Paul R. Fish

Professor Emeritus of Anthropology
Curator Emeritus, Archaeology at the Arizona State Museum

About Paul Fish

My interests and training (Michigan, BA; Arizona State University, M.A. and Ph.D.) are in anthropological archaeology with a particular emphasis on the organization of Neolithic societies, regional settlement patterns and landscapes, and pre-Hispanic agriculture.  Publications and field research include investigations in North America (Southwest and Southeast U.S. and Northwest Mexico) and South America (early coastal fishermen in southern Brazil).   The Hohokam tradition of Arizona and the trincheras or hilltop settlement phenomenon of the U.S./Mexico borderlands have been a focus of study for over 40 years.  Prior to coming to the University of Arizona in 1979, I held positions at the Museum of Northern Arizona (Senior Archaeologist) and the University of Georgia (Assistant Professor).  Current research focuses on University of Arizona Field School investigations at Hohokam Classic period platform mound villages near Marana and at University Indian Ruin. 

Selected Recent and Forthcoming Publications:

In Press Roasting pit cooking among village farmers in the U.S. Southwest and Mexican Northwest: practice and significance.  In 10,000 Years of Indigenous Cooking in the Arid Landscapes of North America, edited by Charles Koenig and Myles Miller, University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.  Paul Fish.

2016     Mesoamerican connections.  Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the US Southwest, edited by Barbara Mills and Severin Fowles, pp. 461-480.  Oxford University Press, Oxford.  Ben Nelson, Paul Fish, and Suzanne Fish.

2015     Key issues and topics in the archaeology of the American Southwest and Northwestern Mexico.  The Kiva 81: 2-30. Stephen Plog, Paul Fish, Donna Glowacki, and Suzanne Fish.

2013     Ecological perspectives on persistent places in southern coastal Brazil.  In The Archaeology and Historical Ecology of Small-Scale Economies, edited by Victor Thompson, pp. 120-140.  University of Florida Press, Gainesville.  Paul Fish, Suzanne Fish, Paulo DeBlasis, and Maria Dulce Gaspar.

2013     Power and Economy in Early Classic Period Hohokam Society: An Archaeological Perspective from the Marana Mound Site, edited by James M. Bayman, Paul R. Fish and Suzanne K. Fish.  Arizona State Museum Archaeological Series 207.  University of Arizona, Tucson.

2012     Hohokam society and water management.  In The Oxford Handbook of North American Archaeology, edited by Timothy Pauketat, pp. 571-585.  Oxford University Press, Oxford.  Paul Fish and Suzanne Fish.

Courses Taught

Anth 418, 518   Southwest Land and Society

Anth 442a,b,542a,b  Archaeological Field Methods

Areas of Study

Borderlands of the outhern U.S. Southwest and Mexican Northwest

Coastal Brazil

Research Interests

Organization of non-state societies; settlement patterns, traditional agriculture and water management in arid lands; transition to agriculture.