Archaeo-Ecosytsems of the Four Corners

In collaboration with Drs. Bruce Pavlik and Brian Codding, we assessed site significance by determining the distribution and richness of ethnographically-significant plants. Funded by the BLM, this project tested the relationship between site size, complexity and ethnographically-significant plant species richness. Our results showed that small archaeological sites with a large number of architectural features (dense sites) are associated with a higher number of ethnographically-significant species, thereby warranting a higher priority for protective land management.

Location of Bears Ears National Monument in southeastern Utah. The predicted ESR at 265 known archaeological sites across the original and reduced monument boundaries and surrounding region are shown. From Pavlik et al. (2021), PNAS.