Ronald Towner

Associate Professor, Anthropology

Associate Research Professor, Dendrochronology (LTRR)

Emil Haury Endowed Chair in Archaeological Dendrochronology

Bryant Bannister Tree Ring Building, Room 306

About Ronald Towner

My Background and Research Interests: • 30 years experience in archaeology of the western United States in contract, academic, and volunteer settings. • Research Associate/Assistant professor of dendrochronology at Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research for past 17 years. • Courses taught: Introduction to Dendrochronology, Archaeological Dendrochronology, Prehistory of the Southwest, Environmental History of the Southwest, Culture Climate and Catastrophe • My major research interests include expanding dendrochronology and dendroarchaeology beyond the US Southwest, Navajo archaeology and ethnogenesis, conflict during the Protohistoric and Historic Periods in the US Southwest, 20th century migration in the West, and social and behavioral consequences of the transition to pastoralism

Selected Publications

Towner, Ronald H. 2016 Arboreal Archaeology and Early Navajo Land Use. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 6:342-350.

Towner, Ronald H. 2016 Early Navajo Land Use in Northwestern New Mexico: Big Bead Mesa in Regional Perspective. Journal of Field Archaeology 41(1):118-129.

Towner, Ronald H., and Nicolas V. Kessler 2016 Slash and Trash: Dendroarchaeological and Ecological Inferences from a Twentieth-Century Logging Camp in Western New Mexico. International Journal of Historical Archaeology 20(2):249-263.

Towner, Ronald H., and Stacy C. Galassini 2013 Cambium-Peeled Trees in the Zuni Mountains, New Mexico. Kiva 78(2):207-227.

Towner, Ronald H., and Robert A. Heckman 2011 Early Navajo Archaeology on Mckean Mesa, Dinétah. Kiva 76(4):453-481.

Towner, Ronald H., and Pearce P. Creasman 2010 Historical Dendroarchaeology in the el Malpais Area: Lessons form the Savage Homestead. Historical Archaeology 44(4):8-27

Courses Taught

Anth 346 From Clovis to Coronado: Archaeology of the Southwest

Anth 458/558 Histoprical Archaeology

Anth 495/595 Tree-Rings, Documents, and Oral History

Anth/Geos 497j/597j Dendroarchaeology

Areas of Study

Southwest US
Mexico &

Chile and Peru
North America (general)

Research Interests

Dendroarchaeology, Navajo archaeology and ethnogenesis, chronometry, migration, environmental reconstruction, Historical Archaeology.