In addition to courses, I supervise undergraduate and graduate student volunteers in the Archaeological Curation Facility. Individuals interested in volunteering are encouraged to complete the form located here.
More information regarding the graduate program in archaeology can be found here.
My interests as a zooarchaeologist primarily lie in the understanding of the role faunal resources played in prehistoric foraging societies by using theory and models developed in human behavioral ecology. In addition to understanding the underlying decisions made during hunting forays, much of my research attempts to understand the subsequent transportation and culinary processing decisions after the successful capture of prey. Further, I am interested in prehistoric biogeography as inferred from archaeofaunal data. My region of interest is western North America, primarily the California and Great Basin regions. As the NAGPRA Director for the campus Archaeological Curation Facility, much of my work also involves implementation of NAGPRA and collaboration with descendent communities.
Demographic Collapse and Protohistoric Large Game Rebound in Native California. Analyses completed by undergraduate and graduate students on the Kathy's Rockshelter (Butte County, CA) demonstrate a significant increase in the use of high cost resources (small game and geophytes) that reverses dramatically between ca. AD 1465 and 1645. I am currently evaluating whether this change is due to demographic collapse of Native populations resulting from epidemics prior to the Mission Period, or alternatively, a reflection of changing climate.
Bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) hunting in the Great Basin and adjacent regions. This work largely stems from my past work at Five Finger Ridge, a Fremont site in Utah, where diachronic changes in sheep hunting, paleoclimate data, and isotopic analysis collectively suggest that the species responded to climate change by shifting their ranges to higher elevations. Most recently, I have been working on the faunas from alpine sites located in the White Mountains, California to evaluate changes in butchering and transportation that may correspond with shifting settlement-subsistence strategies.
Culinary Processing at Antelope Cave. I am interested in identifying how small mammals are prepared for consumption. I identifed intensive processing of jackrabbits at Antelope Cave that may relate to overall resource stress based on predictions formed using the marginal value theorem. Alternatively, heavy processing may relate to feasting associated with communal jackrabbit drives.
Identification of Sacred Animal Remains. The Archaeological Curation Facility has begun discussions with the Native community on what kinds of animals were used strictly for ritual and ceremonial purposes, and we are developing expectations for the contexts and form these animals should appear in the archaeological record to allow repatriation under NAGPRA.
Laurel Zickler Martin (2015), Considering the Canine Surrogacy Approach in California: Morphometrics and Variable Contexts.
Gissel Ruiz (advanced), The Prehistoric Biogeography of Grebes in Owens Valley.
Jenna Farrell (advanced), Methodology for Identification of Two Species of Sylvilagus: Late Holocene Biogeography of S. bachmani and S. audubonii in Northern California.
Will Norton (junior graduate student), Bone Fragmentation Rates and Resource Intensification at Kathy's Rockshelter, Butte County, California.
Shannon Goshen (2013), Late Holocene Trends in Prehistoric Waterfowl Exploitation: Evidence from the Lower Sacramento Valley, California.
Kristin Macak (2013), Anemia, Stress, and Mortality in an Historic Portuguese Skeletal Sample.
Meagan O'Deegan (2013), Prevalence of Osteoarthritis in the Pre-Contact and Post-Contact Arikara.
Emilie Zelazo (2013), Resource Intensification in Central California: Evidence from the Lower Sacramento Valley.
Justin Cairns (2016), Prehistoric Foraging Patterns at CA-SAC-47, Sacramento, California.
Gloria Howat Brown (advanced), A Spatial and Temporal Analysis of Starch Residues of Handstones from Camp Roberts, Monterey and San Luis Obispo Counties, California.
Erik Allen (advanced), Obsidian Diversity in the Southern Sierra Nevada as a Measure of Population Density and Development of Trade.
Fisher, Jacob L. and Shannon Goshen, 2018. Alpine Hunting and Selective Transportation of Bighorn Sheep in the White Mountains, California. Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 38(1):87-99.
Fisher, Jacob L., 2018. Protohistoric artiodactyl rebound and resource deintensification in Northern California. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 19(420-429).
Fisher, Jacob L., 2018. Archaeology and Biogeography of the Western Pond Turtle (Actinemys marmorata) in the Puget Sound Region. Ethnobiology Letters 9(2):180-188.
Fisher, Jacob L. and Keith L. Johnson, 2014. Culinary Processing of Jackrabbits at Antelope Cave, Arizona. Kiva 79(3):307-333.
Fisher, Jacob L. Joel C. Janetski, and Keith L. Johnson, 2013. Variability in Far Western Puebloans Subsistence Strategies: The View from the Uinkaret Plateau, Northwest Arizona. Journal of Arizona Archaeology 2(2):140-162.
Fisher, Jacob L. and Benjamin Valentine, 2013. Resource Depression, Climate Change, and Mountain Sheep in the Eastern Great Basin of Western North America. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 5(2):145-157.
Fisher, Jacob L., 2012, Shifting Prehistoric Abundances of Leporids at Five Finger Ridge, a Central Utah Archaeological Site. Western North American Naturalist 72(1): 60-68.
Grayson, Donald K. and Jacob L. Fisher, 2009, Holocene Elk (Cervus elaphus) in the Great Basin. In, Past, Present, and Future Issues in Great Basin Archaeology, Cultural Resource Series 20, edited by B.S. Hockett. Bureau of Land Management.
2018 Economic Intensification and Seasonality in the Alpine Zone, White Mountains, California. Paper presented at the Keeler Conference, Tom’s Place, California.
2017 Demographic Collapse and Deintensification in Protohistoric Alta California. Paper presented at the Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting, Vancouver, British Columbia.
2017 Refining the Chronology of Resource Deintensification at Kathy’s Rockshelter, Butte County. Poster presented at the Society for California Archaeology Annual Meeting, Fish Camp, California.
Fisher, Jacob L., Shannon Goshen, Gustavo Neme, Clara Otaola, Miguel Giardina, and Adolfo Gil. 2016. Alpine Artiodactyl Hunting and Selective Transportation: A Comparative Analysis of Artiodactyl Assemblages of the White Mountains, California and Andes Mountains, Argentina. Paper presented at the Great Basin Anthropology Conference, Reno, Nevada.
Goshen, Shannon and Jacob L. Fisher, 2015. Bighorn Sheep Processing in the White Mountains, California. Paper presented at the Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, Calif.
Fisher, Jacob L., 2015. Patch Choice Model Predictions for Jackrabbit Processing at Antelope Cave, Arizona. Paper presented at the Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, Calif.
Fisher, Jacob L., 2015. Demographic Collapse and Protohistoric Large Game Rebound in Butte County, California. Paper presented at the Society for California Archaeology Annual Meeting, Redding, California.
Fisher, Jacob L., Kristin Macak, and Wendy Nelson, 2013. Ancestral Remains as Numbers; Problems with Calculating MNI under NAGPRA. Poster presented at the First Annual Western Bioarchaeological Group (WeBiG) Conference, Berkeley, California.
Fisher, Jacob L., 2013. The Road Home: NAGPRA from a Museum Perspective. Poster presented at the California Indian Conference and Gathering, Sacramento, California.
Fisher, Jacob L., 2012, Explanations within Human Behavioral Ecology: The Role of Costly Signaling in Great Basin Anthropology. Paper presented at the Great Basin Anthropology Conference, South Lake Tahoe, Nevada.
Fisher, Jacob L., 2012, Challenges in Identifying Communal Hunting of Jackrabbits using Archaeofauna Data: A Case Study from Antelope Cave, Arizona. Paper presented at 77th Annual Meeting for the Society for American Archaeology in Memphis, TN.
Fisher, Jacob L., 2007, Western Pond Turtle (Actinemys marmorata): Archaeology and Biogeography in the Puget Sound region. Poster presented at the 72nd Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Austin.
Bottle glass projectile point from Kathy's Rockshelter (CA-BUT-301).