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Geoffrey M. Smith

Assistant Professor, Anthropology, and Executive Director of the Great Basin Paleoindian Research Unit (GBPRU)
Ph.D., University of Wyoming (2010)
Ansari Business Building, Room 503
geoffreys@unr.edu
(775) 682-7687

SPECIALIZATIONS

The Paleoindian-Archaic transition in the Great Basin; Great Basin prehistory and paleoecology; lithic technological organization; hunter-gatherer mobility; peopling of the New World.

RESEARCH

I have been working in the Great Basin since 2001 and have primarily focused my research on the archaeology of the terminal Pleistocene/early Holocene, ca. 11,500-7,500 radiocarbon years ago. Specifically, I have worked to develop a better understanding of Paleoindian mobility through analyses of lithic technology and source provenance studies of obsidian artifacts in the Black Rock Desert-High Rock Country of northwest Nevada and, more recently, south-central Oregon. Although I am particularly interested in Paleoindian mobility, I am also concerned with how environmental, demographic, and social conditions contributed to diachronic changes in hunter-gatherer adaptation in the Great Basin.

As Executive Director of the Great Basin Paleoindian Research Unit (GBPRU), I am actively involved in fieldwork throughout the Great Basin each summer and am currently directing the analysis of assemblages from Last Supper Cave, Paiute Creek Shelter, Warner Valley, and other sites in the region. I welcome inquiries from prospective undergraduate and graduate students interested in Paleoindian archaeology and Great Basin prehistory.

TEACHING

• Anth 202 Introduction to Archaeology
• Anth 350 The Archaeology of Nevada
• Anth 446/646 Archaeological Methods
• Anth 448a/648a Field School in Archaeology
• Anth 449b Lithic Artifact Analysis
• Anth 493r/693r Analytical Methods and Research Design in Anthropology
• Anth 723 Lithic Technological Organization
• Anth 740 Great Basin Prehistory and Paleoecology

PUBLICATIONS

• 2013 Smith, Geoffrey M., Pat Barker, Eugene M. Hattori, and Anan Raymond. Points in Time: Direct Radiocarbon Dates on Great Basin Projectile Points. American Antiquity, in press.
• 2013 Kelly, Robert L., Todd A. Surovell, Bryan N. Shuman, and Geoffrey M. Smith. A Continuous Climatic Impact on Holocene Human Population in the Rocky Mountains. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 110(2):443-447.
• 2012 Smith, Geoffrey M., Stephen J. LaValley, and Kristina M. Wiggins. Late Holocene Lithic Procurement Strategies in the Northwestern Great Basin: The View from Paiute Creek Shelter, Nevada. North American Archaeologist 33(4):399-427.
• 2012 Lafayette, Linsie, and Geoffrey M. Smith. Use-Wear Traces on Experimental (Replicated) and Prehistoric Stemmed Points in the Great Basin. Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 32(2):141-160.
• 2012 Smith, Geoffrey M., Peter Carey, Emily S. Middleton, and Jennifer Kielhofer. Cascade Points in the Northern Great Basin: a Radiocarbon-Dated Foliate Point Assemblage from Warner Valley, Oregon. North American Archaeologist 33(1):13-34.
• 2012 Nevada Archaeologist Volume 25 (editor).
• 2011 Smith, Geoffrey M., and Jennifer Kielhofer. Through the High Rock and Beyond: Placing the Last Supper Cave and Parman Paleoindian Lithic Assemblages into a Regional Context. Journal of Archaeological Science 38:3568-3576.
• 2011 Smith, Geoffrey M., Stephen J. LaValley, and Craig Skinner. Results from the XRF Analysis of Pre-Archaic Projectile Points from Hanging Rock Shelter, Northwest Nevada. Current Research in the Pleistocene 28:158-160.
• 2011 Fenner, Lindsay A., Geoffrey M. Smith, Samuel Coffman, and Gary D. Noyes. Comparing Great Basin Paleoindian Raw Material Procurement Strategies: X-ray Fluorescence Data from Obsidian Fluted and Stemmed Points from Mud Lake and Lake Tonopah, Nevada. Current Research in the Pleistocene 28:44-46.
• 2011 Nevada Archaeologist Volume 24 (editor).
• 2011 A Least-Cost Path Analysis of Pre-Archaic Travel Across The Black Rock Desert-High Rock Country of Northwest Nevada. Nevada Archaeologist 24:21-31.
• 2011 Shifting Stones and Changing Homes: Using Toolstone Ratios to Consider Relative Occupation Span in the Northwestern Great Basin. Journal of Archaeological Science 38:461-469.
• 2010 Footprints Across the Black Rock: Temporal Variability in Prehistoric Foraging Territories and Toolstone Procurement Strategies in the Western Great Basin. American Antiquity 75(4):865-885.
• 2009 Additional Results from the XRF Analysis of Pre-Archaic Artifacts from Last Supper Cave, Northwest Nevada. Current Research in the Pleistocene 26:131-133.
• 2009 Surovell, Todd A., Judson Finley, Geoffrey M. Smith, P. Jeffrey Brantingham, and Robert L. Kelly. Correcting Temporal Frequency Distributions for Taphonomic Bias. Journal of Archaeological Science 36(8):1715-1724.
• 2008 Results from the XRF Analysis of Pre-Archaic Projectile Points from Last Supper Cave, Northwest Nevada. Current Research in the Pleistocene 25:144-146.
• 2008 Adams, Kenneth D., Ted Goebel, Kelly Graf, Geoffrey M. Smith, Anna J. Camp, Richard W. Briggs, and David Rhode. Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene Lake-Level Fluctuations in the Lahontan Basin, Nevada: Implications for the Distribution of Archaeological Sites. Geoarchaeology 23(5):608-643.
• 2007 Pre-Archaic Mobility and Technological Activities at the Parman Localities, Humboldt County, Nevada. In Paleoindian or Paleoarchaic? Great Basin Human Ecology at the Pleistocene/Holocene Transition, edited by Kelly E. Graf and Dave N. Schmitt, pp. 139-155. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
• 2007 Smith, Geoffrey M., and Linsie Lafayette (editors). Northern Nevada Across Time. Nevada Archaeologist Volume 23.
• 2005 Pre-Archaic Mobility at the Parman Localities, Humboldt County, Nevada. Current Research in the Pleistocene 22(1): 64-66.
• 2005 The Paleoarchaic Occupation of Moonshine Spring South and Moonshadow Spring, Pershing County, Nevada: Implications for Early-Period Mobility in the Great Basin. Nevada Archaeologist 20-21:57-70.
• 2004 Paleoarchaic Obsidian Procurement Strategies in North-West Nevada. Current Research in the Pleistocene 21(1):72-74.