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Assistant Professor
456 Braunstein Hall
513-556-5784
kenneth.tankersley@uc.edu

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Education

B.S. , University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1978 (Education (Geology)).

M.A., University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1982 (Anthropology).

Ph.D., Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, 1989 (Anthropology).

Post-Doctorate, Illinois State Museum, Springfield, Illinois, 1993 (Quaternary Research Program).

Professional Summary

  I am an anthropologist specializing in archaeological geology and Quaternary science. With funding from the National Science Foundation, the National Academy of Sciences, the L.S.B. Leakey Foundation, Earthwatch, the International Research and Exchange Program, the Court Family Foundation, the Charles Phelps Taft Foundation, and the University of Cincinnati Research Council, I have conducted archaeological investigations across the western Hemisphere and Eastern Siberia. This research has resulted in a consistent and sustained record of performance with more than 120 professional publications. Additionally, my research has been featuredon the National Geographic Channel, the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, the Animal Planet, BBC Nature, NOVA, PBS, in Science, National Geographic News, Geo, the Wall Street Journal, the New Yorker magazine, Scientific American, Archaeology magazine, and on All Things Considered as well as local, national, and international newspapers, magazines, radio and television programs.  I have served as a Foreign Delegate for the National Academy of Science, a Delegate of the International Geology Congress, a Carnegie Mellon Scholar Lecturer, guest editor of Scientific American magazine, and a Gubernatorial appointed member of the Native American Heritage Commission.
 
My research is innovative and interdisciplinary, focusing on archaeological problems associated with human migration, adaptation, and natural resource use during periods of climatic, environmental, and catastrophic change.  From an evolutionary perspective, these are significant periods of change, which force people to economically adapt, downsize, or migrate. Temporally, my research focuses on the Quaternary, the geological period of time during which humans evolved.  I concentrate my research efforts on Paleoindian archaeological sites, which date to the late Pleistocene, the last gasp of the last ice age, an episode of rapid and profound global climate change and mass extinction, and sites, which were occupied during the late Holocene, a subsequent period of oscillating climatic, environmental, and catastrophic change. My investigations use geologic field techniques (i.e., solid sediment drill coring and profile excavation) and geological laboratory methods (i.e., petrography, environmental scanning electron microscopy, geochronology, X-ray diffractometry, and trace element and stable isotope geochemistry).  

Research Support

Court Archaeological Research Fund Endowment, Court Family Foundation. $50,000.00. Date: 2013.

National Science Foundation, Co-PI with David Lentz, Regina Baucom, Kenneth Hinkel, Guy Cameron, Michell Kelleher. $170,000.00. Date: 2012 to to Present.

Ohio Valley Scholarship Endowment, Court Family Foundation. $300,000.00. Date: 2010.

National Park Service, $1,200.00. Date: 2008.

Court Archaeology Research Facility (CARF) Endowment, Court Family Foundation. $500,000.00. Date: 2008.

Peer Reviewed Publications

2013 James H. Wittke, James C. Weaver, Ted E. Bunch, James P. Kennett, Douglas J Kennett, Andrew MT Moore, Gordon C Hillman, Kenneth B. Tankersley, Albert C. Goodyear, Christopher R. Moore, I. Randolph Daniel, Jr., Jack H. Ray, Neal Lopinot, David Ferraro, Isabel Israde-Alcántara, James L Bischoff, Paul S. DeCarli, Robert E Hermes, Johan B. Kloosterman, Zsolt Revay, George A. Howard, David R. Kimbel, Gunther Kletetschka, Ladislav Nabelek, Carl Lipo, Sachiko Sakai, Allen West, Richard B. Firestone. Evidence for the Deposition of 10 Million Tonnes of Impact Spherules across Four Continents 12,800 years ago. PNAS (in press, 2013-01760).

2012 Vernon Scarborough, Nicholas Dunning, David Lentz, Kenneth Tankersley, Liwy Grazioso, Christopher Carr, Eric Weaver, Brian Lane, Fred Valdez, Palma Buttles, and John Jones. Water and Sustainable Land Use in an Ancient Tropical City: Tikal, Guatemala.  PNAS 9(31): 12408-12413. 
[Link]

2012 Jeremy M. Koster and Kenneth B. Tankersley. Heterogeneity of Hunting Ability and Nutritional Status Among Domestic Dogs in Lowland Nicaragua.  PNAS 109(6)111251510. 
[Link]

2011 Weeks, R. and K. B. Tankersley, Of Talking Leaves and Rocks that Teach: The Archaeology of Sequoya’s Oldest Written Record. Antiquity 85:978-994.
[Link]

2011 Kenneth B. Tankersley. Evaluating the Co-occurrence of Platygonus compressus and Mylohyus nasutus at Sheriden Cave, Wyandot County, Ohio. Current Research in the Pleistocene 28:173-175.
[Link]

2011 Kenneth B. Tankersley, Vernon L. Scarborough, Nicholas Dunning, Warren Huff,
Barry Maynard, Tammie L. Gerke, Evidence for Volcanic Ash Fall in the Maya Lowlands from a Reservoir at Tikal, Guatemala. Journal of Archaelogical Science 38:2925-2938.
[Link]

2011 Brain G. Redmond and Kenneth B. Tankersley. Species Response to the Theorized Clovis Comet Impact at Sheriden Cave, Ohio. Current Research in the Pleistocene 28:141-143.
[Link]

2010 Tankersley, K. B., and Marianne Balantyne, X-ray Power Diffraction Analysis of Late Holocene Reservoir Sediments.  Journal of Archaeological Science 37:133-138.
[Link]

2010 Tankersley, K. B., and Jeremy Koster . Sources of Stable Isotope Variation in Archaeological Dog Remains. North American Archaeologist 29:343-37.
[Link]

2010 Haines, A. L. and K. B. Tankersley, John Court: A Stratified Clovis Site in Hamilton County, Ohio. Current Research in the Pleistocene 27:102-104.
[Link]

2009 Tankersley, K.B.,Late Pleistocene Paleontology and Archaeology of Big Bone Lick, Kentucky, in North American Paleontological Convention Field Trip Guide, edited by Carl Brett. [Link]

2009 Tankersley, K. B.,Michael R. Waters, and Thomas W. Stafford, Jr. Clovis and the American Mastodon at Big Bone Lick, Kentucky.  American Antiquity (74)3:558-567.
[Link]

2009 Tankersley, K. B., Brian Lane, Dean J. Wells, Christine Hamburg, and Andras Nagy, Last Glacial Maximum Fauna from Great Saltpeter Cave, Kentucky. Current Research in the Pleistocene 26:48-50
[Link]

2009 Michael R. Waters, Thomas W. Stafford, Jr., Brian G. Redmond, K.B. Tankersley The Age of the Paleoindian Assemblage at Sheriden Cave, Ohio.  American Antiquity 74:107-111.
[Link]

2008 Tankersley, K.B. Three Saylors: An Appalachian Mountain Clovis Site in Southeastern Kentucky. Current Research in the Pleistocene 25:110-112 [Link]

2008 Tankersley, K.B. The Mariemont Earthwork: A Fort Ancient Serpentine Hydraulic Structure. North American Archaeologist 29:123-143 [Link]

2007 Tankersley, K.B. Archaeological Geology of the Turner Site Complex, Hamilton County, Ohio. North American Archaeologist 28:271-294 [Link]

Book Chapters

2007 Tankersley, K.B. Big Bone Lick, Kentucky: Late Pleistocene Archaeology. In Geological Aspects of Key Archaeological Site in Northern Kentucky and Southern  Ohio, edited by Timothy S. Dalby, Ohio Geological Survey, Columbus, pp 46-50 [Link]

Encyclopedia Articles

2008 Tankersley, K.B. Shawnee Indians, The World Book Encyclopedia, pp. 379. [Link]

2008 Tankersley, K.B. Creek Indians, The World Book Encyclopedia, pp. 1125-1126 [Link]

Reviews

2009. Tankersley, K. B., Murray Springs: A Clovis Site with Multiple Activity Areas in the San Pedro Valey, Arizona. Journal of Anthropological Research 65:654-655 [Link]

2008. Tankersley, K. B. Making the Voyageur World: Travelers and Traders in the North American Fur Trade, by Carolyn Podruchny, American Anthropologist 110:136-137 [Link]

Introductions

2007 Tankersley, K. B. Introduction. Arrowpoints, Spearheads, and Knives of Prehistoric Times, United States National Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Sky Horse Publishers Press, New York, pp. vii-ix [Link]

Films

(2013). Secrets of the Earth, Weather Channel, .

(2012). How Space Changed History, History Channel, .

(2009). Universe, History Channel, .

(2009). How the Earth Was Made, History Channel, .

(2009). The Archaeology of Shawnee Lookout, CET Public Broadcasting System Television, .

(2008). Catastrophe, Discovery Channel, .

(2008). Ancient Asteroids, National Geographic Television, .

(2007). A Global Warning, History Channel, .

(2007). Behringer-Crawford Museum, CERHAS, University of Cincinnati, .

(2007). Where the River Bends, KET Public Broadcasting System Television, .

Courses Taught

Archaeological Geology (Special Topics in Anthropology).

Indians of North America/Ethnography North American Indians.

Archaeological Field School (Midwest).

Public Archaeology/Seminar in Public Archaeology.

Film and Anthropology/Anthropological Filmmaking.

Historic Preservation Seminar.

Introduction to Archaeology.

New World Prehistory/New World Archaeology.

Ohio Valley Prehistory/Ohio Valley Archaeology.