• Home
• About Me
  • Traveling Museum
  • Contact
• Archaeology
  • Oregon Prehistory
    • Pleistocene Adaptation
    • Holocene Adaptation
    • Pyroculture Adaptation
  • Value of Archaeology
• Theory
  • Culture as a Thermodynamic Machine
  • Research Priorities
  • Cultural Ecology
  • Coastal Tsunami (pdf)
  • Pocket Beaches
  • Pyroculture
  • Housing
  • Recursive Dreams
• Links

About Me

I was the State Archaeologist for Oregon from 1978 to 2002 within the State Historic Preservation Office of Oregon State Parks. I have a Ph.D. in Anthropology with a specialization in Archaeology from the University of Arizona.

I have done field work in Utah (Fremont Culture), North and South Dakota (Mandan villages), Arizona (Tucson Urban-Renewal Project: historic sites), Guatemala (Kaminaljuyu Project: Preclassic Maya), Maryland (historic and prehistoric), and Oregon (Luckiamute River Project, Woodburn Paleo-Archaeological Project).

As the State Archaeologist, I read, edited, and commented on over 18,000 survey, testing, or excavation reports over a quarter-century. I maintained the archaeological site files and issued archaeological permits on state and private land. I worked with the BLM, US Forest Service, Corps of Engineers, and Oregon tribes on legal and burial issues. I also worked with the academic community as well as groups such as the Oregon Archaeological Society.

This web site is designed to bring the scientific study of Oregon's past to those with an interest in human prehistory. Dr. Geoffrey Clark, Arizona State University Department of Anthropology, has pointed out the "flight from science and reason" in modern day United States of America as the results of the poll in the box to the right and below indicate.

I have been a computer "geek" since the 1970's. I started out on a TRS-80 Model 1 4k machine with a tape drive. That advanced to a 48k with single density drives as well as a stringy floppy high speed tape system. Later it had double sided drives. I was a member of the Portland Area Users Group (PAUG) and then an officer in the early Salem Computer Club. I introduced computers to Oregon State Parks with the 1st IBM micro-computer. I was on the computer development committee for Parks.

I also used a micro-computers in Oregon archaeology, encouraging their use by consultants and academics. I was the first to use word processing for the newsletter for the Association of Oregon Archaeologists. Since then, the use of computers has become so pervasive as to seem like it has always been that way.

I have a long standing interest in physics, systems theory, thermodynamics and cosmology.

I have been making replica artifacts found among the cultures that once flourished in Oregon's prehistoric past. For many years I have been building a Traveling Museum of Oregon Prehistory. It covers the 13,000+ years as well as the cultures associated with the five ecozones that merge in this state: NW Coast; Columbia Plateau; Inter-Mountain; Great Basin; and California Chapparal.

Each year I am a co-sponsor of Echoes In Time, early living skills workshops held in late July at Willamette Mission State Park just north of Salem, Oregon. Typical courses include: Fire by friction, flintknapping, stone bowls and tools, bone and antler tools, bows and arrows, atlatls (dart thrower) and darts, braintanning, rawhide containers, mocassins, cordage, plant walks, gourd work, soap making, pottery, felting, dying and weaving, fiber crafts, quill work, beading, and blacksmithing.