Research Interests
My current research interests can all be included under the general label of agricultural origins world-wide. General theoretical interests include developing frameworks of characterization and explanation for the transition to food production and the nature of low-level food production economies, as well as clarifying and expanding definitional categories for "domestication."
Current Research
Recent research initiatives include completion of reanalysis and AMS dating of cucurbit assemblages from Guilá Naquitz, Romero's, Valenzuela's and Coxcatlan Caves and the associated reassessment of the overall timing and sequence of plant domestication in Mexico, as well as collaborative aDNA projects focusing on the origin of bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria) in the Americas, and early human selection of desirable traits in maize (Zea mays). Ongoing research includes consideration of the broader niche construction behavioral context of human domestication of plants and animals, and a long-term multidisciplinary project focusing on the epipaleolithic and early Neolithic societies of the Fayum Depression, Egypt.
Education and Degrees
B.A. in Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 1968
M.A. in Anthropology, University of Michigan 1971
Ph.D. in Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 1973
Selected Publications:
| in press | Foraging Theory and the Transition to Food Production. In Kennett, Douglas, And Bruce Winterhalder (eds). Optimal Foraging Theory and Agricultural Origins. University of California Press, Berkeley, California. In Press. |
| 2007 | The Mississippian Emergence (2nd edition) University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa. |
| 2007 | The ultimate ecosystem engineers. Science 315:1797-1798. |
| 2006 | Eastern North America as an independent center of plant domestication. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 103:1223-1228. PDF |
| 2006 | Doebley J, Gaut BS, Smith BD. The Molecular genetics of crop domestication. Cell 127: 1309-1321 |
| 2006 | Jaenicke-Després V, Smith BD. Ancient DNA and the integration of archaeological and genetic approaches to the study of maize domestication. In: Staller J, Tykot R, Benz B. editors. Histories of Maize. Amsterdam: Elsevier. pp. 83-97. |
| 2006 | Rivers of Change (3rd edition). University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa, AL. |
| 2006 | Seed Size Increase as a Marker of Plant Domestication. In Zeder, Melinda, Eve Emshwiller, Dan Bradley, and Bruce D. Smith (eds.) Documenting Domestication: New Genetic and Archaeological Paradigms. University of California Press, Berkeley, California. |
| 2006 | Documenting Domesticated Plants in the Archaeological Record. In Zeder, Melinda, Eve Emshwiller, Dan Bradley, and Bruce D. Smith (eds.) Documenting Domestication: New Genetic and Archaeological Paradigms. University of California Press, Berkeley, California. |
| 2006 | Zeder, Melinda, Eve Emshwiller, Dan Bradley, and Bruce D. Smith (eds.), Documenting Domestication: New Genetic and Archaeological Paradigms. University of California Press, Berkeley, California. |
| 2006 | Low Level Food Production and the Northwest Coast. In Deur, Douglas, and Nancy Turner (eds.) Keeping it Living: Traditions of Plant Use and Cultivation on the Northwest Coast of North America. University of Washington Press. Seattle, Washington. |
| 2006 | Household, Community, and Subsistence in Hopewell Research. In Buikstra, J. and Douglas Charles (eds.), Recreating Hopewell, University of Florida Press, Gainesville, Florida. |
| 2006 | The Selective Adoption of Domesticated Crop Plants along the Borderlands of the Southwest. In Vierra, Brad (ed.). Current Perspectives on the Late Archaic Across the Borderlands, University of Texas Press, Austin, Texas. |
| 2005 | Reassessing Coxcatlan Cave and the early history of domeisticated plants. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 102:9438-9445. PDF |
| 2005 | Erickson D, Smith BD, Clarke A, Sandweiss D, Tuross N. 2005. An Asian origin for a 10,000-year-old domesticated plant in the Americas. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 102:18315-18320. PDF |
| 2003 |
Viviane Jaenicke-Despres, Ed. Buckler, Bruce D. Smith, M. Thomas Gilbert, Alan Cooper, John Doebley, Svante Paabo. Early Allelic Selection in Maize as Revealed by Ancient DNA. Science 302:1206-1208. |
| 2003 | Bruce D. Smith and C. Wesley Cowan. Domesticated Crop Plants and the Evolution of Food Production Economies in Eastern North America. In Minnis, Paul (ed.) People and Plants in Ancient Eastern North America, Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C., pp. 105-125. |
| 2002 | Rivers of Change (Paperback edition). Smithsonian Institution Press. |
| 2001 | The Transition to Food Production. In Price, T. D. and Feinman, G. (eds.) Archaeology at the Millennium. Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers, New York, pp. 199-229. |
| 2001 | Low Level Food Production. Journal of Archaeological Research 9:1-43. |
| 2001 | Documenting plant domestication: The Consilience of Biological and Archaeological Approaches. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 98:1324-1326. PDF |
| 2000 | Guilá Naquitz Revisited: Agricultural Origins in Oaxaca, Mexico. In Feinman, G. And Manzanilla, L. (eds.), Cultural Evolution Contemporary Viewpoints. Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers, New York, pp. 15-60. |
| 1998 | The Emergence of Agriculture (Paperback edition). Scientific American Library, W. H. Freeman, New York. |
| 1998 | Between Foraging and Farming. Science 279:1651-1652. |
| 1997 | Reconsidering the Ocampo Caves and the Era of Incipient Cultivation. Latin American Archaeology 7(4):1-43. |
| 1997 | The Initial Domestication of Cucurbita pepo in the Americas 10,000 years ago. Science 276:865-996. |
BRUCE D. SMITH, Smithb@si.edu
Senior research scientist & Curator of North American Archaeology
