About

Daniel Contreras is an associate professor of Anthropology at the University of Florida. His research interests focus on past human-environment interactions over long timescales.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Political Science
• Biology
• Ecology
• Demography
• Data science
• Environmental resource management
• Archaeology
• Physical geography
• Geology
• Environmental ethics
• Environmental science
• History
• Geography

Selected publications

• Custom Code and Supplemental Datasets for Bongers et al. Ancient DNA reveals a family ossuary and long-distance migration on the Pacific coast before the Inca Empire. Nature Communications 2026

  Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2026-04-25 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  This Zenodo project contains the code, supplemental files, and high-resolution versions of Figures 2 and 4 for: Bongers et al. 2026. Ancient DNA reveals a family ossuary and long-distance migration on the Pacific coast before the Inca Empire. Nature Communications 2026. Please consult the README file for more information.

  PublisherDOI

• The Chavín Phenomenon and Its Regional Manifestation

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2026-05-21

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract conography and material culture associated with the first-millennium BCE ceremonial center of Chavín de Huántar are readily identifiable and widespread in the Central Andes. Their presence is often argued to indicate the earliest marked intensification of regional interaction in the Central Andean region. However, despite a long history of archaeological investigation, the character and even existence of a Chavín Phenomenon continue to be contentious: there is little consensus about how to define it, much less explain it. This chapter briefly summarizes the history of the idea of a Chavín Phenomenon and explores why the concept remains contentious, before highlighting current approaches and productive directions for further research.

  PublisherDOI

• Custom Code and Supplemental Datasets for Bongers et al. Ancient DNA reveals a family ossuary and long-distance migration on the Pacific coast before the Inca Empire. Nature Communications 2026

  Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) · 2026-04-25

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  This Zenodo project contains the code, supplemental files, and high-resolution versions of Figures 2 and 4 for: Bongers et al. 2026. Ancient DNA reveals a family ossuary and long-distance migration on the Pacific coast before the Inca Empire. Nature Communications 2026. Please consult the README file for more information.

  PublisherDOI

• Atlas de l'Amérique précolombienne

  Autrement eBooks · 2025-06-18

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Leveraging radiocarbon in the Central Andes: From chronologies to research agendas

  Quaternary International · 2025-08-25

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Climate stability and low population pressure predict peaceful interactions over 10,000 years of Central Andean history

  Science Advances · 2025-11-28 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  As anthropogenic climate change threatens to destabilize global societies and ecosystems, anticipating likely human responses becomes ever more urgent. A key global initiative is the promotion of peaceful relations. Nonetheless, studies that systematically evaluate factors that promote peace are limited, and research focuses on recent centuries when climate conditions were stable. Here, we couple evolutionary ecology theory with machine learning models to investigate the relative effects of climatological, demographic, and socio-political conditions on the persistence of peace over the 10,000-year Central Andean Holocene sequence. We find that stable climate conditions and low population density have a strong influence on peace, even when average climate conditions are not ideal for farming. Given that climate projection models predict increasing climate volatility in coming decades, our results suggest that future climate instability may weaken peaceful interactions, particularly among subsistence populations in marginal environments.

  PublisherDOI

• Middle Paleolithic Behavioral Insights from the Stelida Chert Source, Naxos (Greece)

  Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology & Heritage Studies · 2025-05-01

  article

  ABSTRACT This article provides the first detailed overview of Middle Paleolithic activity at the Naxian chert source of Stelida, based on an analysis of 780 artifacts collected from the 2013–2014 survey. While several Eurasian Middle Paleolithic lithic sources have been documented, the activity at most of these sites relates almost exclusively to resource extraction and the initial stages of tool production. The Middle Paleolithic material from Stelida reflects a wider range of hominin behavior, including not only evidence for various knapping traditions (not least Levallois and discoidal core technologies) but also two concentrations of target products, including retouched tool types. The article argues that this greater breadth of practice relates to Stelida’s landscape affordances, namely the presence of springs and rock shelters that facilitated the establishment of seasonal camps, where those procuring chert likely engaged in food preparation, consumption, and tool maintenance.

  PublisherDOI

• Pre-Hispanic ritual use of psychoactive plants at Chavín de Huántar, Peru

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2025-05-05 · 5 citations

  articleOpen accessCorresponding

  Ritual is broadly accepted as an important locus of social interaction in the pre-Hispanic Central Andes, and research into the development of durable sociopolitical inequality in the region often focuses on the social and political roles of public rituals. At the Middle-Late Formative Period (ca. 1200–400 BCE) monumental center of Chavín de Huántar, as well as at contemporary sites, ritual has long been hypothesized to include the use of psychoactive plants. However, neither psychoactive plant remains nor chemical traces of psychoactive compounds in likely ritual contexts have been identified at any of these sites. Recently excavated deposits sealed in an underground gallery at Chavín contained twenty-three artifacts of forms (especially bone tubes) associated with consumption of psychoactive plants elsewhere in the region. We here report, based on independent microbotanical and chemical analyses, two kinds of direct evidence for use of psychoactive plants in institutionalized ritual at Chavín. These results are direct evidence of psychoactive plants in archaeological bone tubes used as inhalers and the northernmost direct evidence of vilca and Nicotiana use in the pre-Hispanic Andes.

  PublisherDOI

• Chronological and post-depositional insights from single-grain IRSL dating of a Palaeolithic sequence at Stelida, Naxos (Greece)

  Journal of Archaeological Science Reports · 2024-09-23 · 3 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Reconsidering chronologies and cultural change on the south coast of Peru: A compilation and analysis of radiocarbon dates from Nasca, Ica, and Paracas

  Quaternary International · 2024-07-17 · 2 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Joël Guiot

  Centre de Recherche et d’Enseignement de Géosciences de l’Environnement

  47 shared

• Eneko Hiriart

  Université Bordeaux Montaigne

  33 shared

• Alan Kirman

  31 shared

• Marianela Fader

  Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München

  30 shared

• Alberte Bondeau

  Institut Méditerranéen de Biodiversité et d'Ecologie Marine et Continentale

  29 shared

• Andrés Currás

  Instituto de Ciencias del Patrimonio

  24 shared

• Tristan Carter

  20 shared

• Claude Vella

  Institut de Recherche pour le Développement

  20 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Anthropological Sciences

  Stanford University

  2007

• M.A., Latin American Studies

  Stanford University

  1998

• B.A., Religion, Certificate in Latin American Studies

  Amherst College

  1996