Stephen Plog
David A. Harrison Professor of Archaeology
Ph.D. University of Michigan 1977
Brooks Hall, 308
434-924-3535
My research focuses on culture change in the prehistoric American Southwest, particularly the changing nature of ritual and social organization from approximately A.D. 800 to the present. My recent focus has been on the Chaco Canyon region of northwestern New Mexico, perhaps the most important center of the Pueblo world in the 11th and 12th centuries. I address what I believe are key aspects of organization, ritual and cosmology during the Chacoan era. More specifically, some of my recent research has explored the application of "house theory" to our understanding of change and organization in the Southwest.
Another significant focus has been a cooperative effort with several other scholars—assisted by the financial support of the Andrew Mellon Foundation and a partnership with University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities—to create an online digital archive (www.chacoarchive.org) for Chaco Canyon. Our goal has been to enhance testing of hypotheses by increasing access to much of the unpublished excavation data from such settlements as Pueblo Bonito, particularly the important early fieldwork of the Hyde Exploring Expedition (1896-1900), the National Geographic Society Expedition (1920-1927), and the University of New Mexico field school in the 1930s and 1940s. Through a relational database, we provide access to room and kiva-specific information on ca. a dozen sites and access to over 17,000 images and almost two thousand unpublished manuscripts, field notes, accession catalogs, etc.
Courses
Southwestern Archaeology, The Emergence of Social Inequality, Chiefs and Chiefdoms, Pueblo Social Organization
Specializations
Social and ritual change, digital research archives, ceramic and stylistic analysis, demography, exchange.
Selected Publications
American Antiquity 77:449.477. (With Adam Watson).
2012 -
Ritual and Cosmology in the Chaco Era.
In Religious Transformations in the Late Pre-Hispanic Pueblo World. Donna M. Glowacki and Scott Van Keuren, eds. Pp. 50-65.
Tucson: University of Arizona press.Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 18:278-283.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 107:19619-19626. (With Carrie Heitman).
In Online Humanities Scholarship: the Shape of Things to Come. Jerome McGann, ed. Pp. 273-279.
Houston: Rice University Press.Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 107:19619-19626. (With Carolyn C. Heitman).
Kiva 75:373-391.
Kiva 75:373-391.
2008 -
Ancient Peoples of the American Southwest.
London: Thames and Hudson. 
2007 -
Ancient Peoples of the American Southwest, 2nd edition.
London: Thames and Hudson. In Managing Archaeological Data. Jeffrey Hantman and Rachel Most, eds. Pp. 29-38. (With Rachel Most).
Arizona State University Archaeological Research Papers No. 57.
2005 -
Kinship and the Dynamics of the House:
Rediscovering Dualism in the Pueblo Past..
In A Catalyst for Ideas: Anthropological Archaeology and the Legacy of Douglas W. Schwartz. Vernon Scarboorough, ed. Pp. 69-100. (With Carolyn C. Heitman).
Santa Fe: School of American Research.In Vision, Impact, and Conceptual Integration in Anthropological Archaeology: Essays in Honor of Douglas Schwartz. Vernon Scarborough, ed. Pp. 69-100. (With Carolyn C. Heitman).
School of American Research Press, Santa Fe.
2005 -
Protohistoric Western Pueblo Exchange:
Barter, Gift, and Violence Revisited..
In Engaged Anthropology: Research Essays on North American Archaeology Ethnobotany, and Museology. Michelle Hegmon and B. Sunday Eiselt, eds. Pp. 148-154.
Anthropological Papers of hte Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, No. 94.American Antiquity 68:665-695.
American Antiquity 68 (4):665-695.
American Antiquity 68:182-186.
American Antiquity 68 (1):182-186.
Cambridge Archaeological Journal 12 (2):262-265.
Cambridge Archaeological Journal 7 (2):161-182. (With Julie Solometo).
Arizona State University Anthropological Papers No. 48: Interpreting Southwestern Diversity: Underlying Principles and Overarching Patterns. P. R. Fish and J. J. Reid, eds. Pp. 23-34.
In Style, Society, and Person. Christopher Carr and Jill Neitzel, eds. Pp. 369-387.
New York: Plenum.In The Organization of Ceramic Production in the American Southwest, Barbara J. Mills and Patricia L. Crown, eds. Pp. 268-280.
University of Arizona Press, Tucson.In The Foundations of Social Inequality. T. Douglas Price and Gary M. Feinman, eds. Pp. 189-206.
Plenum, New York.American Antiquity 58:489-496. (With Michelle Hegmon).
Journal of Field Archaeology 17:439-456.
In The Evolution of Political Systems. Steadman Upham, ed. Pp. 177- 199.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.