George C. Frison Institute of Archaeology & Anthropology

Supported Projects

2024-25

Mackenzie DePlata Peterson (Ph.D. Student, University of Wyoming) Radiocarbon Dating the Vore Buffalo Jump to Build an Age-Depth Model

Courtney Clough (Ph.D. Student, University of Alaska Fairbanks) An archaeometric approach to life history reconstruction in the Gold-Rush era

Laura Ng (Professor, Grinnell College) Rock Springs Chinatown Archaeology Project

Spencer Pelton (Office of the Wyoming State Archaeologist) Geophysical survey of two 1860s archaeological sites in Albany County, Wyoming

Robert Kelly (Professor Emiritus, University of Wyoming) Identification of Organic Artifacts and Improved Chronology of Alm Shelter, Wyoming

James Johnson (Professor, University of Wyoming) Meiser Creek Landscapes of Stone Project

Chase Mahan (Ph.D. Student, University of Wyoming) The Great Divide Paleoindian Survey 2025 Field Season

Anastasia Jepsen (M.A. Student, University of Wyoming) Population Dynamics in Interior Alaska and Yukon: Demographic Reconstruction with a Regional Taphonomic Correction

Cinthia Campos-Hernández (Post-Doctoral Researcher, University of Wyoming) Professional Development: Honing Wood Charcoal Identification Skills

Zachary Konkol (M.A. Student, University of Wyoming) Mapping Community Growth at the beginning of the Cajamarca Tradition, Northern Highlands of Peru

Natalie Bossler (M.A. Student, University of Wyoming) Changing Foodways as a Window into Shifting Community Organization and Inequality at Callacpuma, in the Cajamarca Basin, Northern Peru

McKenna Litynski (Ph.D. Student, University of Wyoming) Experimental investigation of the relationship between animal choice and bone needle durability through bend and flexural testing

McKenna Litynski (Ph.D. Student, University of Wyoming) Investigating Bone Raw Material Procurement Strategies for Bone Tool Manufacture

Josie Corbett (M.A. Student, University of Wyoming) “I No Longer Have a Skin, I Have a Hide”: Contemporary Women Ranchers and Stock-Herders Breaking the “Grass” Ceiling Through Their Labor on the Landscape in the Mountain West

Emily Milton (Ph.D. Student, Michigan State University) Initiating an Oxygen Isotope Baseline for Surface Waters in the Greybull River Basin

Haley Purifoy (M.A. Student, University of Wyoming) Wood ID workshop

Dakota Buhmann (M.A. Student, University of Wyoming) Cave of Souls: The Unidentified Remains of Upper Baraćeve Špilje, Croatia  

2023-24

Briana Doering (Professor, University of Wyoming) What's new at this old mammoth site? Applying remote sensing techniques to improve our understanding of Clovis hunting at the Colby site

Amy Phillips (M.A. Student, St. Cloud University) Investigating Human Mobility in the High Alpine through Strontium Isotope Analysis

McKenna Litynski (Ph.D. Student, University of Wyoming) Evaluating Animal Species Representation of Bone Needles and Awls Through Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS)

McKenna Litysnki (Ph.D. Student, University of Wyoming) Piecing Together the Past One Peptide at a Time: Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS) Application to Archaeological Sites in North and South America

Mackenzie Deplata Peterson (Ph.D. Student, University of Wyoming) Radiocarbon Dating the Warren Mammoth

Clifford White (M.A. Student, University of Wyoming) Hell Gap Valley - Optically Stimulated Luminescence Processing

Sean Carey (M.A. Student, University of Wyoming) Mobility and Lithic Raw Material Transport: River Barriers in Prehistory

Molly Herron (University of Wyoming Archaeological Repository) Curating the George "Doc" Frison Legacy: Temporary Exhibit and Permanent Collection

David Rapson (Adjunct Professor, University of Wyoming) EDXRF (energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry) obsidian sourcing analysis and radiocarbon (14C) dating to support analysis and publication of the chipped stone assemblage from the Bugas-Holding site

Haley Purifoy (Undergraduate Student, University of Wyoming) Charcoal Identification and Analysis from Sister Hills Archaeologial Site

Jaimie Adams (Undergraduate Student, University of Wyoming) Carved in Stone: A Comparative Analysis of Close-Range Photogrammetry Methods to Digitally Curate, Preserve, Describe and Interpret the Rock Art Panels Found in Trinchera Cave

2022-23

Marcia Peterson (Office of the Wyoming State Archaeologist) Excavation at the South Fork Ice Cave Complex (48BH4702): The East-Facing Rockshelter

Marcia Peterson (Office of the Wyoming State Archaeologist) Subsurface Testing Analyses from the South Fork Ice Cave (48BH4702) Complex 

Alexandra Kelly (Faculty, University of Wyoming) Archaeological Investigations at Carbon City, WY: Multiculturalism, Global Expansion, and Capitalism in the American West

Briana Doering (Faculty, University of Wyoming) Reconstructing Paleoenvironment and Diet Breadth at 13,000 Years Before Present in Central Alaska via Hearth Sediments

Michael Stites (National Forest Service) Baseline Data Collection and Field Documentation of a Late Prehistoric Ceremonial Complex and Spatially Associated Faunal Remains in the Northern Bighorn Mountains

Molly Herron (University of Wyoming Archaeological Repository) Curating the George “Doc” Frison Legacy: Temporary Exhibit and Permanent Collection 

McKenna Litynski (M.A. Student, University of Wyoming) Continuing Faunal Identifications Through Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS)

McKenna Litynski (M.A. Student, University of Wyoming) Travel Funding for ZooMS Training and Analyses in the Buckley Lab, Manchester, UK 

Sarah Allaun (Ph.D. Student, University of Wyoming) Applying shotgun proteomics to aid in faunal identification in the UW ZooMS Laboratory 

Sarah Allaun (Ph.D. Student, University of Wyoming) Travel Funding for ZooMS Training and Analyses in the Buckley Lab, Manchester, UK

Casey Black (M.A. Student, University of Wyoming) Assessing the Effects of Human Predation on Mammoth δ15N Values

Charles Koenig (Ph.D. Student, University of Wyoming) Dating the Early Holocene Earth Oven Strata in Eagle Cave, Texas 

Charles Koenig (Ph.D. Student, University of Wyoming) Color Printing Subvention for “Earth Ovens and Desert Lifeways: 10,000 years of Indigenous Cooking in the Arid Landscapes of North America

Ann Stephens (Undergraduate Student, University of Wyoming) Prey Choice in the Laramie Basin: A Zooarchaeological Analysis of Faunal Remains from the Harold Bergman Site in Southwest Wyoming 

Aubrey Edwards (M.A. Student, University of Wyoming) We Made a Life Here: A cartography of life, labor and heritage through material remains on Superior’s landscape 

Aubrey Edwards (M.A. Student, University of Wyoming) Rhoda Lewis Award

Paris Franklin (M.A. Student, University of Wyoming) All the Small Things: A Comparative Analysis of Experimental and Archaeological Microdebitage 

Dan Garner (M.A. Student, University of Wyoming) Rhoda Lewis Award 

2016-17

Todd Guenther (Central Wyoming College) Dinwoody Bison Jump Test Excavations (48FR7682)

Randy Haas (Post-Doctoral Researcher, University of Wyoming) An Ethnoarchaeology of Gran Chaccu

Ken Hladek (Undergraduate, University of Wyoming) Rhoda Owen Lewis Award

Robert Kelly (Professor, University of Wyoming) Alm Shelter Excavation

Meghan Kent (Undergraduate, University of Wyoming) Red Ochre Sourcing of the La Prele Mammoth Kill Site

Larry Loendorf (Sacred Sites Research, Inc.) Rock Art Recording at 48JO3, 48JO4, 48JO6 and Additional Sites

Madeline Mackie (Ph.D. Student, University of Wyoming) Species identification of faunal remains using ancient DNA at the La Prele Mammoth site (48CO1401), Converse County, Wyoming

Chris Merriman (Ph.D. Student, University of New Mexico)  Paleoindian Response to Climate Change in the Northern Jornada del Muerto, New Mexico

Cody Newton (Ph.D. Student, University of Colorado Boulder) Sisters Hill (48JO314) revisited: renewed geochronological and paleoenvironmental analysis of a Hell Gap occupation at the base of the Bighorns

Spencer Pelton (Ph.D. Student, University of Wyoming) Radiocarbon dating of two stratified rock shelters in the montane zone of the southern Bighorn Mountains

Angela Perri (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology) Tracking the Earliest Domesticated Dogs in the Americas

Marcia Peterson (Assistant State Archaeologist, Office of the Wyoming State Archaeologist) 2016 Lost Twin Lakes Trail Inventory: Radiocarbon Date and Obsidian Sourcing

Greg Pierce (State Archaeologist, Office of the Wyoming State Archaeologist) The OWSA Black Hills Survey

Rachel Reckin (Ph.D. Student, Cambridge University) Refining the Lithic Typology of the Absaroka Mountains

Laura Scheiber (Associate Professor, Indiana University) Mountain Shoshone Landscape Occupation of Caldwell Basin, Fremont County, Wyoming

Holly Smith (M.A. Student, University of Alaska Fairbanks)  Analyzing Human Responses to the Northern White River Ash Eruption in the Late Holocene Through Palynology of 6-Mile Lake and Excavations at the Forty-Mile Site

Erick Robinson (Post-Doctoral Researcher, University of Wyoming) Starch Grain Analysis on Wyoming Ground Stone Assemblages

Lawrence Todd (Professor Emeritus, Colorado State University), Documenting Articular End Breakage in Bison Jump Sites (Vore and Glenrock): Baseline data for evaluating perimortem fractures of AL288-1 (“Lucy”)

Heidi Van Etten  (M.A. Student, University of Wyoming) Reinvestigating the Stratigraphy of the Goshen to Folsom Paleoindian Components at Hell Gap Locality 1

2015-16

Victoria Bowler (MA Student, University of New Mexico) A Study of Canid Remains from the Prehistoric Southwest

Tony Fitzpatrick (PhD Student, University of Wyoming), Stable Isotope Analysis of Faunal Remains from Hell Gap: Preliminary Testing

David Howe (MA Student, University of Wyoming), Was the bow present all along? A controlled experiment to determine the presence of the bow in North American prehistory

Robert Kelly (Professor, University of Wyoming) Radiocarbon Dating of High Altitude Artifacts and Ice Patch Formation

Melissa Murphy (Associate Professor, University of Wyoming) Expanding applications: Collagen extraction and stable isotope analysis, UW anthropology

Morgan Robins (Anthropology major, Central Wyoming College) Goat Flats High Elevation and Ice Patch Archaeological Survey

Erick Robinson (Post-Doctoral Researcher, University of Wyoming) Assessing the Potential for Tephrochronology in the Rockies and High Plains

Laura Scheiber (Associate Professor, Indiana University) In the Shadow of Foretop's Father: The Heart Mountain Archaeological Projec

Bryon Schroeder (Applied Earthworks, Inc.) Shirley Basin Lodge Site Boundary Delineation and Domestic Feature Recordation

Rebecca Sgouros and Matthew Stirn (Jackson Hole Museum), Investigating an ice patch bison kill in the Absaroka Mountains

Matthew Stirn and Rebecca Sgouros (Jackson Hole Museum), High Altitude Archaeological Survey of the Grand Tetons (Supported by Ed and Shirley Cheramy and the Alpine Archaeology Fund)

Jason Toohey (Assistant Professor, University of Wyoming), Intercommunity contact and exchange of "Fancy" pottery in the Northern Highlands of Peru

Heidi Van Etten (MA Student, University of Wyoming) Optically Stimulated Luminescence Dating of the Hell Gap Stratigraphy

Danny Walker (Former Wyoming Assistant State Archaeologist) Primary Document Search for the Battle of Red Buttes and Military Records of Involved 11th Kansas Cavalry Soldiers

Joanna Wells (MA Student, University of Alaska Anchorage) Salmon, Beads, and Copper: Wealth and the Role of Fish at the Cottonwood Creek Ancient Village, Susitna Valley, Southcentral Alaska

2014-15

Richard Adams (Colorado State University), Alpine Archaeology Fund, Retracing the 1969 Hadenfeldt-Foss Survey

John Blong (PhD Student, Texas A&M University), Patrick Orion Mullen Fund, Ecological and Demographic Change in Response to Tephra Fall in the Upper Susitna River Basin, Alaska

Jody Clauter (Curator, UWAR) Clarifying Characteristics and Cultural Relationships: Ceramic Petrography at the Elk Mountain Site (48CR301).

Brigid Grund (PhD Student, University of Wyoming) Paleosol microorganism density: A germ-ane field dating method for archaeologists?

Connor Johnen (MA Student, University of Wyoming), WAPA Fund, Retracing the 1969 CSU Archaeological Survey of the Southern Wind River Range

Katherine Mulliken (MA Student, University of Alaska Fairbanks), Patrick Orion Mullen Fund, Holocene Volcanism and its Effect on Human Occupation in Southcentral Interior Alaska

Spencer Pelton and Joshua Boyd (PhD and MA Students, University of Wyoming), Tyrrell Fund, Archaeaological Testing and Dating of the Duck Creek Site, Albany County, Wyoming

Rachel Shimek (PhD Student, University of Wyoming) Skeletal Pathology, Trauma, and Markers of Occupational Stress in Wild and Captive-Raised Canids

Matthew Stirn and Rebecca Sgouros (Jackson Hole Museum), High Altitude Archaeological Survey of the Grand Tetons (Supported by Ed and Shirley Cheramy and the Alpine Archaeology Fund)

2013-14

Jim Ahern, Melissa Murphy, and Rick Weathermon, Purchase of a 3D printer for the Department of Anthropology

Josh Boyd (MA Student, University of Wyoming) William Tyrrell Fund, Folsom Endscraper Variability From the Northern Plains, Rocky Mountains, and Southern Plains

Leslie Brown (PhD Student, University of Wyoming) Stable isotope analysis of human remains from the Korell‐Bordeaux Outpost of the Oregon Trail, Goshen County, Wyoming

Jody Clauter (Curator, UWAR) AMS 14C dating of the Elk Mountain site (48CR301), Carbon County, Wyoming

Brigid Grund (PhD student, University of Wyoming)  Soil microbiology of activity areas in reindeer herder camps, Khövsgöl Province, Mongolia

Kevin Malloy (PhD student, University of Wyoming)  Investigation of Medieval deer parks, Scotland, UK

Greg Pierce (PhD student, University of Wyoming)  Elemental analysis of trade beads and steel artifacts from Protohistoric and Historic period sites

Mary Prasciunas (Senior Archaeologist, Westland Resources) Reinvestigation of the Union Pacific Mammoth Site, Carbon County, Wyoming

Matthew Stirn and Rebecca Sgouros (Jackson Hole Museum), Supported by Ed and Shirley Cheramy, Creating a Database of High Altitude Archaeology in Wyoming, and High Altitude Archaeological Survey of the Grand Tetons

William Taylor (PhD student, University of New Mexico)Patrick Orion Mullen Fund, AMS dating of Bronze Age Horsemanship in Mongolia

Lawrence Todd (Professor Emeritus, Colorado State University), Obsidian Sourcing: Norton Point and Hardluck Fires, Northwestern Wyoming, Bighorn, Park, and Fremont Counties, Wyoming

Jason Toohey (Assistant Professor, University of Wyoming) The Cerro Hualgayoc Archaeological Project, Cajamarca, Peru

2012-13

Brigid Grund (PhD student, University of Wyoming) Examining the effects of children on Dukha, households, Khövsgöl Province, Mongolia

Allison Grundwald (PhD student, University of Wyoming)  Examining the morphology of impact fractures on frozen and unfrozen bone

Mary Prasciunas (Senior Archaeologist, Westland Resources) Reinvestigation of the Union Pacific Mammoth Site, Carbon County, Wyoming

Heather Rockwell (PhD student, University of Wyoming) Usewear of northeastern Paleoindian Artifacts

Bryon Schroeder (PhD student, University of Montana) Thermoluminescence dating of ceramics from the High Rise Village Site

Sarah Trabert ((PhD student, University of Iowa) Analysis of cultural change and Dismal River ceramics

2011-12

Matthew Rowe (doctoral student, Indiana University), Collections Grant, Eagle Shelter faunal assemblage.

Matthew O’Brien (doctoral student, University of New Mexico), Collections Grant, Eden-Farson faunal assemblage.

Dr. Pablo Ambrústolo (researcher, CONICET); participation in Wyoming field research.

Dr. Richard Adams, study of high altitude villages in western Wyoming, Alpine Archaeology Fund.

Student Travel Support: Kevin Malloy (Scotland, doctoral dissertation research); Clara Copp-Larocque (Alpine Archaeology Fund)

2010-11

Liye Xie (doctoral student, University of Arizona), Collections Grant, comparative faunal collection, elk scapula; for comparison to Chinese collections.

Dr. Nora Franco (researcher, CONICET and University of Buenos Aires, Argentina); tour of Wyoming archaeology.

Nicholas Naudinot, post-doctoral researcher, University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis, France; Hell Gap lithic assemblage.

Student Travel Support: Nathaniel Kitchel (Mongolia); Megan Preston (Croatia); Norbert Wasilik (Russia).

Dr. Richard Adams, study of high altitude villages in western Wyoming, Alpine Archaeology Fund.

2009-10

Dr. Briggs Buchanan, Simon Fraser Univesity, Folsom projectile point analysis (Hell Gap and Barger Bulch).

Dr. Marcel Kornfeld, University of Wyoming, Last Canyon Cave, BA Cave, Two Moon Shelter, White Creek Canyon survey.