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Dr. Christina Rieth

State Archaeologist and Co-Director, Cultural Resource Survey Program
christina.rieth@nysed.gov
518-402-5975

My research focuses on the ways that prehistoric groups interacted with their local environment and the role that such interaction had on the settlement and subsistence strategies of New York’s Late Prehistoric (A.D. 700-1450) occupants. The relationship between humans and their natural and cultural environment is of importance in understanding pre-Contact diversity. The choices that we make concerning the types of resources that are used, the interactions that we form with neighboring groups in acquiring these resources, and how we modify the local landscape all influence the resulting behaviors and material culture. Field and collections based research form the basis for addressing these issues. 

Finally, I am interested in public archaeology and the ways that archaeologists make information about and incorporate the public into its study of the past. Through an active program of field and collections based research, I am interested in making information about the archaeological past accessible to all New Yorkers.

Publications

2010

R. Kays, J. Kirchman, A. Curtis 2010, Reply to Wheeldon et al. ’Colonization History and Ancestry of Northeastern Coyotes’, Biology Letters 6, 248-249. 10.1098/rsbl.2009.1022
J. Kirchman, C. Witt, J. McGuire, G. Graves 2010, DNA from a 100-year-old Holotype Confirms the Validity of a Potentially Extinct Hummingbird Species, Biology Letters 6, 112-115. 10.1098/rsbl.2009.0545
J. Kirchman 2010, Legalities and Practicalities of Salvaging of Dead Birds for Museum Specimens, The Kingbird 60, 298-300.
J. Kirchman 2010, Carolina Parakeets. Legacy: The Magazine of the New York State Museum 6, 16

2009

J. Kirchman 2009, Genetic Tests of Rapid Parallel Speciation of Flightless Birds from an Extant Volant Ancestor, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 96, 601-616. 10.1111/j.1095-8312.2008.01160.x
J. Cryan, R. Feranec, J. Kirchman 2009, Evolution Every Day. Legacy: The Magazine of the New York State Museum 4, 10-11
J. Kirchman 2009, Extinct Birds. Legacy: The Magazine of the New York State Museum 4, 8-9
J. Kirchman 2009, Natural History Collections and Evolution. Legacy: The Magazine of the New York State Museum 4, 14

2008

J. Kirchman 2008, Bird Egg Specimens: An Ova-looked Treasure. Legacy: The Magazine of the New York State Museum 3, 8-9
J. Kirchman 2008, The New York State Museum Bird Collection: A Resource for Educators and Ornithologists, The Kingbird 58, 214-219.