Mary Prasciunas

About Mary Prasciunas

I am an archaeologist who works primarily in the U.S. Southwest, and I coordinate the MA in Applied Archaeology program. I have worked in a variety of academic and applied archaeological contexts, including with private cultural resource management companies, state and federal agencies, and most recently as faculty and director of the Center for Archaeological Field Training at Pima Community College.  My work bridges the gap between academic training and real-world professional practice. I help students obtain the experience and evolving practical skills necessary to successfully navigate the complex compliance and preservation challenges inherent in the cultural heritage sector. My approach centers on collaborative community-based projects, establishing long-term relationships, and developing employment pipelines with external partners. To create mutually beneficial, hands-on learning opportunities, I have partnered with private industry; federal, state, and local agencies; Tribes; museums; and non-profit organizations. 

In addition to my focus on applied archaeological practice, I have ongoing research interests in late Pleistocene hunter-gatherer landscape use and settlement patterns, responses to environmental change, Paleoindian archaeology, the peopling of the Americas, and lithic technology.

Selected Publications

Prasciunas, Mary, Helen O’Brien, Tineke Van Zandt, David Stephen
2025  Removing Barriers and Creating Pathways: The Critical Role of Pima Community College’s Archaeology Field Training Program. Journal of Arizona Archaeology 11:89-106.

Airlie House Revisited Workforce Training Working Group, with contributions by Ben Ford, Alexis Boutin, Kevin Cupka Head, John Doershuk, Kevin C. Nolan, Andrea Palmiotto, Kim Redman, Daniel H. Sandweiss, Katherine M. Sterner, and Kirsten Vacca 2025  Aligning Education with Industry: Strategic Pathways to CRM Workforce Readiness. The SAA Archaeological Record 25:12-19.

Prasciunas, Mary M., Vance T. Holliday, and Jesse A. M. Ballenger2016  Terminal Pleistocene Paleoindian Ecology and Demography: A View from the Southwestern United States. In Causation and Explanation: Demography, Movement, Historical Ecology, edited by Cynthia Herhahn and Ann Ramenofsky. University of Colorado Press, Boulder.

Prasciunas, Mary M., Fred Nials, C. Vance Haynes, Jr., Lance McNees, William Scoggin, and Allen Denoyer
2016  Reinvestigating the Union Pacific Mammoth Site, Wyoming.  In Stones, Bones, and Profiles: Celebrating the Contributions of George C. Frison and C. Vance Haynes, edited by Marcel Kornfeld and Bruce Huckell. University of Colorado Press, Boulder.

Prasciunas, Mary M. and Todd A. Surovell
2015  Reevaluating the Duration of Clovis: the Problem of Non-Representative Radiocarbon. In Clovis: On the Edge of a New Understanding, edited by Ashley Smallwood and Thomas Jennings. Center for the Study of the First Americans, Texas A & M University Press, College Station.

Prasciunas, Mary M.
2014  Minimum Analytical Flaked Stone Nodules and Clovis Technological Organization at the Sheaman Site, Wyoming. In Lithics in the West: Using Lithic Analysis to Solve Archaeological Problems in Western North America, edited by William Andrefsky, Jr., Douglas Macdonald, and Pei-Lin Yu. University of Montana Press, Missoula.

Mary M. Prasciunas and Jesse A. M. Ballenger
2012  Paleoindians and Projectile Points in the Southwestern United States. 
Archaeology Southwest 26:27. Archaeology Southwest, Tucson.

Ballenger, Jesse A. M., Vance T. Holliday, Andrew L. Kowler, William T. Reitze, Mary M. Prasciunas, D. Shane Miller, and Jason D. Windingstad 
2011  Evidence for Younger Dryas Global Climate Oscillation and Human Response in the American Southwest. Quaternary International 242:502-519.

Prasciunas, Mary M.
2011  Mapping Clovis: Projectile Points, Behavior, and Bias. American Antiquity 76:107-126.

Prasciunas, Mary M.
2010  Book review of First Peoples in a New World: Colonizing Ice Age America, by David J. Meltzer. University of California Press, Berkeley. American Antiquity 75:987-988.

Prasciunas, Mary M., George C. Frison, Marcel Kornfeld, Mark E. Miller, and Steven J. Sutter
2008  Clovis in Wyoming. Current Research in the Pleistocene 25:135-138.

Prasciunas, Mary M.
2007  Bifacial Cores and Flake Production Efficiency: An Experimental Test of Technological Assumptions.  American Antiquity 72:334-348.

Kelly, Robert L. and Mary M. Prasciunas
2007  Did the Ancestors of Native North Americans Cause Extinctions during the Late Pleistocene? And does it Matter if they did? In Native Americans and the Environment: Perspectives on the Ecological Indian, edited by Michael E. Harkin and David Rich Lewis, pp. 95-122.  University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln. 

Prasciunas, Mary M. and Allen J. Denoyer
2007  Clovis Occupation of the Central Colorado High Country.  Current Research in the Pleistocene 24:136-138. 

Towner, Ronald H., Linah A. Ababneh, Mary M. Prasciunas, and Karen T. Porter 
2000  The Dendrochronology of Palluche Canyon, Dinetah.  Kiva 66:267-290.

Courses Taught

ANTH 440A/540A: Cultural Resource Management
ANTH 452R/552R: Archaeology of the Southwest
ANTH 457/557: Contesting the Past: Archaeology and Heritage
ANTH 496/596: Lithic Analysis
ANTH 561: Paleoindian Origins
ANTH 593: Internship

Areas of Study

U.S. Southwest, western North America 

Research Interests

Archaeology of the U.S. Southwest, applied archaeology, cultural resource management, Tribal collaboration, community engagement, peopling of the Americas, hunter-gatherers, Paleoindian archaeology, geoarchaeology, lithic technology, experimental archaeology