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Thomas Wake, Ph.D.

Academic Address

    Zooarchaeology Laboratory
    The Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA
    A-210 Fowler Los Angeles, CA 90095-1510
    Phone: (310) 206-1782
    Fax: (310) 206-4723
    E-mail:twake@ucla.edu

Education

  • Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley. 1995. Anthropology.
  • M.A., University of California, Berkeley. 1988. Anthropology.
  • B.A., University of California, Berkeley. 1986. History.

Teaching Experience

Dr. Wake has taught courses in archaeological field methods, archaeological lab methods, zooarchaeology, and historical archaeology at UCLA since 1996. He has also taught at Laney College and Sonoma State University and given many presentations at various professional meetings.

Field experience

Dr. Wake has directed archaeological research at Sitio Drago and elsewhere on Isla ColÛn since 2002. He has directed field projects in California and north coastal Peru and co-directed and/or participated in field projects in north coastal Peru (Mocollope, Huancaco), Pacific coastal Mexico and Guatemala (Cerro de las Conchas, Paso de la Amada, Ujuxte, La Blanca, El Mesak), the Fayum in Egypt, China, Alaska (3 Sainta Bay), and throughout California (Fort Ross, Duncan’s Point Cave, Emeryville Shellmound, Ellis Landing Shellmound). He has researched and collected fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals in Peru, Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, Italy, Spain, Egypt and Switzerland, as well as in 21 United States.

Research Interests

Dr. Wake's expertise is in the study of zooarchaeology as it relates to hunter-gatherer adaptations, paleoenvironments, and the development of complex societies and their subsistence systems, in both prehistoric and historic period contexts. He is particularly interested in studying the various roles animal resources play in contact situations, hunter-gatherer and incipient complex societies, as well as examining cultural change through time at all social levels. The nature of this approach to archaeology demands an interdisciplinary perspective that draws on the traditional four fields of anthropology as well as history, zoology and ecology.

Selected Publications

  • R.G. Lesure, A. Borejsza, J.S. Carballo, C. Frederick, V. Popper, and T.A. Wake (In Press). Chronology, Subsistence, and the Transition to the Formative in Central Tlaxcala, Mexico. Latin American Antiquity.
  • T.A. Wake. (In Press, 2006). Prehistoric Exploitation of the Swamp Palm (Raphia taedigera:Arecacae) at Sitio Drago, Isla Colón, Bocas del Toro, Panamá. The Caribbean Journal of Science 42(1):-.
  • T.A. Wake. 2006. Archaeological Sewellel (Aplodontia Rufa) Remains from Duncan’s Point Cave, Sonoma County, California. Journal of Mammalogy 87(1):139-147.
  • K.W. Gobalet, T.A. Wake, and K.L. Hardin. 2005. The Archaeological Record of Native Fishes of the Lower Colorado River; How to Identify their Remains. Western North American Naturalist 65(3):335-344.
  • T.A. Wake. 2004. On the Paramount Importance of Adequate Comparative Collections and Recovery Techniques in the Identification and Interpretation of Vertebrate Archaeofaunas: A Reply to Vale and Gargett (2002). ArchaeoFauna 13:173-182.
  • K.W. Gobalet, P.D. Schulz, T.A. Wake, N. Siefkin. 2004. Archaeological Perspectives on Native American Fisheries of Central California with Emphasis Steelhead and Salmon. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 133(4):801-833.
  • T.A. Wake, J. de Leon, C. Fitzgerald B. 2004. Prehistoric Sitio Drago, Bocas del Toro, Panama. Antiquity 78(300) June 2004: http://antiquity.ac.uk/ProjGall/wake/
  • T.A. Wake, N. Anikouchine, and B. Voorhies. 2004. Food Procurement and Processing: Fish and Game Remains at the Shellmound Sites. In Coastal Collectors in the Holocene: The Chantuto People of Southwest Mexico, edited by B. Voorhies, pp. 158-206. University Press of Florida.
  • T.A. Wake. 2004. A Vertebrate Archaeofauna from the Early Formative Period Site of Paso de la Amada, Chiapas, Mexico: Preliminary Results. In Maya Zooarchaeology: New Directions in Method and Theory, edited by K.F. Emery, pp. 209-222. Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA.
  • D.W. Steadman, M.P. Tellkamp, and T.A. Wake. 2003. Prehistoric Exploitation of Birds on the Pacific Coast of Chiapas, Mexico. The Condor 105(3):572-579.
  • B. Voorhies, D.J. Kennett, J.G. Jones, and T.A. Wake. 2002. A Middle Archaic Archaeological Site on the West Coast of Mexico. Latin American Antiquity 13(2):179-200.
  • T.A. Wake and L.R. Harrington. 2002. Vertebrate Faunal Remains From La Blanca, Guatemala. In Early Complex Society in Pacific Guatemala: Settlements and Chronology of the Rio Naranjo, Guatemala, ed., M.W. Love. Papers of the New World Archaeological Foundation 66:237-252.
  • T.A. Wake, M.H. Wake, and R.G. Lesure. 1999. First Quaternary Fossil Record for Caecilians from a Mexican Archaeological Site. Quaternary Research 52(1):138-140.
  • T.A. Wake, D.B. Wake, and M.H. Wake. 1983. The Ossification Sequence of Aneides lugubris, With Comments on Heterochrony. Journal of Herpetology 17(1):10-22.