronologies (see Section 5, Research).
The findings of the Program are almost immediately integrated into University of Arizona classes including Geos 220, an Undergraduate General Education Tier II science course for nonscience majors, and graduate/undergraduate courses in the School of Anthropology and departments of Geosciences, and Renewable Natural Resources. The Program contributes directly to extensive outreach activities by providing samples and tours to K-12 programs, graduate and undergraduate students, and visiting scholars from around the world; it also provides field training for government, private, and Native American cultural resource management programs.
My service in support of the Southwest Archaeological Dating Program involves supervising the dating technicians, communicating with submitters throughout the process, interpreting and communicating results to stakeholders, and facilitating curation of the samples. The program allows me to interact with almost every archaeologist working in the Southwest, helps expand dendroarchaeology into new geographic areas, and provides information for archaeologists and land managers; it also generates data for our own and student research (see Section 5, Research).
Since 2011, the SW Dating Program has accepted 250 submissions for analysis, each of which includes at least 10, and often 100+ tree-ring samples for analysis. A sample of our interactions includes groups such as:
· Dominguez Archaeological Group*
· Archaeology Southwest *
· Crow Canyon Archaeological Center*
· PaleoWest@
· Excel Energy@
· Statistical Research, Inc.@
· Gila River Indian Community#
· UNLV^
· University of New Mexico^
· Brigham Young University^
· Southern Methodist University^
· Chaco Culture NCHP+
· Aztec Ruins NHP+
· New Mexico Bureau of Land Management+
· Bandelier National Monument+
*= nonprofit, @=private company, #=Native American tribal entity, ^=University, + Government agency
An important aspect of the Program is generating funds to help train and retain new technicians. Since 2011, the Southwest Dating Program has generated $80,848 in fees used to support a dating technician.
Local/State Service/Outreach
2016 Chair, Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society (AAHS) Awards Committee
2007-2015 Chair, Julian D. Hayden Student Paper committee, AAHS
1995-2016 Publications committee, Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society, Tucson
1995-2013 Fundraising committee, Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society, Tucson
1995-2015 Committee Member, AAHS Awards Committee
2012 Presenter at the Southern Navajo County Science Fair, Show Low, AZ. Contacted 100+ adults and 200+ k-12 students
National/International Service/Outreach
2015-present Treasurer, Tree-Ring Society
2016 Chair, Dendroarcheology Session, Ameridendro, Mendoza Argentina
2013 Committee Co-Chair: AmeriDendro Program Committee
(International Conference of more than 250 scholars from North and South America, Europe, and Asia , hosted by LTRR in Tucson)
2012 Committee Co-Chair: AmeriDendro Program Committee
2012 General Session Chair, Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology
2012 Dendroarchaeology Leader, North American Dendro Fieldweek, Jemez Springs, NM
Departmental Committees
2011-2016
Committee Chair: SoA/LTRR Haury Dendro Scholarship Committee
Committee Co-Chair: Bryant Bannister Tree-ring Building (BBTRB) Arts and Exhibits Committee
Committee Member: DendroCertificate committee
Committee Member: School of Anthropology Reicker Scholarship Committee
Committee Member: LTRR Safety Committee
Committee Member: School of Anthropology Admissions Committee
Committee Member: Southwest Land and Culture Minor committee
2014
Committee Member: School of Anthropology Scholarship Committee
2013
Committee Chair: School of Anthropology Lecture Series
Committee Member: School of Anthropology Scholarship Committee
Committee Member: LTRR Curriculum Committee
2012
Committee Chair: School of Anthropology Lecture Series
Committee member: School of Anthropology Haury Fellowship Committee
2011
Chair and Organizer: Tree-Ring Day, Fall 2011
Committee Chair: School of Anthropology Lecture Series
University Committees
2015 Committee Member: University-wide Learning Management System Proposal Evaluation Committee
(Reviewed proposals for retaining/replacing D2L, the university Learning Management System)
Other Outreach and Service
2016 Welcoming ceremony and LTRR tours for Southwest Symposium, bi-annual meeting of 300+ archaeologists from the greater Southwest and Mexico.
2011-2016 LTRR tours for Pima College Archaeology club and LTRR Tours for various Anthropology courses at UA
PEER REVIEWED BOOKS, ARTICLES, AND CHAPTERS
Monograph (Accepted for publication)
Towner, Ronald H.
In Tree-Rings, Documents, and Oral History: Dendroarchaeology in Cebolla Creek, New Mexico. press Accepted for publication in the Arizona State Museum Archaeological Series monographs. (See enclosed letter from Series Editor, Richard Lange).
Book Chapters
Towner, Ronald H.
2016 Historical Ecology in Southwestern Archaeology: Long-term Change and Extreme Events. In Exploring Cause and Explanation in Historical Ecology, Demography, and Movement, edited by C. Herhahn and A. Ramenofsky, 19-28. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.
Towner, Ronald H., and Mathew W. Salzer
2013 Past Precipitation in the Northern Rio Grande Valley. In From Mountain Top to Valley Bottom: Understanding Past Land-use in the Northern Rio Grande Valley, New Mexico, edited by B. Vierra, pp. 54-65. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
Peer Reviewed Published Articles in Refereed Journals
Towner, Ronald H.
2016 Arboreal Archaeology and Early Navajo Land Use. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 6:342-350.
Towner, Ronald H.
2016 Early Navajo Land Use in Northwestern New Mexico: Big Bead Mesa in Regional
Perspective. Journal of Field Archaeology 41(1):118-129.
Towner, Ronald H., and Nicolas V. Kessler
2016 Slash and Trash: Dendroarchaeological and Ecological Inferences from a Twentieth-Century Logging Camp in Western New Mexico. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 20(2):249-263.
Towner, Ronald H.
2015 Collecting and Preparing Tree-Ring Samples in the Southwest. Journal of Archaeological Practice 3(4):397-406
de Graauw , Kristen K., Ronald H. Towner, Henri D. Grissino-Mayer, Nicolas Kessler, Jonathan Knighton-Winsor, Anastasia Steffen, and James P. Doerner
2014 Historical Dendroarchaeology of Two Log Structures in the Valles Caldera National Preserve, New Mexico, USA. Dendrochronologia. 32:336–342.
Towner, Ronald H., and Stacy C. Galassini
2013 Cambium Peeled Trees in the Zuni Mountains, New Mexico. Kiva 78(2):207-227.
Creasman, P. Paul, B. Bannister, R. H. Towner, J. S. Dean, and S. W. Leavitt
2012 Historical Perspective : Reflections on the Foundation, Persistence, and Growth of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, circa 1930-1960. Tree-Ring Research 68(2):81-89.
Towner, Ronald H., and Robert A. Heckman
2011 Early Navajo Archaeology on Mckean Mesa, Dinétah. Kiva 76(4):453-481.
Reviewed Public Articles (These publications are reviewed by editors, but not as rigorously as external peer reviews.)
Thompson, Kerry, and Ronald H. Towner
In An Alternative Navajo Archaeology. In The Oxford Handbook of Southwestern
Press Archaeology, B. Mills and S. Fowles, volume editors. Oxford University Press. (Accepted for publication)
Towner, Ronald H., Galen L. McCloskey, Benjamin A. Bellorado, and Rebecca R. Renteria
2015 New Insights on Settlement and Mobility in the Gallina Heartland. Archaeology Southwest 29(1):19-20.
Towner, Ronald H.
2011 An Early Navajo Occupation on La Ventana Mesa. In Words and Sherds: Papers in Honor of Meliha S. Duran and David T. Kirkpatrick, edited by Emily J. Brown, Carol J. Condie, and Helen K. Crotty, pp. 183-192. Papers of the Archaeological Society of New Mexico 37, Albuquerque.
Towner, Ronald H.
2011 Depopulation, not Abandonment: New Tree-Ring Dates from Dinétah. NewsMac: Newsletter of the New Mexico Archaeological Council 2011.
Book Reviews
In Review of Radiocarbon Dating, An Archaeological Perspective (2nd edition), by R. E,Taylor press and O. Bar-Josef. American Antiquity.
2014 Review of From the Land of Ever Winter to the American Southwest, edited by D. Seymour. American Antiquity 79(2):374-375.
Other Media
2012 “Dendrochronology.” Part of Time Team America broadcasts by Oregon Public Broadcasting. .org/time-team/experience-archaeology/dendrochronology/
PAPERS PRESENTED/INVITED LECTURES (2011-2016)
2016 Dendroarchaeology, Climate, and Navajo Migrations on the Colorado Plateau. Paper presented at the 3rd AmeriDendro Conference, Mendoza, Argentina. April 2.
2015 Tree-Ring Dating the Gallina: The Herb Dick Collections and Beyond. Paper presented at the 80th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, San Francisco. April 18.
Tree-rings and Fire History: Discussant for the symposium Fire and Humans in Resilient Ecosystems in the Southwest at the 80th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, San Francisco. April 18..
Dendroarcheology of the Otero Cabin, VCNP. (with Rebecca Renteria). Paper presented at the 80th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, San Francisco. April 16.
A comparison of historical land use and changes in fire occurrence in a piñon-juniper woodland, Cebolla Canyon, western New Mexico. (with Nicolas V. Kessler). Paper presented at the 6th International Fire Ecology and Management Congress, San Antonio. November 17.
Early Navajo Archaeology and Fire in Northwestern New Mexico. Paper presented at the New Mexico Archaeology conference, Albuquerque. November 13.
2014 Tree-rings, Radiocarbon, and the Old Wood Problem. Paper presented at the 9th International Conference on Dendrochronology, Melbourne, Australia. January 17.
Watching for Roque: The Dendroarchaeology of La Jara Canyon, Dinétah. Paper presented at the 79th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Austin. April 26.
The NHPA and LTRR: 50 Years of Tree-rings and Archaeology in Arizona. Arizona Archaeological Council Meeting, Mesa. November 7.
2013 Dendroclimatic Implications for the Documented Eastern Ute Territories, AD 1300-1800. Paper presented at the 20th Rocky Mountain Anthropological Conference, Taos. (with T. Knight and J. Dean)
The Old Wood Calibration Project and Dating the Advent of the Eastern Ute Archaeological Tradition. Paper presented at the 20th Rocky Mountain Anthropological Conference, Taos. (with S. Baker and J. Dean)
2012 Human/Environment Interaction in the SW: Epistemology and Context. Session organizer, Southwest Symposium entitled: “Questioning How We Know: Divergence and Convergence in Historical Ecology, Movement, and Demography,” organized by Ann Ramenofsky and Cynthia Herhan, Albuquerque, NM, Jan 14-15, 2012
Tree-rings and Radiocarbon: The Colorado Old Wood Project. Paper presented at the 77th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Memphis. April 3.
2011 Tree-Rings, Environment and Behavior: The Legacy of Jeffrey S. Dean. Symposium organizer and Co-Chair, 76th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Sacramento. March 31.
Dendroarchaeology and Dinétah Navajo Social Organization. Paper presented at the 76th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Sacramento. March 31.
Wood Use in Archaeology. Discussant for symposium entitled “Wood In Archaeology for Past Societies,” M. Elliott and C. Aix organizers, presented at the 76th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Sacramento. March 31.
FEDERAL GRANTS AND CONTRACTS (2011-2016)
Principal Investigator (sole investigator)
2016-2020 Dendroarcheology in New Mexico. NLCS-USFS Challenge Grant. Principal Investigator, Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, The University of Arizona, Tucson. This assistance agreement will be approximately $100,000 over the next five years, depending on funding availability. Effort: 100%. (I have been notified by the program officer that the Proposal will be funded).
2013-2014 Dendroarchaeology of the Gallina. National Science Foundation. Principal Investigator, Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, the University of Arizona, Tucson. ($145,248). Effort: 100%
2013-2014 Culturally Modified Trees in Picketwire Canyon, Colorado. . NLCS-USFS Challenge Grant. Principal Investigator, Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, The University of Arizona, Tucson. ($6,000). Effort: 100%
2012-2013 Historic Period Logging in the Cebolla Creek Area, New Mexico. NLCS-BLM Challenge Grant. Principal Investigator, Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, The University of Arizona, Tucson. ($12,000). Effort: 100%
Developing an On-line Version of Environmental History of the Southwest. OIA/OED, University of Arizona. Principal Investigator. ($9776). Effort: 100%
2011-2012 Historic Entrenchment of Cebolla Creek, El Malpais NCA, Cibola County, New Mexico. NLCS-BLM. Principal Investigator, Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, The University of Arizona, Tucson. ($12,000). Effort: 100%
2010-2011 Tree-Rings, Historical Documents, and Homesteads in the Cebolla Creek Area. NLCS-BLM. Principal Investigator, Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, The University of Arizona, Tucson. ($21,000). Effort: 100%
Principal Investigator (Collaborative Grants)
2016-2019 Support for the University of Arizona Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research. (BCS-1625867). Co-Principal Investigator Jeffrey S. Dean. Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, The University of Arizona, Tucson. ($245,289). Effort: 50%
2014-2016 Archaeological Tree-Ring Dating in Western North America. National Science Foundation (BCS-1414518). Co-Principal Investigator Jeffrey S. Dean. Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, The University of Arizona, Tucson. ($179,217). Effort: 50%
2010-2012 Archaeological Chronology Development and the Old Wood Problem on the Northern Colorado Plateau. National Science Foundation. Co-PI: Jeffrey S. Dean. Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, The University of Arizona, Tucson ($136,304). Effort: 50%
Co-Principal Investigator
2011-2012 Dendroarchaeology in Western North America. National Science Foundation (BCS-1112563). (Jeffrey Dean, PI) Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, The University of Arizona, Tucson. (239, 598K). Effort: 50%