FAR WESTERN ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH GROUP - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Principal Investigator
- Project Manager
Adie Whitaker is a Principal Investigator, Project Manager, and Faunal Analyst and currently serves as the Vice President for California Operations. He has worked at Far Western since 2008 and has over 20 years archaeological experience throughout California in both academic and CRM contexts. While he has worked in just about every corner of the state, he prefers to be on the Coast and has conducted fieldwork in every California County that touches the Pacific Ocean.
At Far Western he has worked extensively on transportation-related projects. He is an expert on the 2014 First Amended Caltrans Section 106 Programmatic Agreement as it relates to Local Assistance, with experience in the Sierra Nevada foothills, Central Coast, Central Valley, and San Francisco Bay Area.
Dr. Whitaker currently manages cultural resources on-call contracts with Caltrans District 5 (Central Coast), Caltrans District 6 (San Joaquin Valley), Naval Facilities Command Southwest (California, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah), University of California at Davis, and the San Mateo Joint Powers Board.
Dr. Whitaker has authored numerous excavation reports on the archaeology of the central Sierra Nevada, Central Valley, and San Francisco Bay Area in northern California and on the Santa Barbara Channel Islands and coast of southern California. Data from these reports have led to the publication of numerous scholarly articles in regional, national, and international journals, including American Antiquity, the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, the Journal of Archaeological Science, the Journal of Coastal and Island Archaeology, Quaternary International, California Archaeology, and the Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology.
He was the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology from 2017-2020, Book Review Editor for JCGBA from 2015-2017, and is on the Editorial Board of California Archaeology. He has served on the Executive Board of the Society for California Archaeology as Northern Vice President (2010-2012) and Secretary (2009-2010) and has been the chair of the California Advanced Annual Meeting Planning Committee since 2013.
Albert is a Senior Archaeologist working out of Far Western's Great Basin Branch. He attended Utah State University and graduated with a BS in Anthropology in 2005. During his undergraduate studies, Albert gained cultural resources management experience on various projects across Utah. Upon graduating, he headed west and began working full-time for Far Western in 2007. Albert's professional focus is on Section 106 and 110 projects primarily in the Great Basin and California. His experience includes crew leadership and data collection on wide variety of projects, including inventory, resource evaluation, data recovery, and monitoring. Albert has authored and co-authored several technical reports, including NEPA regulatory documents. He has presented papers and posters at professional conferences and his research interests include early North American occupation, lithic technology, and evidence of cultural transmission within the archaeological record.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Laboratory and Collections Management Team
Job Titles:
- Crew Chief or Field Director
Allen McCabe has worked as a professional archaeologist since 1981, with experience in the Great Basin, California, Texas, and the Northwest. He is proficient in archaeological inventory, data recovery excavation, and the operation of GPS technology and associated software for map creation and data integration. Allen has been involved either as an author, co-author, or Crew Chief on well over 400 cultural resources projects. Currently he is permitted by the Bureau of Land Management in Nevada as a Principal Investigator in both prehistoric and historical archaeology.
Since 1987, Allen has served as Crew Chief or Field Director on inventories, site evaluations, and data recovery excavations in California and the Great Basin; he has been a Senior Archaeologist at Far Western since 2007. In addition to his fieldwork, he is experienced in agency and Native American consultation, records searches, literature reviews, and reporting. Allen has documented many large historic-era resources, including major highways (e.g., Lincoln Highway, El Camino Real), standing structures (both industrial and residential types), mine and mill complexes, residential townsites, and overseas Chinese residential features. He has also excavated two historical wooden ships in the San Francisco area. His extensive experience with prehistoric resources ranges from Paleoindian sites to ethnographic pine nut processing areas.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Laboratory and Collections Management Team
- Flotation Lab Director
Job Titles:
- Member of the Laboratory and Collections Management Team
Job Titles:
- Member of the Data Management Team
Ashley is as a Principal Investigator, Project Manager, Tribal Coordinator, and Ethnographer. She joined Far Western in 2018, and has been working as an archaeologist and ethnographer in the Great Basin since 2007. She has worked in academic, governmental, and CRM settings throughout Utah, Nevada, and Northern California.
She received her M.S. in 2011 and her Ph.D. in 2018 from the University of Utah, with a research emphasis exploring how ecological variation influences resource privatization and territorial land claims among hunter-gatherers. Her current research focuses on contemporary pine nut harvest rates in Nevada, hunter-gatherer fire use as landscape modification practice, and how archaeological and ethnographic data can be utilized in contemporary indigenous land claims.
She has employed a variety of ethnographic methods in Nevada, California, and East Africa, that includes interviews (structured and semi-structured), participant observation, recording oral histories, and conducting archival and genealogical research. She has worked as an ethnographer for non-governmental organizations, state and federal agencies, and directly with tribal governments.
Barb has more than twenty-seven years of experience in archaeology and cultural resources management throughout California and Nevada. She serves as the project manager and principal investigator for precontact archaeological and multidisciplinary compliance projects. She has been managing large scale, complex regulatory projects, which include archaeological identification, evaluation, and mitigation, as well as large scale monitoring efforts in compliance with Section 106 of the NHPA, NEPA, and CEQA for clients in both the public and private sectors. She has specific expertise with Caltrans Standard Environmental Regulations Vol. 2 and the 2014 Programmatic Agreement, and Local Assistance programs, and has managed numerous projects associated with relicensing efforts for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in California. She works extensively with Pacific Gas and Electric throughout their service territory on the full range of utility projects. Barb has experience preparing and implementing Historic Properties Management Plans, Memoranda of Agreements, developing resolution of adverse effects to NRHP listed and eligible resources and working with Native American representatives and groups and on projects throughout California and Nevada. Her regulatory expertise particularly in the utility, transportation, and water resources arenas, extends across both state and federal regulations, with a focus on Section 106 and 36 Code of Federal Regulations, Part 800, as well as creatively managing due diligence work with clients in the absence of regulatory requirements.
Barb has been working closely with the Native American tribal groups on all types of cultural resources investigations including complex regulatory projects and the treatment of human remains. Her long-term relationships with Tribal groups have resulted in meaningful collaboration, successful consultation, and projects that are implemented successfully based on trust and transparent coordination between stakeholders including Tribal members, agencies, clients, and cultural resources specialists. Barb brings a strong background in the technical and compliance aspects of archaeology, mentoring staff, dedication to respectful collaboration with tribal groups and treatment of ancestral resources with the highest degree of integrity, and depth of management capabilities.
Barb Siskin is currently the President of the Far Western Foundation
Brian has extensive archaeological experience in a variety of semi-arid and arid settings world-wide. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Arizona. Until the early 1990s, he conducted research in the Near East exploring the transition from hunting and gathering to farming, the onset of sedentary life, and the social organization of early villages at the end of the Pleistocene. Since 1992, he has directed numerous cultural resources management projects throughout California focused on the archaeological record of ancestral Native Americans. These studies have ranged from large-scale surveys to extensive data recovery excavations, in localities such as the San Francisco Bay area, the Central Valley, the Mojave Desert, Owens Valley, along the southern California coast, and on the Chanel Islands. He joined the Far Western team in 2004.
Brian is interested in hunter-gatherer adaptations and the origins of social complexity from a cross-cultural perspective. His investigations into ancestral hunter-gatherers are often interdisciplinary in nature, and explore the complex interrelationship between human decision-making, social interaction and complexity, and environmental factors. In 1999, he was awarded the Thomas E. King award for excellence in cultural resources management from the Society for California Archaeology. He is also a research associate with the Department of Anthropology, University of California, Davis, and an enrolled member in the federally recognized Shawnee Tribe.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Data Management Team
Job Titles:
- Member of the Data Management Team
Job Titles:
- Scientist
- Team Lead Ext. 213
Daron Duke is a Far Western Principal and the Director of our Desert Branch in Henderson, Nevada. He also serves as Vice President of Nevada services, which includes our Great Basin Branch in Carson City, and the Director of Far Western's X-ray fluorescence (XRF) laboratory.
Daron's experience spans over 25 years in the Desert West, where he remains fascinated by how people innovated their way to thousands of years of success and diversity in such a demanding landscape. His research emphasizes stone technology, paleoenvironmental modeling, and collaboration with Native American specialists to enrich this story. Prominent examples include the user-friendly Obsidian Hydration Dating Workbook, his long-term efforts with the late Pleistocene archaeology of Utah's Great Salt Lake Desert, and the outreach film A Point in Time, which was developed as part of Far Western's work with the Nevada BLM's Lincoln County Archaeological Initiative. All of this work was fostered by heritage management projects.
Daron's scientific and collaborative expertise is invaluable when faced with evolving standards in cultural resource evaluation. His experience encompasses diverse regulatory settings and industries, and he has long-term ties with regional tribes and tribal groups. Recent projects include survey, excavation, and sensitivity modeling on lands managed by the BLM, USFS, and U.S. military. He has a strong background in the energy sector, where he has directed transmission, fiber, and pipeline projects for NV Energy, Southern California Edison, and PG&E. Daron is permitted by the Bureau of Land Management as a Principal Investigator in Nevada, California, Utah, Arizona, and Oregon.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Laboratory and Collections Management Team
Eric received his B.A. and M.A. degrees at California State University, Chico, and his Ph.D. from University of California, Davis, in 2004. He has worked as a professional archaeologist since 1977. Since joining Far Western in 1985, he has conducted archaeobotanical research (the study of plant remains preserved in archaeological sites) at hundreds of sites throughout California and Nevada, and acted as Principal Investigator on a wide array of projects. He has written more than 100 technical archaeobotanical and generalist reports, including peer-reviewed publications on California plant remains.
Job Titles:
- Principal Investigator at Far Western 's Great Basin Branch
Erik is a Principal Investigator at Far Western's Great Basin Branch in Carson City, Nevada. He has been active in archaeological fieldwork and research within the Great Basin and California since 2011, earning his Master of Science in Anthropology from University of Utah in 2013 and Ph.D. in 2019. Erik has served in many capacities as an archaeologist including directing projects and leading crews on NHPA Section 106 and 110 inventories, technical report writing, participation in National Science Foundation sponsored projects, and teaching field schools. Erik has experience in a diverse range of research and lab methodologies including faunal analysis, statistical modeling, lithic analysis, radiocarbon sample preparation, and chronological modeling. His doctoral research at the University of Utah focused on the application of principles from Behavioral Ecology to better understand aspects of prehistoric hunter-gatherer subsistence strategies within the larger ecological context of environmental productivity and paleoclimatic conditions. Erik's published work includes articles in California and Great Basin Anthropology and American Antiquity.
Jack began doing California archaeology at the Anthropological Studies Center at Sonoma State University in 1992, where he studied the practice of geoarchaeology and its application to cultural resources management, after earning his M.A. in Cultural Resource Management from Sonoma State University in 1996. His primary research interests include late Quaternary geology, paleoenvironments, landscape evolution, landform chrono-stratigraphy, site formation processes, the structure of the archaeological record, and the problem of locating buried sites. As an advocate for improving the multi-disciplinary relationships between archaeology and the earth sciences, he regularly integrates and synthesizes geological and archaeological datasets to identify where buried archaeological sites may or may not be located. He has directed hundreds of archaeological and geoarchaeological studies throughout California, including such large and complex projects as the Los Vaqueros Reservoir/Pipeline and the Sonora Bypass, and developed region-wide geoarchaeological overviews and assessments for the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) Districts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 9, and 10, with others underway. Jack joined Far Western in 2006 where he is currently a Principal Investigator and Geoarchaeologist. He is an active member of Far Western's Geoarchaeological Department, which has modeled buried site sensitivity for 80 percent of California.
Jack's work has been published in American Antiquity, California Archaeology, PaleoAmerica, the Journal of Geography and Geology, the Center for Archaeological Research at Davis (CARD), the Journal of Coastal Research, Quaternary Science Reviews, and the Geological Society of America Newsletter of the Archaeological Geology Division. His work has earned him the Governor's Historic Preservation Award for Cuyama Valley-Corridor to the Past, an exceptional example of historic preservation and community outreach and involvement (2016), the Martin A. Baumhoff Special Achievement Award given by the Society for California Archaeology (2006), and the California Preservation Foundation Design Award for Geoarchaeological Study and Sensitivity Model for Southern Santa Clara, Hollister, and San Juan Valleys (2005).
Jeff received a B.A. in Anthropology from Sonoma State University in 1991 and an M.A. in Cultural Resources Management from that same institution in 1996. He is currently a Principal at Far Western where he provides a research emphasis on the San Francisco Bay area, Central Valley, and adjacent regions of the Sierra Nevada and Coast Ranges. His interests include hunter-gatherer adaptations, landscape evolution and its effects on the archaeological record, paleo-biogeography and paleo-environment of California, and the culture history of central California. Results of Jeff's research have appeared in Quaternary Science Reviews, American Antiquity, Journal of Archaeological Science, Journal of Ethnobiology, Journal of Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology, and the Journal of the Society for California Archaeology, among others. He is also the lead author of the Central Valley chapter in California Prehistory, edited by Terry Jones and Kathryn Klar, and is the co-author of monographs published by the Center for Archaeological Research at Davis and the San Luis Obispo Archaeological Society, as well as several book chapters published by the University of Utah Press and Texas A&M Press. In 2006, Jeff, along with Jack Meyer, received the Martin A. Baumhoff Special Achievement Award given by the Society for California Archaeology, and his work has also received the Governor's Historic Preservation Award (2007), and the California Preservation Foundation Design Award (2005).
Job Titles:
- Nevada Administrative Lead
Job Titles:
- Member of the Laboratory and Collections Management Team
Job Titles:
- Member of the Laboratory and Collections Management Team
Joanna joined Far Western's Desert Branch in Henderson, Nevada, in 2012, where she is a Principal Investigator and Branch Manager. She has a BA in Anthropology from the University of Oklahoma and earned her Master's degree from Southern Methodist University in 2010. Her archaeological research interests focus on lithic resource use and hunter-gatherer adaptations, and she has more than 20 years of regional archaeological experience in the Great Basin, Rocky Mountains, and Great Plains. She currently serves as the Treasurer for the Great Basin Anthropological Association (2019-2023).
Joanna's Far Western work involves project management, field leadership, and reporting for National Historic Preservation Act Section 106 and 110 inventory, testing and data recovery, and monitoring projects in the military and utility sectors. Recent projects include directing large-scale surveys and site evaluations in the Mojave Desert around Twentynine Palms, California, and the Nevada Test and Training Range. She is permitted by the BLM as a Principal Investigator in California, Nevada, Utah, and as a Field Director in Arizona, Oregon, and Washington.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Laboratory and Collections Management Team
Job Titles:
- Member of the Data Management Team
- Data Director
Job Titles:
- Member of the Laboratory and Collections Management Team
Job Titles:
- Graphic and Production Specialist
Kelly, Robert L., Madeline E. Mackie, Erick Robinson, Jack Meyer, Michael Berry, Matthew Boulanger, Brian F. Codding, Jacob Freeman, Carey James Garland, Joseph Gingerich, Robert Hard, James Haug, Andrew Martindale, Scott Meeks, Myles Miller, Shane Miller, Timothy Perttula, Jim A. Railey, Ken Reid, Ian Scharlotta, Jerry Spangler, David Hurst Thomas, Victor Thompson, and Andrew White
Job Titles:
- Laboratory Director
- Member of the Laboratory and Collections Management Team
Job Titles:
- Assistant
- Production Director
Job Titles:
- Member of the Laboratory and Collections Management Team
Job Titles:
- Member of the Data Management Team
Job Titles:
- Member of the Data Management Team
Naomi has been working professionally as an archaeologist in several western states for more than 15 years, with a geographic focus on central California. She received a B.A. in Physical Anthropology from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 2005 and first worked for Far Western in 2007 as a temporary field technician. She formally joined the Far Western staff as a Geoarchaeologist in 2012 after completing her M.A. in Cultural Resources Management at Sonoma State University. Naomi currently serves as a Principal Investigator, Project Manager, and Geoarchaeologist. Her experience includes all phases of archaeological investigations including desktop research, sensitivity assessments, research design, survey, subsurface identification, evaluation testing, and data recovery, and she has led and contributed to authorship of numerous technical reports and regulatory compliance documents meeting a variety of local, state, and federal agency requirements under the National Historic Preservation Act, National Environmental Policy Act, and California Environmental Quality Act. Her research interests include Holocene paleo-environments and landscape evolution, human/environment relationships, preservation of the archaeological record, site contexts and stratigraphy, and collaborative, community-based, and decolonizing practices.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Laboratory and Collections Management Team
Job Titles:
- Production / Design Specialist
Job Titles:
- Member of the Laboratory and Collections Management Team
Phil Kaijankoski serves as a Principal Investigator and Geoarchaeologist. He graduated from California State University, Chico in 2001 with a major in anthropology and a minor in geology. He continued to pursue his interest in geoarchaeology while at Sonoma State University where he received his Master's in 2006. His thesis examined spatial changes in the shoreline of North America over the past 15,000 years to identify where evidence of the earliest human occupation may be found today. He has been working as a professional archaeologist since 2000, and first joined Far Western in the summer of 2004 as a temporary field technician. In 2008, Phil returned to Far Western as a Geoarchaeologist working under his mentor Jack Meyer. His role later expanded to archaeological Field Director and eventually Principal Investigator as he authored numerous excavation reports on the archaeology of the San Francisco Bay Area, Northern and Central California coast, and the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys.
His current research interests include Holocene landscape evolution, paleoenvironmental change, and how these processes impacted people living in the past. This is applied through geoarchaeological investigations searching for deeply buried and submerged archaeological sites utilizing a variety of exploration and dating techniques. Through his experience in the San Francisco Bay Area where he resides, he has become an expert on successfully conducting subsurface testing in urban settings with complex logistics. Furthermore, his background in geoarchaeology has led to a strong interest in archaeological site formation processes and he is often employed to document and analyze stratigraphically complex archaeological sites to aid in temporal component definition.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Laboratory and Collections Management Team
Dr. Byerly specializes in desert archaeology and vertebrate taphonomy, and has worked on multiple contract-based and academic archaeological projects throughout the western United States. Since 2011, he has served as Field Director for large scale archaeological surveys and site evaluations at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, California, and also conducted Formative-Era research in southeastern Nevada under the auspices of the Lincoln County Archaeological Initiative. Ryan has also participated in several projects focused on Lower Paleolithic through Neolithic human biological and cultural evolution in Germany, Egypt, and Armenia, and has most recently worked at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, as part of the on-going research efforts of The Olduvai Paleoanthropology and Paleoecology Project.
Sharon has worked as a professional archaeologist in California and Nevada since 1979. Her positions have included District Archaeologist and Assistant Forest Archaeologist with the Eldorado National Forest (five years); Resource Area Archaeologist with the Bureau of Land Management, Arcata (two years); Staff Archaeologist at the Cultural Resources Facility, Sonoma State University (three years); and as Principal Investigator, Field Director, report author, and general editor with Far Western since 1991. She is a Registered Professional Archaeologist, a member of the Society for Historical Archaeology, and a Lifetime Member of the Society for California Archaeology (SCA). Sharon is also past Editor of the SCA Proceedings and the SCA Newsletter.
Sharon's professional experience encompasses both northern and southern California, from the Pacific coast to the eastern front of the Sierra Nevada, and into western Nevada. Her areas of special expertise and interest include 1) the archaeology and history of the Truckee/Tahoe region and the north-central Sierra, from Amador to Plumas counties; and 2) public education and interpretation. Her work includes many archaeological surveys, site evaluations and mitigations, environmental documents, management plans, web-site articles, Native American consultation, agency consultation, and public education/interpretation products. Sharon has extensive experience in both prehistoric/Native American archaeology and historical archaeology. She holds an M.A. in Anthropology and an M.A. in English/Creative Writing, both from the University of California, Davis.
Steven came to be a career archaeologist after military service and earning a degree in geology, and has since served as Crew Chief and Field Director for cultural resources projects at Far Western's Great Basin Branch in Carson City, Nevada. His experience within the Great Basin's diverse landscape includes inventory, evaluation, and mitigation of archaeological sites from the ancient lake environments of Lake Lahontan and Lake Bonneville to the pinyon-forested, high desert mountains. His years of experience also include monitoring and include serving as Field Director of cultural resources for the Vidler Water Project, North Valleys Waters Rights-of-Way, Nevada, and as Statewide Field Director for Archaeological Monitoring on the Ruby Pipeline Project.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Laboratory and Collections Management Team
Job Titles:
- Logistics Coordinator
- Logistics Coordinator ( Desert Branch )
Vickie's active involvement in cultural resources management, including prehistoric archaeology, historical archaeology, and geoarchaeology, spans three decades. She is currently a Principal Investigator in the Great Basin Branch of Far Western in Carson City, Nevada. She has served as Project Manager, Field Director, and Geoarchaeologist on numerous projects in California, the Great Basin, the Southwest, and New England. During the past 20 years, her regional work in the Great Basin and California has included oversight of a wide variety of projects through the preparation of research designs, programmatic agreements, regional contexts, and treatment plans; directing field and laboratory work; conducting lithic analysis,; and preparing technical publications in timely and cost-effective ways.
Ms. Clay's interests include arid lands adaptations and site formation processes. Additionally, she brings a strong commitment to cooperative interdisciplinary research to produce sound environmental archaeology products. Publications include those in paleontology, soils, and field archaeology journals. She recently contributed an article on winter villages to Nevada's Online Encyclopedia. She is currently mentoring young archaeologists, and completing treatment and public interpretation of prehistoric sites at Collier Rest Area in northern California, at Stampede Reservoir in the upper Truckee River basin, and on Peavine Mountain near Reno.