PUBLISHED ARTICLES, MONOGRAPHS, AND BOOKS

2026 Cave/Rockshelter Burials in the Great Basin

2026 Establishing Contemporaneity through Refit Analysis at a Late Paleoindian Artiodactyl Drive Complex in Northeastern Nevada.

2025 Faunal Extirpations, Range Shifts, and Extinctions in the Western Bonneville Basin, 17,500 - 5500 Cal Yr BP:

Paleobiogeography of Bonneville Estates Rockshelter and Sisters East Shelter.

2024 DNA Metabarcoding and Macroremains from Coprolites Reveal Insights into Middle and Late Holocene Inhabitants of Bonneville Estates Rockshelter, Nevada

2023 A Latest Pleistocene-Aged Pronghorn Trap in the Goshute Valley, Eastern Great Basin, USA

2022 Early and Middle Archic Projectile Point Typology and Chronology Across the Great Basin

2022 Lions and Brown Bears Colonized North America in Multiple Synchronous Waves of Dispersal Across the Bering Land Bridge

2021 Prehistoric Human Response to Climate Change in the Bonneville Basin, Western North America: The Bonneville Estates Rockshelter Radiocarbon Chronology

2019 The Projectile Points from Bonneville Estates Rockshelter: Description of Two New Point Types and Implications for the Long and Short Chronology Debate in the Great Basin

2018 A Brief History and Perspective of Spirit Cave, Nevada

2017 Late Pleistocene Subsistence in the Great Basin: Younger-Dryas-aged Faunal Remains from the Botanical Lens, Paisley Cave 2, Oregon

2016 Why Celebrate the Death of Primitive Economic Man? Human Nutritional Ecology in the 21st Century

2016 Preface: Of Ancient Econs and Modern Humans

2015 The Zooarchaeology of Bonneville Estates Rockshelter: 13,000 Years of Great Basin Hunting Strategies

2014 Identifying Dart and Arrow Points in the Great Basin

2013 Identifying Stone Tool Cut Marks and the Pre-Clovis Occupation of the Paisley Caves

2013 Identifying Stone Tool Cut Marks and the Pre-Clovis Occupation of the Paisley Caves, Supplemental Information

2013 Large-Scale Trapping Features from the Great Basin, USA: The Significance of Leadership and Communal Gatherings in Ancient Foraging Societies

2013 Serpentine Hot Springs, Alaska: Results of Excavations and Implications for the Age and Significance of Northern Fluted Points

2012 Optimizing Energy: The Epistemology of Primitive Economic Man. (See also the "Nutritional Ecology" tab above)

2012 The Consequences of Middle Paleolithic Diets on Pregnant Neanderthal Women

2011 Climate, Environment, and Humans in North America's Great Basin During the Younger Dryas, 12,900 - 11,600 Calendar Years Ago

2011 Book Review: "Paleonutrition"

2010 Back to Study Hall: Further Reflections on Large Game Hunting During the Middle Holocene in the Great Basin

2009 13,000 Years of Large Game Hunting in the Great Basin

2009 Antiquity of Communal Pronghorn Hunting in the North-Central Great Basin

2009 Continuity in Animal Resource Diversity in the Late Pleistocene Human Diet of Central Portugal

2009 Beyond the Study of Lithic Assemblages: The Case of Picareiro Cave, Portugal

2008 The Early Peopling of the Great Basin

2007 Nutritional Ecology of Late Pleistocene to Middle Holocene Subsistence in the Great Basin: Zooarchaeological Evidence from Bonneville Estates Rockshelter

2007 The Paleoindian Occupations at Bonneville Estates Rockshelter, Danger Cave, and Smith Creek Cave (Eastern Great Basin, U.S.A.): Interpreting Their Radiocarbon Chronologies

2007 Small Faunal Use During the Middle and Late Pleistocene of Portugal: A Nutritional Ecology Perspective

2006 Climate, Dietary Choice, and the Paleolithic Hunting of Rabbits in Portugal

2006 Paleolithic Subsistence and the Taphonomy of Small Mammal Accumulations in the Iberian Peninsula

2006 Two Sides of the Same Coin - Rocks, Bones, and Site Function of Picareiro Cave, Central Portugal

2005 Nutritional Ecology and the Human Demography of Neanderthal Extinction

2005 Middle and Late Holocene Hunting in the Great Basin: A Critical Review of the Debate and Future Prospects

2005 Latest-Pleistocene-Early Holocene Human Occupation and Paleoenvironmental Change in the Bonneville Basin, Utah-Nevada

2004 Paleontological Investigations at Mineral Hill Cave

2004 Theoretical Perspectives on the Dietary Role of Small Animals in Human Evolution

2003 Nutritional Ecology and Diachronic Trends in Paleolithic Diet and Health

2003 Ceramic Production, Fremont Foragers, and the Late Archaic Prehistory of the North-Central Great Basin

2002 Taphonomic and Methodological Perspectives of Leporid Hunting During the Upper Paleolithic of the Western Mediterranean Basin

2002 Oranjeboom Cave: A Single Component Eastgate Site in Northeastern Nevada

2002 Excavations at the Middle Pleistocene Cave Site of Galeria Pesada, Portuguese Estremadura: 1997-1999

2000 The Rabbits of Picareiro Cave: Small Mammal Hunting During the Late Upper Paleolithic of the Portuguese Estremadura

2000 Paleobiogeographic Changes at the Pleistocene-Holocene Boundary near Pintwater Cave, Southern Nevada

2000 Hunter-Gatherer Subsistence at the End of the Pleistocene: Preliminary Results from Picareiro Cave, Central Portugal

1999 Taphonomy of a Carnivore-Accumulated Rabbit Bone Assemblage from Picareiro Cave, Central Portugal

1998 Sociopolitical Meaning of Faunal Remains from Baker Village

1997 The Spring Creek Mastodon from Discovery to Exhibit

1996 Corroded, Thinned, and Polished Bones Created by Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaetos): Taphonomic Implications for Archaeological Interpretations

1995 Comparison of Leporid Bones in Raptor Pellets, Raptor Nests, and Archaeological Sites in the Great Basin

1995 Chronology of Elko Series and Split Stemmed Points from Northeastern Nevada

1994 A Descriptive Reanalysis of the Leporid Bones from Hogup Cave, Utah

1993 Bone Accumulations in Open Air Sites: A Case Study from the Northern Great Basin

1992 "Faunal Remains", in A Gabled Wooden Lodge in an Archaeological Context: Archaeological Investigations at Sample Unit U19adPL, Nevada Test Site, Nye County, Nevada

1991 Toward Distinguishing Human and Raptor Patterning on Leporid Bones

1990 Arachnid Taphonomy: Note on Scorpion Remains in Archeological Context

1989 The Concept of Carrying Range: A Method for Determining the Role Played by Woodrats in Contributing Bones to Archeological Sites

More articles to come...

Prehistoric large-scale traps are more common across the Great Basin and Nevada than once believed, suggesting that large game hunting was an important activity throughout much of the occupation of the Great Basin. Pronghorn, mountain sheep, and deer traps were built with a variety of raw materials and took a variety of shapes across the Great Basin. Pronghorn traps were built at least 8,500 to 7,500 years ago. Our book on the subject was recently published by Texas A&M University Press.

Updated: January 20, 2026.

Bryan Hockett's

Archaeology & Taphonomy Research

Archaeology & Taphonomy Research

Bryan Hockett's Webpage

Welcome to my Home Page Updated January 20, 2026

I visited the University of Oregon/University of Nevada, Reno Field School at the Connley Caves July 2024 at the invitation of Katelyn McDonough and Richie Rosencrance. I am currently analysing the fauna from Connley Cave 6.

I completed my second fieldwork season at the ca. 13,900 cal BP Sheg Xdaltthi (McDonald Creek) site located in central Alaska during the summer of 2023. I have identifyied the fauna via morphometrics while collaborating with the Max Planck Institute in Germany who is identifying faunal specimens via ZooMS. A poster will be presented at the SAA's in 2026 in San Francisco. A publication will follow thereafter.

Together with my co-author Eric Dillingham, "Large Scale Traps of the Great Basin" was published by Texas A&M Press in April, 2023. It is available for purchase on amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com and tamupress.com.

Together with my colleagues Ted Goebel, Kelly Graf, and Ed Stoner, we finished a manuscript on a remarkable set of three open-air Paleoindian sites from northeastern Nevada that appear to represent two kill zones and an associated campsite related to a large scale trapping event that occurred ca. 8,500 years ago during the waning phase of the Paleoindian Period in the Great Basin. The paper was recently published by the journal PaleoAmerica. A follow-up paper that focuses on a refitting analysis of the broken Windust points was published in PaleoAmerica January 2026.

Together with my co-author Jason Spidell, we completed a monograph on the typology and chronology of Early and Middle Archaic projectile points across the Great Basin. It is available for download in the list below and blm.gov.

I completed field work at the paleontological site of Mining Canyon Cave in September, 2022. Located in central Nevada, this site contains well preserved bones up to 30,000 years old, and appears similar in character to Mineral Hill Cave (publication below). Identification and analysis has begun.