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Historical Ecology of White-Tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus)
Historical Ecology of White-Tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus)
The bulk of my research investigates white-tailed deer hunting in North America, from 15,000 years ago to the present. Specifically, I am analyzing how climate change, anthropogenic ecosystem engineering, human demography, and capitalist commodification of the species have impacted deer abundance, morphology, and behavior over time.
Weitzel, Elic M. (2023) Resilience of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) to human hunting in precolonial New England: The faunal remains from the Morgan Site (6HT120), Rocky Hill, Connecticut. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 48:103913. [link]
Weitzel, Elic M. (2023) Environmental rebound and disruption of Indigenous land management following European colonization of southern New England. In Questioning Rebound: People and Environmental Change in the Protohistoric and Early Historic Americas, edited by Emily Lena Jones and Jacob L. Fisher. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, pp. 97-115.
Weitzel, Elic M. (2021) The Ecology of the First Thanksgiving. Scientific American. [link]
Weitzel, Elic M. (2021) Investigating overhunting of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in the Late Holocene Middle Tennessee River Valley. Southeastern Archaeology 40(1):1-19. [link]
Historical Ecology of the Long Island Sound Shellfishery
Historical Ecology of the Long Island Sound Shellfishery
I am also working with several colleagues and a team of undergraduate interns to analyze the historical ecology of the Long Island Sound shellfishery. Shellfish species like oysters and quahog clams have long been important resources in the region, both economically and culturally. This project explores changes in abundance and size of these species across the Late Holocene.
Forthcoming
Image credit: Susan Walton
Origins of Domestication
Origins of Domestication
I am also working to better understand the ecological context of the initial domestication of native crops in interior eastern North America. This project tests the hypothesis that food production is a technological innovation that follows from economic intensification and reduced efficiency in the subsistence economy. To assess this, I am working with several colleagues to analyze human population proxies, site location data, and animal bone remains from the southeastern and midwestern United States.
Weitzel, Elic M., Brian F. Codding, Stephen B. Carmody, and David W. Zeanah (2022) Food production and domestication produced both cooperative and competitive interpersonal dynamics in eastern North America. Environmental Archaeology 27(4):388-401. [link]
Weitzel, Elic M. (2019) Declining foraging efficiency prior to initial domestication in the Middle Tennessee River Valley. American Antiquity 84(2):191-214. [link]
Weitzel, Elic M. and Brian F. Codding (2016) Population growth as a driver of initial domestication in Eastern North America. Royal Society Open Science 3(8):160319. [link]
Additional Collaborations
Additional Collaborations
I have also been involved in several collaborations with ethnographers, demographers, paleontologists, and other archaeologists to conduct research into a variety of topics all united by an interest in resource use and demography. These include Pleistocene megafauna extinctions, the evolution of alloparental care, and spatial patterns of human demography and land use.
Weitzel, Elic M., Kurt M. Wilson, Laure Spake, Susan B. Schaffnit, Robert Lynch, Rebecca Sear, John H. Shaver, Mary K. Shenk, and Richard Sosis (2024) Cost structures and socioecological conditions impact the fitness outcomes of human alloparental care in agent-based model simulations. Evolution and Human Behavior 45:106613. [link]
O’Keefe, F. Robin., Regan E. Dunn, Elic M. Weitzel, Michael R. Waters, Lisa N. Martinez, Wendy J. Binder, John R. Southon, Joshua E. Cohen, Julie A. Meachen, Larisa R.G. DeSantis, Matthew E. Kirby, Elena Ghezzo, Joan B. Coltrain, Benjamin T. Fuller, Aisling B. Farrell, Gary T. Takeuchi, Glen MacDonald, Edward B. Davis, and Emily L. Lindsey (2023) Pre-Younger Dryas megafaunal extirpation at Rancho La Brea linked to fire-driven state shift. Science 381(6659). [link]
Weitzel, Elic M., Erina Baci, and Daniel Plekhov (2023) Geographic predictors of early 20th century northern Albanian tribal demography. Kosova Anthropologica 1(1):1-21. [link]
Broughton, Jack M. and Elic M. Weitzel (2018) Population reconstructions for humans and megafauna suggest mixed causes for North American Pleistocene extinctions. Nature Communications 9(1):5441. [link]
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