PhD 2013
Rob is a paleoethnobotanist working with a multidisciplinary research team to examine how Native Californians managed landscape resources through fire. This project, located in Ano Nuevo State Reserve, seeks to integrate data sets from archaeology, modern ecology, paleoecology, dendroecology, isotopic analysis, geomorphological analysis, and fire/vegetation/climate modeling to track indigenous landscape management practices during the Late Holocene.
Rob's research interests include: California paleoethnobotany; microbotanical analysis including phytolith, starch grain, and micro charcoal research; isotopic analysis of marine shell for seasonality and paleoenvironmental reconstruction; the historical ecology of Native Californian cultures; collaborative archaeology with descendant communities; fire ecology in Central California plant communities; morphometric analysis of biological and cultural archaeological remains; statistical and quantitative methods in archaeology; and geophysical / remote sensing techniques.