Biography
My research focuses on human-environmental dynamics and archaeological histories of maritime/coastal hunter-gatherers especially in the North Pacific. This research addresses questions of human vulnerability and resilience in remote subarctic environments. My ongoing work involves community-based collaborations on Kodiak, Alaska with the goal of combining archaeology, paleoecology, ethnohistory and oral history/storytelling to bridge deep histories of resilient fisheries stewardship and colonial disenfranchisement to contemporary cultural revitalization and future food security and sovereignty through research and youth education. I collaborate widely with scholars across a range of disciplines in atmospheric, Earth and biological sciences and take an historical ecological perspective on human adjustments to (and of) environments in which they live. Much of my research involves international collaborations to explore the ecological and archaeological histories of the North Pacific Rim. Since 2014 I have coordinating a comparative marine ecological working group called Paleoecology of Subarctic Seas (PESAS), which brings together paleoclimate, paleoecology, archaeology and history to investigate similarities and differences in the human-environmental co-evolution the subarctic North Pacific and North Atlantic since the Last Glacial Maximum. Since 2018 I have served on the Governing Board of the Oceans Past Initiative, a consortium of archaeologists, historians, paleoecologists and other with interest histories of human engagement with marine life and oceans.
Awards and Honors
Research
Selected Research
- West, Catherine, Shelby Anderson, Erik Gjesfjeld, and Ben Fitzhugh. “Human Behavioral Ecology and the Complexities of Arctic Foodways”. In, Human Behavior at the Coastal Margins: Theoretical Approaches to Past Coastal Adaptations, Heather B. Thakar and Carola Flores Fernandez (eds.). University Press of Florida: Society and Ecology in Island and Coastal Archaeology Series. 2023.
- Fitzhugh, Ben, William Brown, Nicole Misarti, Katsunori Takase, Andrew Tremayne “Human Paleodemography and Paleoecology of the North Pacific Rim from the Mid to Late Holocene.” Quaternary Research 108: 123-149. http://doi.org/10.1017/qua.2022.35 and Supplementary Materials. 2022.
- Fitzhugh, Ben and Nicole Misarti (guest eds). Paleoecology of Subarctic and Arctic Seas. Special Issue, Quaternary Research, No. 108. 2022
- Cassidy, Jim, Irina Ponkratova, and Ben Fitzhugh. Maritime Prehistory of Northeast Asia. Springer Nature, New York. 2022.
- Rae, J. W., Gray, W. R., Wills, R. C. J., Eisenman, I., Fitzhugh, B., Fotheringham, M., ... & Burke, A. (2020). Overturning circulation, nutrient limitation, and warming in the Glacial North Pacific. Science Advances, 6(50), eabd1654.
- Fitzhugh, Ben. (2020) “Reciprocity and Asymmetry in Social Networks: Dependency and Inequality in North Pacific Comparative Perspective.” Chapter 14 in, Inequality Before Farming: Multidisciplinary approaches to the study of social organization in prehistoric and ethnographic hunter-gatherer-fisher societies, Luc Moreau, editor. Cambridge, U.K.: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. Pp. 233-254.
- Khasanov, B., Fitzhugh, B., Nakamura, T., Okuno, M., Hatfield, V., Krylovich, O., . . . Savinetsky, A. (2020). New data and synthesis of ΔR estimates from the northern Pacific Ocean. Quaternary Research, 1-11. DIO:10.1017/qua.2020.27
- Fitzhugh, B., W.A. Brown, N. Misarti. 2020 “Archaeological Paleodemography: Resilience, Robustness and Population Crashes around the North Pacific Rim.” In, Arctic Crashes: People and Animals in the Changing North, edited by I. Krupnik, A. Crowell. Smithsonian Scholarly Press, Washington D.C. Pp. 43-60.
- Gjesfjeld, Erik, Michael A. Etnier, Katsunori Takase, William A. Brown and Ben Fitzhugh. 2020 “Biogeography and adaptation in the Kuril Islands, Northeast Asia.” World Archaeology. DOI: 10.1080/00438243.2019.1715248
- Fitzhugh, Ben, Caroline Funk, Jody Bourgeois. 2019 “Volcanoes and Settlement in the North Pacific: Late Holocene Settlement Patterns in the Western Aleutian and Kuril Islands.” In, Tephroarchaeology in the North Pacific, edited by Barnes, Gina L. & Soda, Tsutomu. Oxford: Archaeopress. Pp. 76-96.
- Fitzhugh, Ben. 2019 “Settlement History and Archaeology of the Kuril Islands in Regional Context.” In, Tradition and Culture of North Pacific Rim Area: 3 Kamchatka Peninsula and Kuril Islands, edited by A. Nakada. The Proceedings of the 33rd International Abashiri Symposium. Abashiri, Japan: The Association for the Promotion of Northern Cultures. Pp. 15-24.
- Fitzhugh, Ben, Virginia L. Butler, Kristine M. Bovy, and Michael A. Etnier. 2018 “Human Ecodynamics: A Perspective for the Study of Long-term Change in Socioecological Systems.” Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2018.03.016 Download PDF
- Fitzhugh, Ben, Erik Gjesfjeld, Will Brown, Mark Hudson, Jennie Shaw. 2016. “Resilience and the population history of the Kuril Islands, Northwest Pacific: A study in complex human ecodynamics.” Quaternary International 419C (2016) pp. 165-193. doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2016.02.003
- Fitzhugh, Ben. 2016. “Origins and Development of Arctic Maritime Adaptations in the Western Subarctic.” Oxford Handbook of the Prehistoric Arctic, edited by T. Max Friesen and Owen K Mason. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199766956.013.20)
- MacInnes, Bre, Ben Fitzhugh, and Darryl Holman. 2014. “Controlling for landform age when determining the settlement history of the Kuril Islands.” Geoarchaeology 29 (3): 185-201. doi:10.1002/gea.21473
- Fitzhugh, Ben. 2003. The Evolution of Complex Hunter-Gatherers: Archaeological Evidence from the North Pacific. Kluwer Academic- Plenum Publishers. 332 pp
- B. Fitzhugh and J. Habu, eds. 2002. Beyond Foraging and Collecting: Evolutionary Change in Hunter-Gatherer Settlement Systems. New York: Kluwer-Plenum. 442 pp.
Research Advised
- Loiselle, Hope. Multiproxy evidence from archaeological and museum collections to examine intertwined human-faunal-environmental histories: A case study using Zalophus japonicus (Japanese sea lion) from Hokkaido, Japan, 2020
- Brown, William. Quantifying uncertainty in demographic temporal frequency analysis (dTFA). Diss. U of Washington. 2019.
- Miller, Hollis. The Historical Archaeology of Gender, Food and Labor in Old Harbor, Alaska. Pilot Research. 2018.
- Wopschall, Kayla P. Akrotiri Aetokremnos and the Cypriot Pygmy Hippopotamus: An Interdisciplinary Look at a Late Pleistocene Large Mammal Extinction. Diss. U of Washington, 2015.
- Gjesfjeld, Erik W. Of Pots and People: Investigating Hunter-gatherer Pottery Production and Social Networks in the Kuril Islands. Diss. U of Washington, 2014.
- Anderson, Shelby. From Tundra to Forest: Ceramic Distribution and Social Interaction in Northwest Alaska. Diss. U of Washington, 2011.
- Phillips, Stephen Colby.. Networked Glass: Lithic Raw Material Consumption and Social Networks in the Kuril Islands, Far Eastern Russia. Diss. U of Washington, 2011.
- Meierotto, Lisa. The Co-evolution of Nature Conservation and Militarization on the U.S.-Mexico Border. Diss. U of Washington, 2009.
- Shaw, Jennie Deo. Driftwood as a Resource: Modeling Fuelwood Acquisition in the Mid- to Late Holocene Gulf of Alaska. Diss. U of Washington, 2008.
- Hood, Larkin Napua. Modeling Hunter-gatherer Ceramic Production and Use: A Test Case from the Upper Texas Coastal Plain. Diss. U of Washington, 2007.
- Erin Gamble: Doctoral Dissertation Research: Trade and Entanglement in Precolonial Hokkaido: The Formation of the Okhotsk Culture. National Science Foundation. 2053348, 2021-2023.
- Hollis Miller: Doctoral Dissertation Research: Uncovering Native-Lived Colonialism in Old Harbor, Alaska. National Science Foundation, 2051935, 2021-2023.
- Hope Loiselle: Doctoral Dissertation Research: Human-Pinniped Relationships & Marine Historical Ecology. National Science Foundation. 2022-2024.
Courses Taught
Spring 2025
Winter 2025
Autumn 2024
Spring 2024
Winter 2024
Autumn 2023
Spring 2023
Winter 2023
University of Washington:
ARCHY 105: The Human Past
ARCHY 205: Principles of Archaeology
ARCHY 270: UW Field School in Archaeology
ARCHY 299: Laboratory Exercises in Archaeology
ARCHY 304: Archaeology of the Americas
ARCHY 377/477: Arctic Archaeology
ARCHY 410/510: Introduction to Archaeological Theory (undergrad and grad)
ARCHY 469: Special Topics: Evolutionary Approaches to Archaeology
ARCHY 469: Special Topics: Archaeology of Sustainability (w. P. Lape)
ARCHY 498/570: Explanatory Theory in Archaeology
ARCHY 520: Problem Development and Modeling in Archaeology
ARCHY 560: Advanced Seminar in Archaeological Method and Theory
ARCHY 599: Teaching Archaeology
ARCHY 575: Archaeological Field Research Design
ARCHY 576/600B: Designing Grant Proposals; Archaeological Research Design
ANTH 461 (469): Historical Ecology (solo x5 and with Steve Harrell x3 and Radhika Govindrajan x1)
ANTH 573: Current Issues in Environmental Anthropology