Dr. Herbert D. G. Maschner

Senior Scientist and Affiliate Professor, IAC
Anthropology Research Professor

Idaho State University
Idaho Accelerator Center
921 So. 8th Avenue, Stop 8005
Pocatello, Idaho 83209-8005
Phone: (208) 282-2745
Fax: (208) 282-4944
e-mail: maschner@isu.edu

 Herb Maschner
Vitae
  • Major Awards, Honors and Keynote Presentations
  • Major Grants
  • Publications
  • Symposia and Published Abstracts

Publication Series

Research

  • Sanak Biocomplexity Project
  • Lower Alaska Peninsula Project
  • Kuiu Island Archaeology Project

Center for Archaeology, Materials, and Applied Spectroscopy (CAMAS)

RESUME
Dr. Herbert Maschner is Anthropology Research Professor, a Senior Scientist and Affiliate Faculty at the Idaho Accelerator Center (IAC), and Director of the newly formed Idaho State University Center for Archaeology, Materials, and Applied Spectroscopy (CAMAS). He has conducted archaeological, ecological, geological and anthropological fieldwork in southeast Alaska, throughout interior Alaska, and for the last twelve years in the eastern Aleutian Region. He is a specialist in regional analysis, global systems, complex systems analysis, quantitative methods, analytical laboratory techniques (stable isotopes and elemental analyses), Darwinian theory, historical and marine ecology, and computer-based methods of analysis including GIS. He has published 9 monographs and edited volumes, 72 articles and chapters, and has over 130 published abstracts. He has received $4.4 million in external grants, including $3.2 million from the National Science Foundation. His current research includes leading the Sanak Biocomplexity Project, a transdisciplinary project investigating the long-term engineering of ecosystems by foragers along coastal Alaska. In 2006 he was named ISU’s Distinguished Researcher.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

  • Biocomplexity, human-engineered ecosystems, landscape dynamics, resource sustainability, human impacts on marine and terrestrial ecosystems.
  • Fisher-hunter-gatherer prehistory, ecology, ethnography and ethnohistory of Alaska, the North American Arctic, Greenland, the Northwest Coast, western North America, and Siberia.
  • Instrumentation, photon activation, elemental and isotopic analysis, remote sensing, geographic information systems, and spatial analysis in human behavior studies.
  • Human - landscape interactions and behavioral responses to catastrophic environmental change.
  • Studies of subsistence, economy, and decision making.
  • Anthropological theory, Darwinian theory, evolutionary ecology, complex systems.
  • The archaeology, politics, organization, and structure of village-based societies and the rise of sedentary and ranked communities.
  • The evolution, archaeology and anthropology of warfare.
  • Peoples of the north; sustainability; applied and community-based archaeology.

Projects as Principle Investigator: Fieldwork in Honduras, France, Morocco, Spain, the American Southwest, California, the High Plains, and throughout Alaska and the Northwest Coast. Ethnographic fieldwork in Southeast Alaska (Tlingit) and the eastern Aleutian Islands/western Alaska Peninsula (Unangan).

  • Sanak Biocomplexity Project 2006-2009.
  • Sanak Island Complex Human-Ecological Systems Project 2004-2006.
  • Steller Sea Lion TEK and Aleut historical ecology/geography Project. Alaska Peninsula 2003-2006.
  • Hot Springs Site Documentation, Archival, and Publication Project 2002-2005.
  • Bering Sea Biocomplexity Project. 2001-2004.
  • Lower Alaska Peninsula and Eastern Aleutian Islands Catastrophic Change Project. 1994-2004.
  • Warfare and Landscape in the North Project (with K. Reedy-Maschner). 1997-2002.
  • Status and Fortification in the Islamic World Project (with K. Reedy-Maschner). 1998-1999.
  • Northwest Coast Hunter-Gatherer Complexity, Kuiu Island, Southeast Alaska. 1988-1994.
  • Forager Site Structure, Tazlina Lake, Copper River Valley, Alaska. 1985-1987.

 

EDUCATION

  • 1987-92. Ph.D. in Anthropology (Archaeology specialization), Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara. Dissertation title: The Origins of Hunter-Gatherer Sedentism and Political Complexity: A Case Study from the Northern Northwest Coast. Dissertation Advisors: Michael Jochim, Brian Fagan, Mark Aldenderfer, and Napoleon Chagnon.
  • 1989-90. ESRI - ARC/INFO Geographic Information Systems Training
  • 1983-87. MS in Archaeology, Department of Anthropology, University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Thesis title: Site Structure, Site Use, and Site Reuse of an Ahtna (Na Dene) Spring Camp. Thesis Advisors:William Roger Powers, Anne Shinkwin, David M. Hopkins
  • 1984. Norwich University Russian School, Vermont, Summer.
  • 1980‑83. University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, BS Anthropology. Undergraduate Advisor: Lewis R. Binford.
  • 1978. 1979-80 University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming.
  • 1977. West Valley High School, Fairbanks, Alaska.