James Watson

About James Watson

My research examines health and disease in prehistoric populations through their skeletal remains. I am specifically interested in understanding prehistoric human adaptations in desert ecosystems and the role local resources play in the adoption of agriculture and their impact on health. Current projects involve the excavation and analysis of the earliest farmers in the Sonoran Desert, incipient agriculturalists in the Atacama Desert, and the earliest foragers in the Peruvian highlands. I run the Bioarchaeology Laboratory within the Arizona State Museum. As a teaching, training, and research lab, we train students in human osteology and field techniques, provide professional excavation and documentation services for human remains, facilitate repatriations to claimant communities, and research past human variation and biology.

Selected Publications

Edited Volumes

Hernández Espinoza, Patricia Olga, and James T. Watson (eds.). 2024. La Población del Norte de México. Ante viejos paradigmas, nuevas metodologías. Volume I. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Coordinación Nacional de Antropología, México City.

Hernández Espinoza, Patricia Olga, and James T. Watson (eds.). 2024. La Población del Norte de México. Ante viejos paradigmas, nuevas metodologías. Volume II. Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Coordinación Nacional de Antropología, México City.

Watson, James T., and Gordon F.M. Rakita (eds.). 2020. Ancient Southwestern Mortuary Practices. University of Colorado Press, Boulder. ISBN: 978-1-64642-012-4

Schmidt, Christopher W., and James T. Watson (eds.). 2019. Dental Wear in Evolutionary and Biocultural Contexts. Elsevier Press, London. ISBN: 978-0-12-815599-8

Articles and Book Chapters

2025 Garcia M., Cristina, James T. Watson, and Danielle O. Phelps. Selective Influence of West Mexico Cultural Traditions in the Ónavas Valley, Sonora, Mexico. In: Michael Mathewitz and John Pohl (eds.), Reassessing the Aztatlán World: Ethnogenesis and Cultural Continuity in Northwest Mesoamerica, pp. 152-163. University of Utah Press, Boulder. DOI: 10.2307/jj.24215733.15

2025. Watson, James T., Aaron J. Young, RJ Sliva, Angela M. Mallard, and Rachael Byrd. Small-scale Migrations among Early Farmers in the Sonoran Desert. American Antiquity 90(2):359-378. DOI:10.1017/aaq.2024.78

2022 Hernandz Espinoza, Patricia Olga, and James T. Watson. North of Mesoamerica: Bioarchaeology of the Northwest, North-Central, and Northeast. In: Vera Tiesler (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Mesoamerican Bioarchaeology, pp. 75-108. Routledge, New York.

2022 Watson, James T., Aaron J. Young, Angela Garcia-Lewis, Cristin Lucas, and Shannon Plummer. Respectful Terminology in Archaeological Compliance. Advances in Archaeological Practice 10(2):140-148. DOI:10.1017/aap.2021.47

2021 Mountain, Rebecca V., Cait B. McPherson, Jordan A. Wilson, Robert M. Blew, and James T. Watson. Sex differences in age-related bone loss and antemortem tooth loss in East-Central Arizona (AD 1200-1450). International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 31:716–726. DOI: 10.1002/oa.2984

2020 Watson, James T. Variation across Ancient Southwestern Mortuary Practices. In: James T. Watson, Gordon F. M. Rakita (eds.), Ancient Southwestern Mortuary Practices, pp. 257-275. University Press of Colorado, Boulder.

2020 Watson, James T. Mortuary Practices among Early Farming Communities in the Sonoran Desert. In: James T. Watson, Gordon F. M. Rakita (eds.), Ancient Southwestern Mortuary Practices, pp. 151-174. University of Colorado Press, Boulder.

2020 Randall Haas, James T. Watson, Tammy Buonasera, John Southon, Jennifer C. Chen, Sarah Noe, Kevin Smith, Carlos Viviano Llave, Jelmer Eerkens, and Glendon Parker. 2020. Female Hunters of the Early Americas. Science Advances 6(45):eabd0310. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abd0310

2020 Cerezo-Roman, Jessica, and James T. Watson. Transformation by Fire: Changes in Funerary Customs from the Early Agricultural to Preclassic Period among Prehispanic Populations of Southern Arizona. American Antiquity 85(1):132-151. DOI: 10.1017/aaq.2019.71

2019 Watson, James T., and Iván Muñoz Ovalle. 2019. Diet as a Social Construct in the Early Andean Diaspora. Current Anthropology 60(2): 264-274. DOI: 10.1086/702306

2019 Christopher W. Schmidt, Ashley Remy, Rebecca Van Sessen, John Willman, Kristin Krueger, Rachel Scott, Patrick Mahoney, Jeremy Beach, Jaqueline McKinley, Ruggero D'Anastasio, Laura Chiu, Michele Buzon, J. Rocco De Gregory, Susan Sheridan, Jacqueline Eng, James T. Watson, Haagen Klaus, Pedro Da-Gloria, Jeremy Wilson, Abigail Stone, Paul Sereno, Jessica Droke, Rose Perash, Christopher Stojanowski, and Nicholas Herrmann. Dental microwear texture analysis of Homo sapiens sapiens: foragers, farmers, and pastoralists. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 169(2):207-226. DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.23815

2019 Tuggle, Alexandra, and James T. Watson. Periodontal Health and the Lifecourse Approach in Bioarchaeology. Dental Anthropology 32(2):12-21. DOI: 10.26575/daj.v32i2.289

2018 Fleming, Kota, and James T. Watson. Raiding and Warfare in Early Farming Villages of the Sonoran Desert. Kiva 84(4):424-439. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26771502

2018 Cerezo-Román, Jessica I., Silvia Nava I. Maldonado, Carlos Cruz Guzmán, James T. Watson, and Elisa Villalpando. Changes in Remembrance of a Cremation Urnfield Cemetery from Prehispanic Times to the Present at Cerro de Trincheras, Sonora, Mexico. Latin American Antiquity 29(1):185-190. DOI: 10.1017/laq.2017.61

2017 Watson, James T., and Cristina Garcia M. Dental Modification and the Expansion and Manipulation of Mesoamerican Identity into Northwest Mexico. In: Scott E. Burnett, Joel D. Irish (eds.), A World View of Bioculturally Modified Teeth, pp. 298-315. University of Florida Press.

2017 Watson, James T., and Randall Haas. Dental Evidence for Wild Tuber Processing among Titicaca Basin Foragers 7000 YBP. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 164:117-130. DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.23261

2016 Watson, James T., and Danielle Phelps. Violence and Perimortem Signaling among Early Irrigation Communities in the Sonoran Desert. Current Anthropology 57(5):586–609. DOI: 10.1086/688256

2016 Watson, James T., and Cristina García M. Postclassic Expansion of Mesoamerican (Biocultural) Characteristics into Sonora, Northwest Mexico. Journal of Field Archaeology 41(2):222-235. DOI: 10.1080/00934690.2016.1159899

2015 Watson, James T., Jessica I. Cerezo-Román, Silvia I. Nava Maldonado, Carlos Cruz Guzmán, and M. Elisa Villalpando. Death and Community Identity in the Trincheras Cremation Cemetery, Sonora, Mexico. In: Christopher W. Schmidt, Stephen A. Symes (eds.), The Analysis of Burned Human Remains. Academic Press, New York, pp. 339-353.

2015 Carpenter, John, Guadalupe Sánchez, James T. Watson, and Elisa Villalpando. 2015. The La Playa Archaeological Project: Binational Interdisciplinary Research on Long-Term Human Adaptation in the Sonoran Desert. Journal of the Southwest 57(2-3):213-264. DOI: 10.1353/jsw.2015.0010

2013 Watson, James T., and Marijke Stoll. 2013. Gendered Logistic Mobility among the Earliest Farmers in the Sonoran Desert. Latin American Antiquity 24(4):433-450. DOI:10.7183/1045-6635.24.4.433

2013 Watson, James T., Bernardo Arriaza, Vivian Standen, and Ivan Muñoz Ovalle. Tooth Wear Related to Marine Foraging, Agro-Pastoralism and the Formative Transition on the Northern Chilean Coast. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 23(3):287-302. DOI: 10.1002/oa.1247

2012 Byrd, Rachel, James T. Watson, Paul Fish, and Suzanne Fish. 2012. Architecture and the Afterlife: A Spatial Analysis of Mortuary Patterns at University Indian Ruin. Journal of Arizona Archaeology 2(1):101-111.

2010 Watson, James T., Ivan Muñoz Ovalle, and Bernardo Arriaza. Formative Adaptations, Diet, and Oral Health in the Azapa Valley of Northwest Chile. Latin American Antiquity 21(4):423-439.

2010 Watson, James T., Misty Fields, and Debra L. Martin. The Introduction of Agriculture and Its Effect on Women’s Oral Health. American Journal of Human Biology 22(1):92-102. DOI: 10.1002/ajhb.20958

2008 Watson, James T. Prehistoric Dental Disease and the Dietary Shift from Cactus to Cultigens in Northwest Mexico. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 18:202-212. DOI: 10.1002/oa.917

2008 Watson, James T. Changes in Food Processing and Occlusal Dental Wear during the Early Agricultural Period in Northwest Mexico. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 135(1):92-99. DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.20712

2006 Benyshek, Daniel C., and James T. Watson. Exploring the Thrifty Genotype’s Food Shortage Assumptions: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Ethnographic Accounts of Food Security among Foraging and Agricultural Societies. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 131(1):120-126. DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.20334

Courses Taught

ANTH 403/503 Diseases and Human Evolution

ANTH 468/568 Human Osteology

ANTH 495/595 Bioarchaeology

ANTH 552R Seminar in Southwest Archaeology: Borderlands

ANTH 492 Directed Research

ANTH 493/693 Internship

ANTH 498A/498H Senior/Honors Thesis

ANTH 499/599 Independent Study

Areas of Study

Bioarchaeology, dental anthropology, paleopathology, field archaeology.

Human diet, health, and disease in prehistory, origins of agriculture, arid land adaptations.

Southwest United States & northwest Mexico, Mesoamerica, northern Chile.

Projects

La Playa Archaeological Project

Oral Health in Northern Chile

Bioarchaeology of the Formative Transition in the Andean Altiplano