September 2020

dfoliatR empowers analyses of forest defoliator outbreak chronologies

Further extending the functional capacity of classic DPL programs, we developed “dfoliatR”, an R package based on the program OUTBREAK developed by Richard Holmes and Thomas Swetnam in the 1980s. dfoliatR uses dplR to access standardized tree-ring series from insect defoliator host species and chronologies from non-host species. It infers defoliation events with an indexing procedure that removes the climatic signal (represented in a non-host chronology) from individual host-tree series.

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The Dendroarchaeology of Navajo Sites on Northern Black Mesa, Northeastern Arizona

From 1967 to 1986, scholars from, first, Prescott College and, subsequently, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale undertook one of the largest contract archaeological projects in Arizona. The Black Mesa Archaeological Project (BMAP) was designed to mitigate the damage to the cultural resources of the Mesa caused by the construction of an open pit coal mine to provide fuel for the Navajo Generating Station near Page, Arizona. Documentation of nearly 2,000 prehistoric (Ancestral Puebloan) and historic (Navajo) sites produced more than 8,000 archaeologic

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This summer: what I did, what I didn't do, and what I wanted to do

The long-standing tradition of a round up of activities over the summer continues with a series of five-minute lightning talks by the following people: