Jenna Marie Battillo

Florida Museum of Natural History · Environmental Archaeology Program

Significance As residential development continues into flammable landscapes, wildfires increasingly threaten homes, lives, and livelihoods in the so-called “wildland–urban interface,” or WUI. Although this problem seems distinctly modern, Native American communities have lived in WUI contexts for centuries. When carefully considered, the past offer...

Supplementary Information for: Roos, Christopher I., Thomas W. Swetnam, T.J. Ferguson, Matthew J. Liebmann, Rachel A. Loehman, John R. Welch, Ellis Q. Margolis, Christopher H. Guiterman, William C. Hockaday, Michael J. Aiuvalasit, Jenna Battillo, Joshua Farella, and Christopher A. Kiahtipes (2021). Native American Fire Management at an Ancient Wil...

This paper describes and interprets the results of multiple analyses conducted on human paleofeces from Turkey Pen Ruin, an early Ancestral Pueblo farming site in Cedar Mesa, Utah. Analyses of pollen and macroscopic contents were performed on 44 specimens; DNA testing for several faunal and botanical dietary constituents was also conducted on selec...

In 1972 R.G. Matson and a small crew excavated a dry, stratified midden at a Pueblo Cliff Dwelling site in Grand Gulch, as part of the Cedar Mesa Project. Materials from the column (excavated and kept intact) and the matrix surrounding it (bagged separately by layer) are curated at Washington State University’s Museum of Anthropology and have been...

Dependence on maize as a staple often leads to nutritional deficiencies when corn is not properly supplemented with other protein sources. Basketmaker II peoples in the northern Southwest relied on maize for approximately 80% of their diet, but without the complementary inclusion of bean horticulture or regular consumption of supplementary animal p...

This mini-review outlines three underutilized approaches for studying meat-based biomarkers in archaeological paleofeces that we expect will increase in significance within the field. Myoglobin, stable isotope, and aDNA analyses all have untapped potential to inform meat-based dietary constituents.

The Basketmaker II (BMII) period remains from Turkey Pen Ruin, Utah (ca. 100BC – AD 500) show strong evidence for early, autochthonous turkey domestication in the Southwestern United States. However, isotopic research on bones and hair from this region shows that the BMII diet did not include much meat, and that turkey consumption was unlikely. It...

Idaho statutes regarding protection of graves and human remains are inadequate in their curent form. The neighboring state of Washington provides an excellent model for the implementation of more effective and ethical legislation in this matter. What follows is a comparison of the statutes in both states as well as a strong critique of the current...