Faculty

Dr. Ben A. Potter

Office: Eielson 303A
Phone: 907 474-7567
Email: ffbap3.uaf.edu

UAF Department of Anthropology
310 Eielson Building
P.O. Box 757720
Fairbanks, AK 99775
Main telephone: 907- 474-7288
Fax: 907 474-7453
E-mail: fyanth@uaf.edu

Profile and Research Interests

Ben Potter has worked in Alaskan archaeology since 1995, receiving his Ph.D. in 2005 at University of Alaska Fairbanks. He has extensive field and laboratory experience in both CRM and academic archaeology and has worked for federal agencies (1997), private industry (1998-2006), and UAF (2005-present). His geographic interests include Subarctic and Arctic regions, particulary Interior Alaska. His research interests include intersite variability, site structure and organization, with a research program focusing broadly on the relationships among site structure, settlement, economy and technology among high latitude prehistoric hunter-gatherers. He has considerable applied experience in field survey and excavation, spatial analysis, lithic and faunal analysis, intrasite and intersite modeling, and cultural resource management.

Dr. Potter has conducted numerous surveys, site evaluations, and excavations throughout the state of Alaska, particularly in Interior and Northern Alaska. His internationally recognized dissertation research focused on excavations at a multicomponent stratified site in the Tanana basin. In the context of this research, he integrated several classes of data analysis (including lithics, faunal remains, features, stratigraphy, and spatial data) in order to explicate site structure and organization.

His current research has focused on intersite variability in Interior Alaska, with special reference to modeling early to mid-Holocene site structure and assemblage structure as they relate to regional ecological dynamics, integrated by robust GIS and statistical components. Since 1999, he has developed several predictive site location models and heuristic models linked with survey strategies for a wide range of projects (small to very large geographic scale). This research approach situates assemblage variability in terms of systemic interactions with the environment.For the 2007-2008 academic year,

Dr. Potter received a prestigious Wenner-Gren Hunt Fellowship to prepare a monograph on his research at the Gerstle River site, central Alaska. He recently directed a field school in 2008 at the site. A slideshow of this field school is presented here.

Selected Publications

in press	Ben A. Potter A First Approximation of Holocene Inter-assemblage Variability in Central Alaska. Arctic Anthropology. (2008, Vol. 45, No. 2)
in press	Ben A. Potter Exploratory Models of Intersite Variability in Mid-Late Holocene Central Alaska. Arctic. (December 2008, Vol. 61, No. 4)
in press	Ben A. Potter, Joshua D. Reuther, Peter M. Bowers, and Carol Gelvin-Reymiller Little Delta Dune Site: A Late Pleistocene Multi-component Site in Central Alaska. Current Research in the Pleistocene. (2008, Vol. 25)
in press	Ben A. Potter Tanana River Basin. In Archaeology in America, edited by Francis P. McManamon, Linda S. Cordell, Kent Lightfoot, and George R. Milner. Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. (October 2008)
in press	Ben A. Potter and S. Craig Gerlach Brooks Range. In Archaeology in America, edited by Francis P. McManamon, Linda S. Cordell, Kent Lightfoot, and George R. Milner. Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. (October 2008)
2008	Holmes, Charles E., Ben A. Potter, Joshua D. Reuther, Owen K. Mason, Robert M. Thorson, and Peter M. Bowers Geological and Cultural Context of the Nogahabara I Site. American Antiquity 73(4):781-790.
2008	Ben A. Potter Radiocarbon Chronology of Central Alaska: Technological Continuity and Economic Change. Radiocarbon 50(2):181-204.
2007	Ben A. Potter, Peter M. Bowers, Joshua D. Reuther, and Owen K. Mason Holocene Assemblage Variability in the Tanana Basin: NLUR Archaeological Research, 1994-2004. Alaska Journal of Archaeology 5(1):23-42.
2007	Ben A. Potter Models of Faunal Processing and Economy in Early Holocene Interior Alaska. Environmental Archaeology 12(1):3-23.
2006	Carol Gelvin-Reymiller, Joshua D. Reuther, Ben A. Potter, and Peter M. Bowers Technical Aspects of a Worked Proboscidean Tusk from Inmachuk River, Seward Peninsula, Alaska. Journal of Archaeological Science 33:1088-1094.
2005	Ben A. Potter Articles: Alaska Native Language Center, American Paleoarctic Tradition, Northern Archaic Period. In Encyclopedia of the Arctic, edited by Jonathan Durr, pp. 38; 76-79; 1480-1481. Fitzroy Dearborn, London.
2004	Ben A. Potter Stratigraphic Correlation and Non-Recoverable Datasets at the Gerstle River Site, Central Alaska. In Digging in the Dirt: Excavation in a New Millenium, edited by Geoff Carver, pp. 221-236. British Archaeological Reports Series 1256, Oxford.
2002	Ben A. Potter A Provisional Correlation of Stratigraphy, Radiometric Dates, and Archaeological Components at the Gerstle River Site, Alaska. Anthropological Papers of the University of Alaska, New Series 2(1):73-93.
2001	Ben A. Potter Recent Investigations at the Gerstle River Site, A Multicomponent Site in Central Alaska. Current Research in the Pleistocene 18:52-54.
1999-2008	Sole or first author on 70+ archaeological professional reports: including GIS/predictive modeling, survey, site testing, excavation, archival/historical documentation, and human remains documentation reports.

Selected Presentations

2008	Climatic, Economic and Technological Change in Interior Alaska; Evaluating Process-Pattern Relationships. 2008 AAAS Arctic Science Conference, Fairbanks.
2008	Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene Assemblage Variability in Central Alaska. 73rd SAA meetings, Vancouver.
2008	(with Peter M. Bowers, Joshua D. Reuther, and Carol Gelvin-Reymiller) Little Delta Dune Site: A Late Pleistocene Multi-component Site in Central Alaska. 73rd SAA meetings, Vancouver and 35th AkAA meetings, Anchorage.
2007	Site Location Modeling in Subarctic Alaska. 44th CAA St. Johns, Newfoundland.
2007	Site Location Model and Survey Strategies in Central Alaska. 72nd SAA meetings, Austin.
2006	Modeling Microblade Technological and Spatial Organization. 33rd AkAA meetings, Kodiak.
2005	Dimensional Analysis of Site Structure in Central Alaska. 32nd AkAA meetings, Anchorage.
2004	Modeling Intersite Variability in Interior Alaska: Overcoming Conceptual Ambiguity Through Pattern Recognition. 69th SAA Meetings, Montreal.
2002	Understanding Assemblage Variability in Interior Alaska: Beyond Type. 29th AkAA meetings, Anchorage.
2002	(with Charles E. Holmes) Technology, Subsistence, and Settlement During the Pleistocene-Holocene Transition in Central Alaska. 67th SAA meetings, Denver.
2001	Stratigraphic Correlation and Non-Recoverable Datasets at the Gerstle River Site, Alaska. 14th Congress of UISPP, Liege.
2000	Microblade Assemblage Variability: New Data from the Gerstle River Site, Central Alaska. 65th SAA, Philadelphia.

Recent Courses

ANTH-111 Ancient Civilizations (2005)
ANTH-211 Fundamentals of Archaeology (2005, 2006, 2008)
ANTH-214 World Prehistory (2006, 2007)
ANTH-405/605 Archaeological Method and Theory (2006)
ANTH-495/695 Archaeological Field School (2000, 2001, 2003, 2008)
ANTH-492/692 Modeling Archaeological Data (2007)
ANTH-492/692 GIS Modeling in Archaeology (2008)