Dr. Matthew Purtill
Department of Geology and Environmental Sciences Assistant Professor Matthew Purtill recently had a multidisciplinary article published in American Antiquity, an online publication of Cambridge University Press considered to be the premier journal of North American archaeology.
"The Road Not Taken: How Early Landscape Learning and Adoption of a Risk-Averse Strategy Influenced Paleoindian Travel Route Decision Making in the Upper Ohio Valley" explores potential travel routes that late Pleistocene colonizing Native American foragers may have traveled in the upper Ohio Valley in search of adequate chert outcrops from which to manufacture stone tools.
Dr. Purtill’s research highlights the importance of incorporating geological principles and social science theory.
The article abstract can be viewed online.
