David G. Smith

Associate Professor Emeritus
NB 211
(905) 828-3784

Campus

Fields of Study

Areas of Interest

Research Keywords: Archaeology, ceramics, agricultural origins

Research Region: Northeast North America

Biography

Professor Smith is an archaeologist specializing in prehistoric cultures of northeastern North America and the Caribbean. His special interests lie in the origins of agriculture in the Northeast Woodlands, stylistic change in Northeast Woodland ceramics, environmental archaeology in tropical & continental regions, and archaeological method and theory.

Professor Smith’s current research projects include investigation of early Late Woodland societies in the Thames Valley of southwestern Ontario and the Woodland habitation at the Cootes Paradise wetland in Hamilton, Ontario. Professor Smith and Professor Gary Crawford are currently directing a research programme entitled “The Middle to Late Woodland Transition & Origins of Horticultural Societies in Northeast North America”. This research is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the National Geographic Society, and has contributed important new knowledge about the earliest maize cultivation in the Northeast Woodlands.

Education

Ph.D. (McGill University, 1987)

Publications

2015   Starch analysis and isotopic evidence of consumption of cultigens among fisher-gatherers in Cuba: The archaeological sit of Canímar Abajo, Matanzas (with Y. Chinique de Armas, W.M. Buhay,R. Rodríguez Suárez, S. Bestel, S.D. Mowat and M. Roksandic) Journal of Archaeological Science 58: 121-132

2013     A preliminary carbon and nitrogen collagen isotopic investigation on skeletal remains recovered from a Pre-Columbian burial site, Matanzas Province, Cuba (with W. M. Buhay, Y. C. d. Armas, R. R. Suárez, C. Arredondo, S. D. Armstrong and M. Roksandic). Applied Geochemistry 52: 76-84.

2011    The Point of Popularity: A Summary of 10,000 years of Human Activity at the Princess Point Promontory, Cootes Paradise Marsh, Hamilton, Ontario (with H. R., Haines, D. Galbraith and T. Theysmeyer). Canadian Journal of Archaeology 35(2):232-257.

2010    The Consequences of Early Food Production: Three Recent ContributionsReviews in Anthropology 39(2): 91–107.

2006    Pre-Contact Maize from Ontario, Canada: Context, Chronology, Variation, and Plant Association (with Crawford, Gary W., Della Saunders). In Histories of Maize: Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Prehistory, Biogeography, Domestication, and Evolution of Maize (Zea mays L.), edited by John E. Staller, Robert H. Tykot & Bruce F. Benz, pp. 549-559. New York: Academic Press. © Academic Press 2006.

2006   Bruce Trigger’s Impact on Ontario Iroquoian Studies (with Pearce, Rober J.; MacDonald, Robert; Timmins, Peter A.; Warrick, Gary A). In The Archaeology of Bruce Trigger: Theoretical Empiricism, edited by Ronald F. Williamson and Michael S. Bisson. McGill-Queen’s University Press. pp. 114-134.