Links:  University of Wyoming • Department of Anthropology • Anthropology Faculty • George C. Frison Institute

todd surovell                            
associate professor
anthropology, rm 217
Office Hours: Wed 8:00-9:30, Thur 9:00-10:30
 

I am an archaeologist with specialization in Paleoindian period, the earliest period of New World prehistory.  I have worked primarily in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains, but I also have limited field experience in Eurasia.  I’m interested in factors that structure the archaeological record from human decision making to site formation.  I often employ mathematical, probabilistic, and computer modeling in my work.  I have worked on a range of issues in prehistory including hunter-gather mobility, technology, subsistence, and demography, particularly with reference to the initial colonization of the Americas.  For almost ten years, with Nicole Waguespack, I excavated Locality B of the Barger Gulch site, a large Folsom residential occupation in Middle Park, Colorado.  I have worked on the problem of the late Pleistocene extinctions, in particular the climate change, overkill, and extraterrestrial impact hypotheses.  In general, I’m interested in why people do what they do, and how this is reflected in a poorly preserved, distorted, and biased archaeological record. 

2003 University of Arizona, Ph.D. (Anthropology)
1999 University of Arizona, M.A. (Anthropology)
1995 University of Wisconsin-Madison, B.S. (Anthropology and Zoology)

PUBLICATIONS
[I have posted downloadable pdf's of many of these. If you are looking for something for which I have not posted a pdf, please contact me.]

Surovell, T. A. and B. S. Grund
  in press  The Associational Critique of Quaternary overkill and why its largely irrelevant to
     the extinction debate. American Antiquity.

Grund, B. S., T. A. Surovell, and S. K. Lyons
 2012 Range sizes and shifts of North American Pliestocene mammals are not consistent
    with a climatic explanation for extinction. World Archaeology 44:43-55. (pdf)

Surovell, T. A.
   2009  Toward a Behavioral Ecology of Lithic Technology: Cases from Paleoindian Archaeology.   
    University of Arizona Press, Tucson. (link)

Waguespack, N. M., T. A. Surovell, A. Denoyer, A. Dallow, A. Savage, J. Hyneman and D. Tapster
   2009   Making a point: Wood- vs. stone-tipped projectiles   Antiquity 83:786-800. (pdf)

Surovell, T. A., J. Finely, G. M. Smith, P. J. Brantingham and R. L. Kelly
    2009  Correcting temporal frequency distributions for taphonomic bias. Journal of Archaeological
        Science 36:1715-1724. (pdf)

Surovell, T. A. and N. M. Waguespack
   2009 Human prey choice in the late Pleistocene and its relation to megafaunal extinctions. In American
       Megafaunal Extinctions at the End of the Pleistocene, edited by G. Haynes,  77-105. Springer. (pdf)

Surovell, T. A. and N. M. Waguespack
  2008  How many elephant kills are 14?  Clovis Mammoth and Mastodon Kills in Context.  Quaternary
    International 191:82-97. (pdf)

Stiner, M. C., J. Beaver, N. D. Munro and T. A. Surovell
    2008 Modeling Paleolithic Predator-Prey Dynamics and the Effects of Hunting Pressure on Prey Choice. In Recent
       Advances in Paleodemography: Data, Techniques and Patterns, edited by J.-P. Bocquet-Appel, pp. 143-178.
       Springer Verlag, Dordecht, The Netherlands.

Surovell, T. A.
   2007 Inter-regional Studies/ Big Game Extinctions. in Encyclopedia of Archaeology, edited by Deborah M. Pearsall,
     pp. 1364-1374. Academic Press, New York.  (pdf)

Surovell, T. A. and N. M. Waguespack
   2007 Folsom hearth-centered use of space at Barger Gulch, Locality B.  In Emerging Frontiers in Colorado
       Paleoindian Archaeology, edited by R. S. Brunswig and B. Pitblado, pp. 219-259, University of Colorado Press,
       Boulder. (pdf)

Surovell, T. A. and P.J. Brantingham
   2007  A Note on the Use of Temporal Frequency Distributions in Studies of Prehistoric Demography. 
       Journal of Archaeological Science 34:1868-1877. (pdf)

Haynes, G., Anderson, D.G., Ferring, C.R., Fiedel, S.J., Grayson, D.K., Haynes, C.V., Jr., Holliday, V.T., Huckell, B.B.,
Kornfeld, M., Meltzer, D.J., Morrow, J., Surovell, T., Waguespack, N.M., Wigand, P., Yohe, R.M., II,
    2007   Comment on "Redefining the age of Clovis: Implications for the Peopling of the Americas". Science  317,
       320b. (pdf)

Surovell, T. A.
    2006    Sediment Mineralogy and Bone Preservation. In Folsom: New Archaeological Investigations of a Classic
       Paleoindian Bison Kill, edited by D. J. Meltzer, pp. 331-337. University of California Press, Berkeley.

Surovell, T. A., N. M. Waguespack, and P. J. Brantingham
   2005 Global Archaeological Evidence for Proboscidean Overkill. Proceedings of the National Academy of
    Sciences 102:6231-6236. (pdf) (link to PNAS)

Surovell, T. A., N. M. Waguespack, J. H. Mayer, M. Kornfeld and G. C. Frison
     2005  Shallow Site Archaeology: Artifact Dispersal, Stratigraphy, and Radiocarbon Dating at the Barger Gulch
         Locality B Folsom site, Middle Park, Colorado. Geoarchaeology 20:627-649. (pdf)

Mayer, J. H., T. A. Surovell, N. M. Waguespack, M. Kornfeld, R. G. Reider and G. C. Frison
   2005  Paleoenvironmental change and landscape response in Barger Gulch, Middle Park, Colorado. (pdf)
        Geoarchaeology 20:599-625.

Stiner, M. C., S. L. Kuhn, T. A. Surovell, P. Goldberg, A. V. Margaris, L. Meignen, S. Weiner and O. Bar-Yosef
  2005 Bone, ash, and shell preservation in Hayonim Cave. In The Faunas of Hayonim Cave, Israel: A 200,000-Year Record
   of Paleolithic Diet, Demography, and Society, edited by M. C. Stiner, pp. 59-77. American School of Prehistoric
   Research Bulletin 48, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Cambridge.

Stiner, M. C., N. D. Munro and T. A. Surovell
  2005 Computer simulation modelling of small game predator-prey dynamics. In The Faunas of Hayonim Cave, Israel: A
   200,000-Year Record of Paleolithic Diet, Demography, and Society, edited by M. C. Stiner, pp. 149-163. American
   School of Prehistoric Research Bulletin 48, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University,
   Cambridge.

Surovell, T. A.
   2003 Simulating coastal migration in New World colonization. Current Anthropology 484:580-591. (pdf)

Surovell, T. A., N. M. Waguespack, and M. Kornfeld
    2003 A note on the functions of Folsom ultrathin bifaces. Current Research in the Pleistocene 20:75-77. (pdf)

Waguespack, N. M. and T. A. Surovell
   2003 Clovis hunting strategies, or how to make out on plentiful resources. American Antiquity 68:333-352. (pdf)

Surovell, T. A., N. M. Waguespack, M. Kornfeld and G. C. Frison
   2001 Barger Gulch Locality B: A Folsom site in Middle Park, Colorado. Current Research in the Pleistocene
    18:58-60. (pdf)

Surovell, T.A. and M. C. Stiner
  2001 Standardizing infrared measures of bone mineral crystallinity: An experimental approach. Journal of
   Archaeological Science 28:633-642.  (pdf)

Stiner, M.C., S. L. Kuhn, T. A. Surovell, P. Goldberg, L. Meignen, Stephen Weiner, and O. Bar-Yosef
  2001 Bone preservation in Hayonim Cave (Israel): A macroscopic and mineralogical study. Journal of Archaeological
   Science 28:643-659 (pdf)

Surovell, T. A.
   2000 Early Paleoindian women, children, mobility, and fertility. American Antiquity 65:493-509. (pdf)

Surovell, T. A.
   2000 Radiocarbon dating of bone apatite by step heating. Geoarchaeology 15:591-608. (pdf)

Stiner, M. C., N. D. Munro and T. A. Surovell
   2000 The tortoise and the hare: Small game use, the broad spectrum revolution, and Paleolithic demography.
    Current Anthropology 41(1):39-73. (pdf)

Stiner, M. C., N. D. Munro, T. A. Surovell, E. Tchernov and O. Bar-Yosef
   1999 Paleolithic population pulses evidenced by small animal exploitation. Science 283:190-193. (pdf)

Surovell, T. A.
   1999 Modeling occupation intensity and small game use in the Levant.  In Zooarchaeology of the
    Pleistocene/Holocene Boundary, edited by J. C. Driver, pp. 31-36.  BAR International Series 800, Oxford.

TECHNICAL REPORTS
Waguespack, N. M., T. A. Surovell, and J. P. Laughlin
  2006 The 2004 and 2005 Field Seasons at Barger Gulch, Locality B, Middle Park, Colorado. Technical
     Report No. 41, George C.  Frison Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Wyoming,
     Laramie.

Surovell, T. A., N. M. Waguespack, M. Kornfeld and G. C. Frison
   2003 The First Five Field Seasons at Barger Gulch, Locality B, Middle Park, Colorado. Technical Report No. 26, George 
     C. Frison Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Wyoming, Laramie.

Waguespack, N. M., T. A. Surovell, M. Kornfeld and G. C. Frison
  2002 The 2001 Field Season at Barger Gulch, Locality B, Middle Park, Colorado. Technical Report No. 20, George C.
    Frison Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Wyoming, Laramie.

COURSES AND SYLLABI
ANTH 1450 World Archaeology [syllabus]
ANTH 3600 Archaeological Science [syllabus]
ANTH 4135/5135 Quantitative Methods for Anthropologists [syllabus]
ANTH 4130/5130  Old World Archaeology [syllabus]
ANTH 4150/5150  Seminar: Colonization of the Americas (with Nicole Waguespack)
ANTH 4150/5150  Computer Programming for Archaeologists [syllabus]
ANTH 4170/5170  Geoarchaeology [syllabus]
ANTH 5880 Professionalism

OTHER STUFF

▪During the summer of 2011, I participated in a television show for the Discovery Channel called "I, Caveman".  In the
show, ten participants spent ten days attempting to live as Stone Age hunter-gatherers.  I served as an "expert," meaning
that I provided commentary on the the things they did from the perspective of an archaeologist with expertise in foraging
peoples of the present and past.  I created a short Powerpoint presentation about their first campsite, its spatial organization,
and how it was used.  I thought the Discovery Channel would put it on their website, but they did not want it. Rather than it
just living on my hard drive, I thought I would post it here:  The I, Caveman camp

▪A weak attempt at academic humor: Why the world's largest animals survived end-Pleistocene extinctions

Links:  University of Wyoming • Department of Anthropology • Anthropology Faculty • George C. Frison Institute

Last updated: 03/08/2012