About

Gregson Schachner is a professor in the UCLA Department of Anthropology with a research focus on North American archaeology, including population movement, origins of villages and leadership in agricultural societies, settlement systems and analysis, ceramic analysis, and the social context of archaeological practice, particularly in the American Southwest. He holds a Ph.D. from Arizona State University obtained in 2007. Schachner has contributed to the field through various publications, including books such as 'Becoming Hopi: A History' and 'Population Circulation and the Transformation of Ancient Zuni Communities,' as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters. His work emphasizes understanding ancient societies through archaeological analysis and engaging with indigenous communities, notably the Hopi, to inform archaeological practice and interpretation.

Research topics

• Archaeology
• Geography
• Sociology
• Biology
• Ecology
• Environmental planning
• Geology
• Environmental science
• Paleontology
• Earth science
• Physical geography
• History
• Cartography
• Oceanography
• Demography
• Economic geography
• Business
• Agroforestry

Selected publications

• THE GEOARCHAEOLOGICAL LANDSCAPE OF WALLACE TANK PUEBLO (AZ Q:1:199 (ASM)), PETRIFIED FOREST NATIONAL PARK, ARIZONA: REHABILITATING THE DAMAGED CULTURAL LANDSCAPE OF A PUEBLO IV VILLAGE

  Lithodendron. · 2024-05-17

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Petrified Forest National Park (PEFO) is a unique landscape of physical beauty and paleontological treasures. Known for its ancient fossils, petrified wood, and awe-inspiring vistas, it is also well-known in the archaeological community as having some of the earliest villages on the southern Colorado Plateau. Additionally, it is home to a few large late precontact pueblos (Pueblo IV period: ~1275-1400 CE) that were once part of an extensive regional network of communities where people and goods moved across the landscape. Wallace Tank Pueblo is the largest Pueblo IV period village within the Park. This once thriving 600-room pueblo was home to the ancestors of the Zuni, Hopi, and other descendant communities. Over time the physical features of the village were damaged by historic ranching activities and natural erosion. It is now a scoured and degraded landscape where the once sustaining natural spring is not even identifiable. Because of the uniqueness of this village within the Petrified Forest environment consultations between the Park and descendant communities should consider management plans that will re-establish a spring-fed wetlands. Such a plan would not only focus on preservation of the cultural features, but also on the health of the environment and that of the descendants who maintain an emotional and spiritual connection to this ancestral village.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• :<i>Research, Education and American Indian Partnerships at the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center</i>

  Journal of Anthropological Research · 2024-06-01

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Bonito Factor: How Unique Was Pueblo Bonito?

  KIVA · 2022-10-02 · 5 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Pueblo Bonito is the largest and most centrally located great house in Chaco Canyon. One of its most striking attributes is its abundance of “exceptional deposits” of rare and unusual objects. It is unclear, however, whether Pueblo Bonito's assemblage reflects its unique status in the Chaco world or whether it is a product of sampling bias. To answer this question, we use binomial probabilities to interpret the significance of both finding, and of failing to find, exceptional deposits in other great houses. Our analysis suggests that excavated great houses can be grouped into three categories with respect to exceptional deposits: those that likely contain frequencies comparable to Pueblo Bonito; those with frequencies substantially less than Pueblo Bonito; and those that have been insufficiently sampled to make strong inferences. Variation and uncertainty in the presence of exceptional deposits have important implications for interpreting great house functions and Chacoan sociopolitical organization.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Becoming Central

  University of Arizona Press eBooks · 2022-06-21 · 1 citations

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• <i>The Greater Chaco Landscape: Ancestors, Scholarship, and Advocacy</i>. Ruth M. Van Dyke and Carrie C. Heitman, eds. Louisville: University Press of Colorado, 2021, 388 pp. $41.95, cloth. ISBN 978-1-64642-169-5.

  Journal of Anthropological Research · 2022-05-26

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• The Decline of Zuni Glaze Ware Production in the Tumultuous Fifteenth Century

  University of Arizona Press eBooks · 2022-09-06 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Wukokiikiqö:

  University of Arizona Press eBooks · 2021-07-06

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Volcanic climate forcing, extreme cold and the Neolithic Transition in the northern US Southwest

  Antiquity · 2021 · 6 citations

  • Geography
  • Archaeology
  • Geology

  The impacts on global climate of the AD 536 and 541 volcanic eruptions are well attested in palaeoclimatic datasets and in Eurasian historical records. Their effects on farmers in the arid uplands of western North America, however, remain poorly understood. The authors investigate whether extreme cold caused by these eruptions influenced the scale, scope and timing of the Neolithic Transition in the northern US Southwest. Archaeological tree-ring and radiocarbon dates, along with settlement survey data, suggest that extreme cooling generated the physical and social space that enabled early farmers to transition from kin-focused socio-economic strategies to increasingly complex and widely shared forms of social organisation that served as foundational elements of burgeoning Ancestral Pueblo societies.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Sustainability of Hopi Agriculture

  University of Arizona Press eBooks · 2021 · 5 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Agroforestry
  • Geography
  • Business
  PublisherDOI

• Kiikiqö:

  University of Arizona Press eBooks · 2021-07-06 · 2 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Matthew A. Peeples

  Arizona State University

  8 shared

• Wesley Bernardini

  7 shared

• R. J. Sinensky

  5 shared

• Deborah L. Huntley

  Tetra Tech (United States)

  4 shared

• Kellam Throgmorton

  Northern Arizona University

  3 shared

• Leigh Kuwanwisiwma

  University of Arizona

  3 shared

• Richard H. Wilshusen

  3 shared

• Joel Nicholas

  2 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Anthropology

  University of California, Los Angeles

  2005

• M.A., Anthropology

  University of California, Los Angeles

  2001

• B.A., Anthropology

  University of California, Los Angeles

  1998