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Margaret Nelson

Margaret Nelson

President's Professor Emeritus, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

mnelson@asu.edu

480-965-9520

Barrett, The Honors College
Arizona State University
PO Box 871612
Tempe, AZ 85287-1612

Titles

  • President's Professor Emeritus, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Biography

Margaret Nelson is emeritus professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change and Vice Dean of Barrett, The Honors College at ASU. She has been recognized for her teaching excellence as ASASU Centennial Professor, Parents Association Professor of the Year, and ASU President's Professor. Her teaching addresses critical thinking, research skills and collaboration across traditional academic disciplines. In addition, she includes undergraduate and graduate students in her archaeological research. She has conducted research in the Mimbres region of southwest New Mexico for over 30 years, collaborating for the past 20 years with Dr. Michelle Hegmon. Their work focuses primarily on the Classic to Postclassic transformation. Nelson's 1999 book Mimbres During the 12th Century: Abandonment, Continuity, and Reorganization derives from that research. Her book Mimbres Lives and Landscapes, edited with Hegmon, brings many specialists together in a popular book about archaeology and Mimbres culture. She currently leads an interdisciplinary research team addressing a range of social-ecological issues concerning resilience and sustainability for prehistoric small-scale farmers in the U.S. Southwest (600-1500 CE) and the lessons learned from this research for contemporary issues of resilience and sustainability. Their work has been submitted as a Special Feature for the journal Ecology and Society. Nelson was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2008.

Education

  • PhD, Anthropology, University of California - Santa Barbara, 1981
  • BA, Anthropology (Honors), Occidental College, 1973

Expertise

Journal Articles

2017

Altschul, J. H., K. W. Kintigh, T. H. Klein, W. H. Doelle, K. A. Hays-Gilpin, S. A. Herr, T. A. Kohler, B. J. Mills, L. M. Montgomery, M. C. Nelson, S. G. Ortman, J. N. Parker, M. A. Peeples and J. A. Sabloff. 2017. Opinion: Fostering synthesis in archaeology to advance science and benefit society. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 114(42):10999-11002. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1715950114. (link )

2016

Hegmon, M., J. Freeman, K. W. Kintigh and M. C. Nelson. 2016. Marking and making differences: Representational diversity in the U.S. Southwest. American Antiquity 81(2):253-272. DOI: 10.7183/0002-7316.81.2.253. (link )

2013

White, D. D., P. Gober, C. W. Kirkwood, V. K. Smith, M. C. Nelson, C. L. Redman and S. K. Wittlinger. 2013. Advancing Science in Support of Water Policy and Urban Climate Change Adaptation at Arizona State University’s Decision Center for a Desert City: A Synthesis of Interdisciplinary Research on Climate, Water, and Decision-Making Under Uncertainty.

2011

Collette, B. B., K. E. Carpenter, B. A. Polidoro, M. J. Juan-Jorda, A. Boustany, D. J. Die, C. Elfes, E. Z. Fox, J. Graves, L. R. Harrison, T. J. McManus, C. V. Minte-Vera, M. C. Nelson, V. Restrepo, J. Schratwieser, C. L. Sun, A. Amorim, M. B. Peres, C. Canales, E. Cardenas, S. K. Chang, W. C. Chiang, N. de Oliveira Leite Jr, H. Harwell, R. Lessa, F. L. Fredou, H. A. Oxenford, R. Serra, K. T. Shao, R. Sumalia, S. P. Wang, G. Watson and E. Yanez. 2011. High values and long life—double jeopardy for tunas and billfishes. Science 333:291-292. DOI: 10.1126/science.1208730. (link )

Nelson, M. C., M. Hegmon, S. A. Kulow, M. A. Peeples, K. W. Kintigh and A. P. Kinzig. 2011. Resisting diversity: A long-term archaeological study. Ecology and Society 16(1):Art. 25. (link )

Schoon, M. L., C. Fabricius, J. M. Anderies and M. C. Nelson. 2011. Synthesis: Vulnerability, traps, and transformations – long-term perspectives from archaeology. Ecology and Society 16(2):Art. 24. (link )

Spielmann, K. A., M. C. Nelson, S. E. Ingram and M. A. Peeples. 2011. Sustainable small-scale agriculture in semi-arid environments. Ecology and Society 16(1):. DOI: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol16/iss1/art26/ES-2010-3814.pdf. (link )

2010

Nelson, M. C., K. W. Kintigh, D. R. Abbott and J. M. Anderies. 2010. The cross-scale interplay between social and biophysical context and the vulnerability of irrigation-dependent societies: Archaeology's long-term perspective. Ecology and Society 15(3):Art. 31. (link )

2008

Hegmon, M., M. Peeples, A. P. Kinzig, S. A. Kulow, C. M. Meegan and M. C. Nelson. 2008. Social transformation and its human costs in the prehispanic US Southwest. American Anthropologist 110(3):313-324. DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-1433.2008.00041.

1996

Nelson, M. C. and B. L. Shears. 1996. From the Field to the Files: Curation and the future of academic archaeology. Common Ground, Archaeology and Ethnography in the Public Interest. (2):.

Books

2011

Nelson, M. C. and C. Strawhacker eds. 2011. Movement, Connectivity, and Landscape Change in the Ancient Southwest. University Press of Colorado. Boulder.

2010

Nelson, M. C. and C. A. Strawhacker eds. 2010. Changing histories, landscapes and perspectives: The 20th Anniversary Southwest Symposium. University of Colorado Press. Boulder.

Book Chapters

In Press

Swanson, S., R. Anyon, M. C. Nelson and S. Ventre. Pithouse villages, population dynamics and landscape use in the Southern Mogollon region, AD 200-900. Amerind Foundation, Dragoon, AZ; University of New Mexico Press.

2017

Nelson, M. C. and P. A. Gilman. 2017. Mimbres archaeology. In: Mills, B. and S. Fowles eds., The Oxford Handbook of Southwest Archaeology. Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199978427.013.14. ISBN: 9780199978427.

Nelson, M. C., A. P. Kinzig, J. Arneborg, R. Streeter and S. E. Ingram. 2017. Vulnerability to food insecurity: Tradeoffs and their consequences. Pp. 172-197 In: Hegmon, M. ed., The Give and Take of Sustainability: Archaeological and Anthropological Perspectives on Tradeoffs. Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 9781107078338.

2016

Torvinen, A., M. Hegmon, A. P. Kinzig, M. C. Nelson, M. A. Peeples, C. Strawhacker, K. G. Schollmeyer and L. Swantek. 2016. Transformation without collapse: Two cases from the U.S. Southwest. Pp. 262-286 In: Faulseit, R. K. ed., Beyond Collapse: Archaeological Perspectives on Resilience, Revitalization, and Transformation in Complex Societies. Southern Illinois University. Carbondale, IL. ISBN: 978-0809333998.

2012

Nelson, M. C., M. Hegmon, K. W. Kintigh, A. P. Kinzig, B. A. Nelson, J. M. Anderies, D. A. Abbott, K. A. Spielmann, S. E. Ingram, M. A. Peeples, S. A. Kulow, C. A. Strawhacker and C. A. Meegan. 2012. Long-term vulnerability and resilience: Three examples from archaeological study in the Southwestern U.S. and Northern Mexico. In: Cooper, J. and P. Sheets eds., Learning to Live with Climate Change: Understanding Hazards, Mitigating Impacts, Avoiding Disasters.

2011

Spielmann, K. A., M. C. Nelson, S. E. Ingram and M. A. Peeples. 2011. Mitigating environmental risk in the US Southwest. Pp. 180-211 In: Miller, N. F., K. M. Moore and K. Ryan eds., Sustainable Lifeways: Cultural persistence in an ever-changing environment. University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Philadelphia.

2009

Redman, C. L., M. C. Nelson and A. P. Kinzig. 2009. The resilience of socio-ecological landscapes: Lessons from the Hohokam. Pp. 15-39 In: Fisher, C. T., J. B. Hill and G. M. Feinman eds., The Archaeology of Environmental Change: Socionatural Legacies of Degradation and Resilience. University of Arizona Press. Tucson, AZ.

2006

Hegmon, M., M. C. Nelson, K. Schollmeyer, M. Elliott and M. Diehl. 2006. Agriculture, mobility, and human impact in the Mimbres region of the United States Southwest. Pp. 107-121 In: Hantman, J. L. and R. Most eds., Vol 57.

Posters

2008

Strawhacker, C. A., M. Hegmon, M. C. Nelson, M. Peeples, K. G. Schollmeyer and S. Swanson. 2008. Interaction and diversity in the Postclassic Mimbres World: Results of the 2007 field season. Poster presented March 19 at the 20th Anniversary Southwest Symposium, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ.

2005

Elliott, M., P. Turkon, J. Riel-Salvatore and M. C. Nelson. 2005. Tools of the trade? New perspectives on maguey processing in Malpaso Valley, Zacatecas, Mexico AD 500-900. Poster presented March 30-April 3 at the 70th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Salt Lake City, UT.

Nelson, M. C. and K. Schollmeyer. 2005. Contextualizing diversity. Poster presented Nonvember 30 at the 104th annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington DC.

Presentations

2011

Ingram, S. E., A. Dugmore, J. Areborg, G. Hambrecht, M. Hegmon, K. W. Kintigh, T. H. McGovern, M. C. Nelson, R. Oram, M. Peeples, K. A. Spielmann and O. Vesteinsson. 2011. Climate hazards and social transformations in the North Atlantic region and in the U.S. Southwest, 900 to 1500 C.E. Presentation at the June 22-26 International Congress of Arctic Social Sciences Conference, Iceland.

2010

Nelson, M. C., A. P. Kinzig, S. E. Ingram, C. Strawhacker and R. Cleland. 2010. Lessons from the past about biodiversity in social-ecological systems. Presentation October 8 associated with the Convention on Biological Diversity, United Nations Environment Programme, Nagoya, Japan.

2007

Hegmon, M., M. C. Nelson, M. Peeples, C. M. Meegan, S. A. Kulow and A. P. Kinzig. 2007. Human and regional-scale perspectives on social transformation in the US Southwest: Hohokam, Mimbres, and Mesa Verde. Presentation April 26-29 at the 72nd Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Austin, TX.

2006

Nelson, M. C. 2006. Long-term coupled socioecological change in the American Southwest and northern Mexico. Presentation at the January 19, 2006 8th Annual CAP LTER Poster Symposium, Tempe, AZ.

Reports

2013

Larson, K. L., D. D. White, P. Gober, C. W. Kirkwood, V. K. Smith, M. C. Nelson, C. L. Redman and S. K. Wittlinger. 2013. Advancing science in support of water policy and urban climate change adaptation at Arizona State University’s Decision Center for a Desert City: A synthesis of interdisciplinary research on climate, water, and decision making under uncertainty. Decision Center for a Desert City, Arizona State University. Technical Report 13-02. (link )