Robert J. Hasenstab, PhD

I supervise the department's GIS Lab and teach GIS and Remote Sensing.  My courses serve the entire campus; I teach GIS as a tool of research for a variety of disciplines.  I employ the leading softwares so that students will gain a useful skill for the job market.

During Summer Sessions I teach Anthropology courses, which have included Intro courses, Field School, and North American Indians.  In these classes I emphasize "high-tech" methods and a geographic perspective.

The methods I use are multi-scale, ranging from regional studies employing satellite images, to watershed analysis using natural-resource maps, to site-specific survey using geophysical probing instruments. My research interest is in Iroquois prehistory and settlement patterns with a focus on maize horticulture. I apply GIS to settlement pattern analysis for both cultural resource management and anthropological research.  My goals are to conserve archaeological resources and to understand prehistoric settlement.

2008

“The ‘Lithic Scatter’ as an Artifact of Field Testing,” in Current Approaches to the Analysis and Interpretation of Small Lithic Sites in the Northeast, edited by Christina B. Rieth, pp.11-35.  New York State Museum Bulletin No. 508, New York State Department of Education, Albany.

2001

“Proto-Iroquois.” In Encyclopedia of Prehistory, Volume 6, North America, edited by Peter N. Peregrine and Melvin Ember, Chapter 45, pp. 453-465.  Kluwer Academic Publishing, New York.

“Hilltops of the Allegheny Plateau: A Preferred Microenvironment for Late Prehistoric Horticulturalists,” co-authored with William C. Johnson. In Archaeology of the Appalachian Highlands, edited by Lynne P. Sullivan and Susan C. Prezzano, Chapter 1, pp.3-18. University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.

1999

“Fishing, Farming, and Finding the Village Sites: Centering Late Woodland New England Algonquians.”  In The Archaeological Northeast Chapter 9, [essays in honor of Dena F. Dincauze], edited by Mary Ann Levine, Michael S. Nassaney, and Kenneth E. Sassaman.  Greenwood Publishing, Westport, Connecticut.

1996

“Aboriginal Settlement Patterns in Late Woodland Upper New York State”.  In A Northeastern Millennium: History and Archaeology for Robert E. Funk, edited by Chris Lindner and Ed Curtin, pp. 17-26.  Journal of Middle Atlantic Archaeology No. 12.

“Settlement as Adaptation: Variability in Iroquois Village Site Selection as Inferred Through GIS”.  In New Methods, Old Problems: Geographic Information Systems in Modern Archaeological Research, edited by Herbert D.G. Maschner, pp. 223-241.  Center for Archaeological Investigations, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, Occasional Paper No. 23.

1991

“Wetlands as a Critical Variable in Predictive Modeling of Prehistoric Site Locations: A Case Study from the Passaic River Basin.”  Man in the Northeast No. 42, pp. 39-61.

1990

“GIS in Historical Predictive Modeling: The Fort Drum Project.” Co‑authored with Benjamin Resnick.  In Interpreting Space: GIS and Archaeology, edited by Kathy M. Allen, Ezra Zubrow, and Stanton Green.  Taylor and Francis, London.

1989

“Explaining the Iroquois: Tribalization on a Prehistoric Periphery,” co‑authored with Dena F. Dincauze.  In Centre and Periphery: Comparative Studies in Archaeology, edited by Timothy C. Champion.  Volume 11 of One World Archaeology, proceedings of the World Archaeological Congress, September, 1986, Southampton, England.  Unwin Hyman, Boston and London.

1987

“Canoes, Caches, and Carrying Places: Territorial Boundaries and Tribalization in Late Woodland Western New York.”  The Bulletin; Journal of the New York State Archaeological Association 95:39‑49.  Rochester Museum and Science Center.

1984

“The Reporting of Small‑Scale Survey Results for Research Purposes: Suggestions for Improvement.”  Co‑authored with David M. Lacy.  American Archaeology 4(1):43‑49.

1981

A Retrospective Assessment of Archaeological Survey Contracts in Massachusetts, 1970‑1979.  Co‑authored with Dena F. Dincauze, H. Martin Wobst, and David M. Lacy.  Massachusetts Historical Commission Survey and Planning Grant, 1980.

PhD, University of Massachusetts, 1990