Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
      Washington University 
      Campus Box 1169 
      One Brookings Dr. 
      St. Louis, MO. 63130 
      jensmith@wustl.edu  

Research Focus 

My principal research interest is in the interaction of humans and their environment in the archaeological record, which I approach from the perspective of a geologist.  My work focuses on using the sediments at and near archaeological sites to reconstruct the landscapes and climates present when the sites were occupied. 

To date, most of my research has been on Pleistocene spring-deposits of the Western Desert of Egypt, associated with the Dakhleh Oasis Project and the Kharga Oasis Prehistory Project, though I am beginning work in the Nile Valley with the Abydos Paleolithic Survey Project.  My colleagues and I have been piecing together the climatic history of the region over the last million years as context for repeated occupation of the now arid region.  Paleoenvironmental reconstruction is fundamentally a broad-based, interdisciplinary task; work in Egypt’s Western Desert has required forays into geochronology, stable isotope geochemistry, malacology, and palynology, in addition to the geomorphology, sedimentology, and stratigraphy that have provided the basis of my work.  Reconstructing a climate history for the Eastern Sahara also provides an important low-latitude, low-altitude record of Quaternary climate change, and thus aids us in understanding the linkages between climatic shifts in various parts of the globe.

My interests are not limited to the Pleistocene of North Africa; I have also worked with Maya archaeologists in Belize, with paleobotanists on the Eocene fossil forests of Axel Heiberg Islands (Arctic Canada), and with vertebrate paleontologists on the environments of Cretaceous faunas in Wyoming and Egypt, and I hope to continue exploring new areas and time periods.  More recently I have become interested in the applications of GIS to archaeological and paleoecological problems.  GIS holds a great deal of promise for examining taphonomic questions and allowing us to better understand the processes involved in the formation of the archaeological record.

Courses 

Surface Processes, Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction, Evolution of the Earth

Selected Publications 
 

1998	Geology and hydrology of the Lower Mopan and Macal River Valleys.  In Xunantunick Archaeological Project 1997: The Final Field Season.  R.M. Levanthal, ed.
2001	with A.L. Hawkins, R. Giegengack, M.M.A. McDonald, M.R. Kleindienst, H.P. Schwarcz, C.S. Churcker, M.F. Wiseman, and K. Nicoll) New research on the prehistory of the escarpment in  Kharga Oasis, Egypt.  Nyame Akuma 55: 8-14.
2002	(with A. Seiferle-Valencia)GIS-based analysis of resource availability at Teotihuacan. GSA Abstracts with Programs  34(6): 379.
I.P.	(with R. Giegengack) Spatial and temporal distribution of fossil-spring tufa deposits, Western Desert , Egypt: implications for paleoclimatic interpretations.  Submitted to Oasis Papers, III.
I.P.	(with A.L. Hawkins, R.Giegengack, and H. Schwarcz) Constraints on Pleistocene pluvial climates through stable-isotope analysis of fossil-spring tufas and associated gastropods, Kharga Oasis, Egypt. Submitted to Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology.