From Dirt to Behavior: Papers in Honor of David B. Madsen

The diverse contributions of David B. Madsen to archaeology and virtually all of its subfields are remarkable. In over 150 publications he has greatly enhanced our understanding of prehistoric peoples and the environments in which they lived. Among others, he has investigated the peopling of North America, Quaternary paleoecology, Pleistocene extinctions, the evolution of desert environments in western North America and western China, forager and farmer adaptive strategies and migration, and prehistoric insect procurement and use. Incorporating ceramics, pollen, fauna, lithics, and/or dirt, his interdisciplinary and theoretically-driven approaches have shaped how we investigate and interpret prehistoric biotic communities, climate change, and archaeological records, especially the human behaviors that created them. This symposium presents a similarly diverse collection of papers in honor of the significant and ongoing contributions of David B. Madsen.