Ben Nelson
- Senior Sustainability Scientist, Global Institute of Sustainability
School of Human Evolution and Social Change
Arizona State University
PO Box 872402
Tempe, AZ 85287
Phone:
480-965-7983
Fax:
480-965-7671
Email:
bnelson@asu.edu
Biography
Dr. Nelson's research interests center on cycles of social complexity and connectivity among the ancient cultures of northwestern Mexico and the American Southwest (A.D. 200-1540) on the human roles in and responses to the desertification of grasslands in those regions and on relating archaeology to indigenous cultures of the present day. He has worked for such organizations as the American Anthropological Association, the Society for American Archaeology and the National Science Foundation.
He has taught at the University of New Mexico and the State University of New York at Buffalo, and today, currently teaches anthropology at Arizona State University.
Expertise
archaeology; complex societies; ethnoarchaeology; political economics; land use change; landscape studies; urban social-ecological systems;Education
- Ph.D., Anthropology, Southern Illinois University Carnondale, 1980
- M.A., Anthropology, Florida State University, 1976
- B.A., Anthropology, Florida State University, 1971
Journal Articles
Anderies, J. M., B. Nelson and A. Kinzig. 2008. Analyzing the impact of agave cultivation on famine risk in arid pre-Hispanic northern Mexico. Human Ecology 36:409-422. (link)
Posters/Presentations
Anderies, J. M. and B. Nelson. 2005. Agave as infrastructure: Vulnerability and crop diversity in northern Mexico. Invited presentation at December 2005 in Transformation and Stability in Socioecological Systems: Archaeological Perspectives on Resilience Theory, Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C.
Elliott, M., C. Fisher, R. S. Molina Garza, B. Mata and B. A. Nelson. 2003. An interdisciplinary approach to landscape evolution in the Malpaso Valley, Zacatecas, Mexico. Poster presented April 9-13 at the 68th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Milwaukee, WI.
