David E. Rhode

Research Professor

Division of Earth and Ecosystem Sciences

Email: Dave.Rhode@dri.edu

Education

Professional Interests

Dr. Rhode is a prehistorian, archaeobotanist, and paleoecologist with 25 years experience throughout western North America. His main focus of research concerns prehistoric human adaptations and paleoenvironmental change in arid environments. Towards this end, he has analyzed packrat middens in the eastern Great Basin and western Mojave Desert, examined plant remains from various archaeological sites throughout the Great Basin and American Southwest, and studied phytoliths (mineral bodies from plant cells) extracted from archaeological sites. In addition to his paleoenvironmental research, Dr. Rhode has directed and managed several archaeological projects, including a large cultural resources protection program at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, as well as in California, Oregon, New Mexico, Washington, and Alaska. Recently, he has also explored early human occupation in China and Jordan.

During his studies of regional land use patterns of prehistoric people in the Great Basin, Dr. Rhode expanded the use of dating techniques such as thermoluminescence and obsidian hydration for developing chronologies of regional land use patterns as reflected in the surface archaeology of the Great Basin. Southwestern experience includes a detailed study of prehistoric and historic study of Zuni agricultural land use and water control in west-central New Mexico. His interest in the history of Native American groups in western North America led to his co-editing a recent volume on the Paiute, Shoshonean, and Ute ("Numic") peoples who inhabited the intermountain west in late prehistoric and historic times and to the publication of an illustrated ethnobotany of southern Nevada.

Research

Selected Publications

Madsen, D.B., M. Haizhou, P.J. Brantingham, G. Zing, D. Rhode, Z. Haiyang, J.W. Olsen, 2006:

The Late Upper Paleolithic occupation of the northern Tibetan Plateau margin. Journal of Archaeological Science.

Rhode, D., D.B. Madsen, K.T. Jones, 2005:

Antiquity of Early Holocene small-seed consumption and processing at Danger Cave. Antiquity 80: 1-12.

Brantingham, P.J., M.A. Haizhou, J.W. Olsen, G.A.O. Xing, D.B. Madsen, and D.E. Rhode, 2003:

Speculation on the timing and nature of Late Pleistocene hunter-gatherer colonization of the Tibetan Plateau. Chinese Science Bulletin 48(14): 1510-1516.

Rhode, D., 2003:

Coprolites from Hidden Cave, Revisited: Evidence for occupation history, diet, and gender. Journal of Archaeological Science (in press).

Rhode, D., D.B. Madsen, P.J. Brantingham, and T. Goebel, 2003:

Human Occupation in the Beringian "Mammoth Steppe": Starved for Fuel, or Dung-Burner's Paradise? Archaeology pp. 68-70.

Rhode, D., 2002:

Native Plants of Southern Nevada: An Ethnobotany. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.

Rhode, D., 2002:

Early Holocene juniper woodland and chaparral taxa in the central Baja California Peninsula, Mexico. Quaternary Research 57(1): 102-108.

Rhode, D., and P. Wigand, 2002:

Great Basin Vegetation History and Aquatic Systems: The Last 150,000 Years. In: R. Hershler, D.B. Madsen, and D. Currey (Eds.), Great Basin Aquatic Systems History, pp. 309-368. Smithsonian Contributions to the Earth Sciences 33. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC.

Rhode, D., 2001:

Macrobotanical Remains. In: Robert L. Kelly (Ed.) Prehistory of the Carson Desert and Stillwater Mountains: Environment, Mobility and Subsistence in a Great Basin Wetland, pp. 254-262. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, UT.

Madsen, D.B., D. Rhode, D.K. Grayson, J.M. Broughton, S.D. Livingston, J. Hunt, J. Quade, D.N. Schmitt, and M.W. Shaver III, 2001:

Late Quaternary Environmental Change in the Bonneville Basin, Western USA. Palaeoecology, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology 167 (3/4): 243-271.

Rhode, D., 2001:

Packrat Middens as a Tool for Reconstructing Historic Ecosystems. In: David Egan and Evelyn Howell (Eds.), Historical Ecology Handbook: A restorationist's guide to reference ecosystems, pp. 257-293. Island Press, Covelo, CA.

Rhode, D., K.D. Adams, and R.G. Elston, 2000:

Geoarchaeology and Holocene landscape history of the Carson Desert, western Nevada. In: D.R. Lageson, S.G. Peters and M.M. Lahren, (Eds.), Great Basin and Sierra Nevada, pp. 45-74. Geological Society of America Field Guide 2. Boulder, CO.

Rhode, D., 2000:

Chapter 11 - Middle and Late Wisconsin Vegetation History in the Bonneville Basin. In: D.B. Madsen (Ed.), Late Quaternary Paleoecology in the Bonneville Basin, pp. 137-148. Utah Geological Survey Bulletin 130, Salt Lake City.

Rhode, D., 2000:

Chapter 12 - Holocene Vegetation History in the Bonneville Basin. In: D.B. Madsen (Ed.), Late Quaternary Paleoecology in the Bonneville Basin, pp. 149-164. Utah Geological Survey Bulletin 130, Salt Lake City.

Hunt, J., D. Rhode, and D.B. Madsen, 2000:

Chapter 5 - Homestead Cave Flora and non-Vertebrate Fauna. In: D.B. Madsen (Ed.), Late Quaternary Paleoecology in the Bonneville Basin, pp. 47-58. Utah Geological Survey Bulletin 130, Salt Lake City.

Rhode, D., 1999:

The Role of Paleoecology in the Development of Great Basin Archaeology, and Vice Versa. In: C. Beck (ed.), Models for the Millennium: Great Basin Anthropology Today, pp. 29-52. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.

Rhode, D. and D.B. Madsen, 1998:

Pine Nut Use in the Early Holocene and Beyond: the Danger Cave Archaeobotanical Record. Journal of Archaeological Science 25(12):1199-1210.

Feathers, J.K. and D. Rhode, 1998:

Luminescence Dating of Protohistoric Pottery from the Great Basin. Geoarchaeology: An International Journal 13(3):287-308.

Rhode, D., 1997:

GIS and Obsidian Hydration-Based Chronologies of Regional Surface Archaeology: An Example from Yucca Mountain, Nevada, USA. In M. North and I. Johnson (Eds), Archaeological Applications of GIS: Proceedings of Colloquium II, UISPP XIIIth Congress, Forli Italy (September 1996). University of Sydney Archaeological Methods Series 5. Sydney, Australia.

Hartwell, W.T., G.M. Haynes, and D. Rhode, 1996:

Early Obsidian Use and Depletion at Yucca Mountain, Southern Nevada: Evidence from Obsidian Hydration Studies. Current Research in the Pleistocene 13:57-59.

Rhode, D., 1995:

Estimating Agricultural Carrying Capacity in the Zuni Region, West-central New Mexico: A Water Allocation Model. In H. Wolcott Toll (Ed), Soil, Water, Biology and Belief in Prehistoric and Traditional Southwestern Agriculture, New Mexico Archaeological Council Agriculture Special Publication 2, Albuquerque, pp. 85-100.

Rhode, D. and Madsen, D.B., 1995:

Late Wisconsin/Early Holocene Vegetation Change in the Bonneville Basin. Quaternary Research 44: 246-256.

Madsen, D.B. and D. Rhode (Eds.), 1994:

Across the West: Human Population Movement and the Expansion of the Numa. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.

Madsen, D.B. and D. Rhode, 1994:

Introduction. In: D.B. Madsen and D. Rhode (Eds.), Across the West: Human Population Movement and the Expansion of the Numa, pp. 3-5. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.

Sutton, M.Q. and D. Rhode, 1994:

Background to the Numic Problem. In: D.B. Madsen and D. Rhode (Eds.), Across the West: Human Population Movement and the Expansion of the Numa, pp. 6-15. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.

Rhode, D., 1994:

Direct Dating of Brown Ware Ceramics Using Thermoluminescence and Its Relation to the Numic Spread. In: D.B. Madsen and D. Rhode (Eds.), Across the West: Human Population Movement and the Expansion of the Numa, pp. 124-132. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.

Rhode, D., and D.B. Madsen, 1994:

Where are we? In: D.B. Madsen and D. Rhode (Eds.), Across the West: Human Population Movement and the Expansion of the Numa, pp. 213-222. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.

Rhode, D., 1990:

Transportation Costs of Great Basin Resources: As Assessment of the Jones-Madsen Model. Current Anthropology 31: 413-419.

Rhode, D., 1990:

Settlement Patterning and Residential Stability at Walker Lake, Nevada: The View From Above. In: J. Janetsky and D.B. Madsen (Eds.),Wetlands Adaptations in the Great Basin, pp. 107-120. Museum of Peoples and Cultures Occasional Papers 1. Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.

Madsen, D.B. and D. Rhode, 1990:

Early Holocene Pinyon (Pinus monophylla) in the Northeastern Great Basin. Quaternary Research 33:94-101.

Chatters, J.C., D. Rhode, and K. Hoover, 1990:

Tualdad Altu (45Ki59): a Prehistoric Riverine Village in Southern Puget Sound. Archaeology in Washington 2:32-46.

Rhode, D., 1988:

Two Nineteenth-Century Records of Great Basin Subsistence Practices. Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 10(2):156-162.

Rhode, D., 1988:

Measurement of Archaeological Diversity and the Sample Size Effect. American Antiquity 53(4):708-716.

Rhode, D. and D.H. Thomas, 1983:

Flotation Analysis of Selected Hearths. In: D.H. Thomas (Ed.), The Archaeology of Monitor Valley, Central Nevada, Volume 2: Gatecliff Shelter. American Museum of Natural History Anthropological Papers 59, Part 1. New York, NY.