Christopher Jazwa, Ph.D.

Summary

Christopher Jazwa is interested in how patterns of human settlement, subsistence and mobility are influenced by the changing environment and cultural factors that mediate human-environmental dynamics. Much of his work focuses on how the distribution and availability of environmental resources, along with cultural factors that affect how people use those resources, influence the distribution of human settlement. Jazwa has three active research projects on California’s Channel Islands, Cabo Pulmo in Mexico and the Loukkos Valley in Morocco.

His work on California's Channel Islands has been ongoing since 2004. He uses ecological models to understand the establishment, expansion and contraction of human settlement on the islands through time. Jazwa's current work involves understanding the role of island interiors in overall settlement patterns and site distributions. He also uses stable isotopic signatures to reconstruct environmental change on both long-term (climate change) and short-term (ENSO, inter-annual variation, seasonality) scales.

Jazwa’s work in Cabo Pulmo began in 2018 and is focused on understanding human interactions with the coastal environment in a relatively understudied area. He is working on determining the distribution of archaeological sites and understanding the chronology of human occupation in the region.

He is also interested in applying radiocarbon dating and human behavioral ecology models to the Mediterranean and adjacent region. Since 2016, he has been a part of the Gardens of the Hesperides project in the Loukkos River Valley, Morocco, under the direction of Stephen Collins-Elliott of the University of Tennessee. In this project, he is using ecological models, radiocarbon dating, and stable isotope analysis to trace changes in settlement patterns throughout the river valley before and after the period of Roman expansion to the area.

Jazwa is co-director (with Christopher Morgan) of the Human Paleoecology and Archaeometry Laboratory at the University of Nevada, Reno. He encourages potential graduate students interested in similar theoretical or methodological research questions to contact him.

Specializations

• Human-environmental dynamics
• Human behavioral ecology
• Coastal and island archaeology
• Zooarchaeology
• Isotope ecology
• Hunter-gatherers

Courses taught

• ANTH 101 - Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
• ANTH 202 - Archaeology
• ANTH 440A/640A - Archaeology of North America
• ANTH 445/645 - Zooarchaeology
• ANTH 449C/649C - Lab Methods in Archaeology
• ANTH 455/655 - Archaeological Theory
• ANTH 706 - Scientific Grant Writing in Anthropology
• ANTH 706 - Isotope Ecology
• ANTH 708 - Advanced Seminar in Quaternary Studies

Recent publications

• Rosencrance, R.L., G.M. Smith, K.N. McDonough, C.S. Jazwa, M. Antonosyan, E.A. Kallenbach, T.J. Connolly, B.J. Culleton, K. Puseman, M. McGuinness, D.L. Jenkins, D.O. Stueber, P.E. Endzweig, and P. Roberts. 2026. Complex Perishable Technologies from the North American Great Basin Reveal Specialized Late Pleistocene Adaptations. Science Advances 12:6, 10.1126/eaec2916.
• Warburton, K., R. Peterson, C. Barrington, T. Booth, C. Jazwa, M. Kelly, J. McCabe, M. Silva, P. Skoglund, M. Stables, F. Tait, and M. Williams. 2026. Farthest North: Human Remains from Heaning Wood Bone Cave, Cumbria, UK and their European Context. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 10.1017/ppr.2025.10077.
• Büyükkarakaya, A.M., D.M. Adams, K. Özdemir, B. Irvine, M.A. Pilloud, and C.S. Jazwa. 2025. Dietary Habits and Subsistence Practices at Early Bronze Age Karatas-Semayük, Southwest Anatolia. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 68:105476.
• Jazwa, C.S., T.R. Molter, and C.T. Morgan. 2025. Low Population Density Settlement Patterns on California’s Northern Channel Islands. Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology DOI 10.3389/fearc.2025.1535110.
• Jazwa, C.S., J.D. Moore III, and C. Syzdek. 2025. The Chronology and Distribution of Ground Stone Artifacts on Santa Rosa Island, California. Western North American Naturalist 85(2):141-164.
• McFarland, J.D., A.F. Ainis, and C.S. Jazwa. 2025. Multiscale Analysis of Zooarchaeological Data to Reconstruct Past Kelp Forest Productivity for the Northern Channel Islands, California U.S.A. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science 316:109178.
• Rosencrance, R.L., K.N. McDonough, G.M. Smith, C.S. Jazwa, D.G. Duke, D.L. Jenkins, J. Clements, D.O. Stueber, and L.S. Henrikson. 2024 Bayesian Analysis of Haskett Projectile Point Radiocarbon Dates in the Intermountain West Demonstrates Contemporaneity with Clovis and Folsom Points. PaleoAmerica 10(-3):132-155.
• Perry, J.E., C.S. Jazwa, and H.D. Radde. 2024. California’s Channel Islands: Ecology, Colonization, and Exchange. The Oxford Handbook of Island and Coastal Archaeology, edited by S.M. Fitzpatrick and J. Erlandson, pp. 1-35. Oxford.
• Rosencrance, R.L., C.S. Jazwa, G.M. Smith, and J.C. Mueller. 2023. Redating Deer Creek Cave: A Stratified Upland Site in Northeastern Nevada. Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 43(2):243-260.
• Jazwa, C.S. and A. Zoellner. 2023. Middle Holocene Residential Mobility in Western Santa Rosa Island, California. Quaternary International DOI 10.1016/j.quaint.2023.10.011.
• Davis, M.A., B.J. Culleton, R.L. Rosencrance, and C.S. Jazwa. 2023. Experimental Observations on Processing Leather, Skin, and Parchment for Radiocarbon Dating. Radiocarbon DOI: 10.1017/RDC.2023.88.
• Jazwa, C.S., A.F. Ainis, R.B. Anderson, K. Bulhusen Muñoz, E. Reyes Estrada, and H. Fujita. 2023. Settlement Chronology and Subsistence Patterns in Cabo Pulmo, Baja California Sur, Mexico. Journal of Field Archaeology 48(8):605-622.
• McFarland, J.D., A.N. Sbei, C.S. Jazwa, and K.E. Stull. 2023. Using Multiple Linear Regression for Estimating Total Mussel (Mytilus californianus) Shell Size to Accommodate Morphological Variability Related to Diverse Environments. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 49:104004.
• Sunell, S.D. and C.S. Jazwa. 2023. Late Holocene Sociopolitical Complexity and Changes in Archaeological Patterns at Secondary Settlement Locations on California’s Northern Channel Islands. In Fisher-Hunter-Gatherer Complexity in North America, edited by C. Perry Sampson, pp. 170-193. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.
• Bradley, E.J., G.M. Smith, and C.S. Jazwa. 2022. Site Structure and Occupation Duration. In In the Shadow of the Steamboat: A Natural and Cultural History of North Warner Valley, Oregon, edited by G.M. Smith, pp. 124-134. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
• Jazwa, C.S. and K.A. Jazwa. 2022. Resource Competition and Settlement Distribution in Bronze Age Greece. Human Ecology 50:399-418.
• Kwiecien, O. T. Braun, C.F. Brunello, P. Faulkner, N. Hausmann, G. Helle, J.A. Hoggarth, M. Ionita, C.S. Jazwa, S. Kelmelis, N. Marwan, C. Nava-Fernandez, C. Nehme, T. Opel, J.L. Oster, A. Persoiu, C. Petrie, K. Prufer, S.M. Saarni, A. Wolf, and S.F.M. Breitenbach. 2022. What We Talk About When We Talk About Seasonality – A Transdisciplinary Review. Earth-Science Reviews 225:103843.
• Jazwa, C.S. and S.A. Collins-Elliott. 2021. An Ecological Model of Settlement Expansion in Northwestern Morocco. Quaternary International doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2020.12.037.
• Jazwa, C.S., G.M. Smith, R.L. Rosencrance, D.G. Duke, and D. Stueber. 2021. Reassessing the Radiocarbon Date from the Buhl Burial from South-Central Idaho and Its Relevance to the Western Stemmed Tradition-Clovis Debate in the Intermountain West. American Antiquity 86(1):173-182.
• Robinson, D.W., K. Brown, M. McMenemy, L. Dennany, M.J. Baker, P. Allan, C. Cartwright, J. Bernard, F. Sturt, E. Kotoula, C. Jazwa, K.M. Gill, P. Randolph-Quinney, T. Ash, C. Bedford, D. Gandy, M. Armstrong, J. Miles, and D. Haviland. 2020. Datura Quids at Pinwheel Cave, California, Provide Unambiguous Confirmation of the Ingestion of Hallucinogens at a Rock Art Site. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences doi:10.1073/pnas.2014529117.
• Jazwa, K.A. and C.S. Jazwa. 2020. Architecture and Storage in Mediterranean Environments: Case Studies from the Aegean and Southern California. Quaternary International doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2020.09.007.
• Jazwa, C.S., C.A. Wolfe, E.Y. Chu, and K.E. Stull. 2020. The Effects of Vertical Position in the Intertidal Zone on the d18O and d13C Composition of Mytilus californianus Shell Carbonate. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 34:102587.
• Collins-Elliott, S.A. and C.S. Jazwa. 2020. Dynamic Modeling of the Effects of Site Placement on Environmental Suitability: A Theoretical Example from Northwest Morocco. Environmental Archaeology doi:10.1080/14614103.2020.1763020.
• Jazwa, C.S., T.L. Joslin, and D.J. Kennett. 2020. Fishing, Subsistence Change, and Foraging Strategies on Western Santa Rosa Island, California. American Antiquity 85(3):591-608.
• Jazwa, C.S. and S. Jantz. 2019. The Effects of Heating on d18O and d13C in Mytilus californianus Shell Carbonate: Implications for Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction and Season of Harvest. Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 39(2):163-177.
• Jazwa, C.S., D.J. Kennett, B. Winterhalder, and T.L. Joslin. 2019. Territoriality and the Rise of Despotic Social Organization on Western Santa Rosa Island, California. Quaternary International 518:41-56.
• Jazwa, C.S. and R.L. Rosencrance. 2019. Technological Change and Interior Settlement on Western Santa Rosa Island, California. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 54:235-253.
• Smith, G.M., C.S. Jazwa, R.L. Rosencrance, and T.C. Bottman. 2018. A Late Prehistoric Marine-Shell Bead from Oregon’s Hawksy Walksy Valley. Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 38(2):288-300.
• Jazwa, C.S. and K.N. Johnson. 2018. Erosion of Coastal Archaeological Sites on Santa Rosa Island, California. Western North American Naturalist, 78(3):302-327.

Curriculum Vitae

Education

• Ph.D., Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, 2015
• M.S., Oceanography, University of Rhode Island, 2009
• M.A., History, University of Rhode Island, 2008
• B.S., Anthropology and Physics, Harvey Mudd College, 2005