Dr. Alison Rautman, Ph.D., RPA
Registered Professional Archaeologist
Department of Anthropology
354 Baker Hall
Michigan State University
East Lansing, MI 48824
(517)355-5149

rautman@msu.edu

Web site

DR. RAUTMAN specializes in the archaeology of the American Southwest. Her research focuses on the economic and social changes associated with the transition from foraging to farming that occurred from about A.D. 900 to 1350 among people living in what is now central New Mexico. She is examining particularly changes in how people coped with economic risk, in their use of space within and between households, and in the gendered division of labor during this time of population aggregation and political re-organization.

She has received research grants from the National Science Foundation, Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, The National Geographic Society, the USDA Forest Service, and the American Philosophical Society, and has held a postdoctoral fellowship from the American Association of University Women.

Dr. Rautman also has an interest in geology and its application to the field of archaeology. She has studied archaeological site formation at various sites in Germany and the USA, and has done a number of petrographic studies of ceramics from archaeological sites in Bolivia, Israel, Egypt, and India, in collaboration with others.

She is a member of the scientific honor society Sigma Xi, the liberal arts honor society Phi Beta Kappa, and also professional organizations such as the American Anthropological Association, the Society for American Archaeology, and the Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society.

She currently serves as Editor of the journal American Antiquity (2009-2012); she has also served as Assistant Chair of the Department of Anthropology at MSU (1998-2008).

Dr. Rautman enjoys teaching undergraduate students, and regularly teaches ISS 220 (Time, Space, and Change in Human Society) and ANP 424 (Culture and Economic Behavior). The best part of being an archaeologist, however, is working with students in the field. She is currently working on a book that summarizes 20 years of field work in New Mexico.

A sample of her research interests are shown by the following publications:

• Rautman, Alison E. Thick Description of a Visit Home: in tribute to Clifford Geertz. Anthropology and Humanism, Vol. 33, Issue 1/2, pp 85–94 (2008)
• Rocek, Thomas R. and Alison E. Rautman. No Peripheral Vision: A View of Regional Interactions from South-Central New Mexico. In Hinterlands and Regional Dynamics in the Ancient Southwest, edited by Alan P. Sullivan III and James M. Bayman, eds. Pp. 125-138. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. (2007)
• Rautman, Alison E. and Todd W. Fenton. A Case of Historic Cannibalism in the American West: Implications for Southwestern Archaeology. American Antiquity 70:321-341. (2005)
• John D. Speth and Alison E. Rautman) Bison Hunting at the Henderson Site. In Life on the Periphery: Economic Change in Late Prehistoric Southeastern New Mexico, edited by John D. Speth, Chapter 4 (pp. 107-206). University of Michigan Museum of Anthropology Memoirs (2004)
• Rautman, Alison E. Population Aggregation, Community Organization, and Plaza Oriented Pueblos in the American Southwest. Journal of Field Archaeology 27: 271-283 (2000).
• Rautman, Alison E. (editor and contributor) Reading the Body: Representations and Remains in the Archaeological Record. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia (2000).
• Rautman, Alison E. Hierarchy and Heterarchy in the American Southwest: A Comment on McGuire and Saitta (1996). American Antiquity 63: 325-333 (1998).
• Rautman, Alison E. The Pithouse to Pueblo Transition in the American Southwest: Implications for Gender Roles. In Women in Prehistory: North America and Mesoamerica, edited by Cheryl Claassen and Rosemary A. Joyce, pp. 100-118. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia (1997).
• Rautman, Alison E. Resource Variability, Risk, and the Structure of Social Networks: An Example from the Prehistoric Southwest. American Antiquity 58: 403-424 (1993).