Summary
Geoff has worked in the Intermountain West since 2001 and primarily focuses on the archaeology of the Pleistocene-Holocene transition. Topics of interest include: (1) human mobility strategies, as measured through analyses of lithic technology and source provenance studies of obsidian tools; (2) how environmental, demographic, and social factors influenced hunter-gatherer adaptation in the Great Basin; (3) human dietary choices and the importance of Indigenous knowledge to interpreting food residues from archaeological contexts; and (4) public outreach, including collaborative teaching, training, and gathering events.
As Executive Director of the Artemisia Archaeological Research Fund (AARF), Smith is actively involved in fieldwork each summer and is currently directing survey projects in the northwestern Great Basin. He is also analyzing Western Stemmed Tradition (WST) lithic assemblages from Last Supper Cave and several surface locales along the Nevada-Oregon border. Finally, Smith is co-PI of the Traditional Nutrition Project, which brings together Indigenous community members and staff and students from UNR and the University of Oregon to share knowledge about how and when to gather Great Basin plants and the macro and micronutrients that different foods provide.
Smith welcomes inquiries from prospective undergraduate and graduate students interested in Great Basin archaeology and ecology.
Research interests
- The Pleistocene-Holocene transition in the Intermountain West
- Experimental archaeology
- Lithic technology and technological organization
- Peopling of the Americas
- Public outreach
Courses taught
- ANTH 202 Introduction to Archaeology
- ANTH 350 The Archaeology of Nevada
- ANTH 446/646 Archaeological Methods
- ANTH 448a/648a Field School in Archaeology
- ANTH 449b Lithic Artifact Analysis
- ANTH 723 Lithic Technological Organization
- ANTH 740 Great Basin Archaeology and Paleoecology
- ANTH 741 Peopling of the Americas
Select Publications (2019-Present)
- 2024 Rosencrance, Richard L., Katelyn N. McDonough, Geoffrey N. Smith, Christopher S. Jazwa, Dennis L. Jenkins, Joshua Clements, Daron G. Duke, Daniel O. Stueber, and L. Suzann Henrikson. Bayesian Analysis of Haskett Projectile Point Dates in the Intermountain West Demonstrates Contemporaneity with Clovis and Folsom Points. PaleoAmerica, in press.
- 2024 Smith, Geoffrey M., Dennis L. Jenkins, Derek J. Reaux, Sophia A. Jamaldin, Richard L. Rosencrance, and Katelyn N. McDonough. Western Stemmed Tradition Toolstone Conveyance and its Role in Understanding How Early Populations Settled into the Northwestern Great Basin. In Current Perspectives on Stemmed and Fluted Technologies of the American Far West, edited by Katelyn N. McDonough, Richard L. Rosencrance, and Jordan Pratt, pp. 59-78. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
- 2023 Smith, Geoffrey M., Daniel O. Stueber, Erica J. Bradley, Richard L. Rosencrance, and Daron Duke. The Form and Function of Oversized Parman Stemmed Points of the Western Stemmed Tradition. Journal of California and Great Basin 43(2):17-31.
- 2023 Rosencrance, Richard L., Christopher S. Jazwa, Geoffrey M. Smith, and Jackson C. Mueller. Redating Deer Creek Cave: A Stratified Upland Site in Northeastern Nevada. Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 43(2):243-260.
- 2022 Smith, Geoffrey M. (ed.) In the Shadow of the Steamboat: A Natural and Cultural History of North Warner Valley, Oregon. University of Utah Anthropological Papers 137, Salt Lake City.
- 2022 Bradley, Erica J., Geoffrey M. Smith, and Kenneth E. Nussear. Ecological Niche Modeling and Diachronic Change in Paleoindian Land Use in the Northwestern Great Basin. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 45:103564.
- 2022 Smith, Geoffrey M., Sara Sturtz, Anna J. Camp, Kenneth D. Adams, Elizabeth Kallenbach, Richard L. Rosencrance, and Richard E. Hughes. Leonard Rockshelter Revised: Evaluating a 70-year-old claim of a Late Pleistocene Human Occupation in the Western Great Basin. American Antiquity.
- 2022 Rhode, Dave, Geoffrey M. Smith, Eric Dillingham, Haden U. Kingrey, and Nicole D. George. The Nye Canyon Paleo Site: An Upper Montane Mixed Fluted, Clovis Blade, and Western Stemmed Tradition Assemblage in Lyon Canyon, PaleoAmerica 8(2):115-129.
- 2021 Jazwa, Christopher S., Geoffrey M. Smith, Richard L. Rosencrance, Daron Duke, and Daniel Stueber. A Revised Calendar Age for the Paleoindian Buhl Burial from South-Central Idaho and its Relevance to the Western Stemmed-Clovis Debate in the Intermountain West. American Antiquity 86(1):173-182.
- 2020 Bradley, Erica J., Geoffrey M. Smith, and Teresa A. Wriston. Possible Paleoindian Geophyte Use in Hawksy Walksy Valley, Oregon. Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology40(2):129-143.
- 2020 Smith, Geoffrey M., Daron Duke, Dennis L. Jenkins, Ted Goebel, Loren G. Davis, Patrick O’Grady, Daniel Stueber, Jordan Pratt, and Heather L. Smith. The Western Stemmed Tradition: Problems and Prospects in Paleoindian Archaeology in the Intermountain West. PaleoAmerica 6(1):23-42.
- 2019 Rosencrance, Richard L., Geoffrey M. Smith, Dennis L. Jenkins, Thomas J. Connolly, and Thomas N. Layton. Reinvestigating Cougar Mountain Cave: New Perspectives on Stratigraphy, Chronology, and a Younger Dryas Occupation in the Northern Great Basin. American Antiquity 84(3):559-573.
Education
- Ph.D., University of Wyoming, 2010
Professional certifications
- 2022 Paul and Judy Bible University Teaching Excellence Award
- 2021 Nevada System of Higher Education Regents’ Teaching Award
- 2019 Donald J. Tibbitts Distinguished Teacher Award
- 2018 Alan Bible Excellence in Teaching Award
- 2013 College of Liberal Arts Dean’s Teaching Award