2026

Miles Rhoads and Jessica Gammage (Graduate, University of Nebraska-Lincoln): One Ocean, Two Worlds: Southern Pomo and Native Hawaiian Navigations of Biological Anthropology

 

2025

Megan Bieraugle (Graduate, University of Alberta): Ageing dogs and wolves using x-ray micro-computed tomography (μ-CT): an application to canid remains from the Junction Site, Alberta, Canada

Fox Nelson (Graduate, University of Iowa): Identifying the driving force behind dietary diversity of people in Uinta Phase (1800–1000 years Before Present) sites in Southwest Wyoming

 

2024

Mavis Chan (Graduate, University of Calgary): A Deadly Visual Illusion: Visibility and Least Cost Path Analysis on Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump Unesco World Heritage Site

 

2023

Kelsey Hoppes (Graduate, University of Colorado Boulder): Lost in the Details: Investigating a Multicultural Community in Northeastern Nebraska through Attribute-Based Pottery Analysis

 

2022

Caitlin Calvert (Graduate, Metropolitan State University of Denver): Prehistoric Occupation in an area of the Colorado Piedmont as seen through Survey at Cherokee Ranch

Robert J. Madden (Undergraduate, Colorado State University): Morphological Comparison of Prehistoric Colorado "Gaming Pieces" to Historic Native American Dice

 

2021

Rachel Thimmig (Graduate, Brown University): On- and Off-Reservation Life: A Reexamination of Crow-Flies-High Village

Clifford White (Undergraduate, University of Wyoming): Did Water Availability Impact Clovis Settlement Strategies on the Great Plains?

 

2020

No Award - Meeting Canceled

 

2019

Evelyn Pickering (Graduate, University of Arizona): Creation and Creative Reconstruction: Blackfeet Resilience Capacity on the Northern Plains

 

2018

Amanda Anne Burtt (Graduate, Indiana University): Unlikely Allies: Modern Wolves and the Diets of Pre-contact Domestic Dogs

Travis Jones (Graduate, University of Georgia): Revisiting Huff Village: Toward Generational Timescales for Plains Villages

 

2017

Abigail E. Fisher (Graduate, Southern Methodist University): When is a Wolf a Dog? Combined Geometric Morphometrics and Stable Isotope Analysis for Differentiating Wild from Domestic Canids on the North American Great Plains

 

2016

Ryan Breslawski (Graduate, Southern Methodist University): Seasonal Bison Hunting by Paleoindians on the Northwestern Plains: Revisiting Fetal Prey Remains from Horner II and Casper

Seamus Anderson (Undergraduate, Texas Tech University): Death, Divination, and Obligation: Owls in 19th Century Kiowa Culture

 

2015

Whitney Goodwin (Graduate, Southern Methodist University): Complementary Techniques for the Estimation of Original Firing Temperatures of Plains Ceramics: Experimental and Archaeological Results

 

2014

Adam Wiewel (Graduate, University of Arkansas): Examining Agricultural Surplus at Huff Village, North Dakota: Combining Archaeological and Geophysical Data (published in McKinnon and Haley's (2017) Archaeological Remote Sensing in North America, pp. 95-110)

 

2013

Sarah E. Wolff (Graduate, University of Arizona): Protecting a National Icon: The First Use of the Antiquities Act of 1906 to Declare Devils Tower National Monument

 

2012

Elsa Perry (Undergraduate, University of Lethbridge): Correlating Etching Tool Materials with Petroglyphs at Writing on Stone (published in Plains Anthropologist 60(223):72-83 (2015))

 

2011

William Reitze (Graduate, Southern Methodist University): Salvaging a Sandia Site: Reinvestigation of the Lucy Site, Central New Mexico

 

2010

Kacy Hollenback (Graduate, University of Arizona): Social Memory of Disaster: Exploring Historic Smallpox Epidemics among the Mandan and Hidatsa

Travis Hill (Undergraduate, Colorado State University): Qualifying Comfort: Intentional Design in Unhafted End Scrapers at the Lindenmeier Folsom Site, Northern Colorado

 

2009

Maureen Boyle (Graduate, Indiana University): Beyond Linearity in Western Historical Narratives: The Wild West as Temporal Frontier

Wendi Field Murray (Graduate, University of Arizona): Feathers, Fasting, and the "Eagle Complex": A Contemporary Analysis of the Eagle as a Cultural Resource in the Northern Plains (published in Plains Anthropologist 56(218):143-153 (2011))

Brigid Grund (Undergraduate, University of Colorado): Understanding the Great Plains Paleoindian Projectile Point Chronology: Radiocarbon Dating and Potential Coevality of Point Types

 

2008

Jeremy Planteen (Graduate, University of Wyoming): The Wild West Show: Rethinking the Influence of the Miller's 101 Ranch Wild West Show and Early Film on the Native American Stereotype

Shana Wolff (Undergraduate, Laramie County Community College): An Analysis of Plants Traditionally Used by Plains American Indians as Topical Antiseptics for Antimicrobial Effectiveness

 

2007

Naomi Ollie (Graduate, Colorado State University): Many Mountains Moving: Tales of Mass-Wasting and Archaeology in the Absaroka Range, Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem

Sarah Trabert (Undergraduate, Kansas State University): Steed-Kisker Ceramics: Analysis of the Scott Site (14LV1082) Assemblage (published in Plains Anthropologist 54(212):289-299 (2009))

 

2006

Michael P. Jordan (Graduate, University of Oklahoma): Religion and Reservation Life: Kiowa Revitalization Movements of the 1880s

Jayme Job (Undergraduate, Minnesota State University-Moorhead): Sourisford Salamanders: Renewal Iconography of the Devils Lake-Sourisford Ceramic Complex

 

2005

Tomasin Playford (Graduate, University of Manitoba): Establishing Site Seasonality: Importance, Problems and a Potential Solution

Patti Kinnear (Undergraduate, University of Colorado): Cooperation and Conflict: Examining Alternative Views of Archaeology on the Great Plains (published in Plains Anthropologist 53(206):161-177 (2008))

 

2004

Raven Carper (University of Montana): A Study of the Utility of a 'Symmetry Index' in the Assessment of Biface Production Goals (published in Lithic Technology 30(2):127-144 (2005))

 

2003

Lucy Burris (Colorado State University): Western Harvester Ants: Archaeology's Little Helpers

 

2002

Jodi Jacobson (University of Tennessee): Identification of Mule Deer (Odocoileus hemiounus) and White-tail Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) Post-cranial Remains as a Means of Determining Human Subsistence Strategies (published in Plains Anthropologist 48(187):287-297 (2003))

 

2001

Charles Egeland (Colorado State University): From Cutmarks to Behavior: The Reliability of Cutmarks for Inferring Processing Intensity (published in Plains Anthropologist 48(184):39-51 (2003))

Chad Goings (University of Arkansas): A Predictive Model for Lithic Resources in Iowa (published in Plains Anthropologist 48(184):53-67 (2003))

 

2000

Paula Renaud (University of Wyoming): Sticks, Stones, and Cyberwaves: Creating an International Community of Aboriginal Philosophy in the 21st Century

 

1999

Rhonda S. Fair (University of Oklahoma): Becoming the White Man's Indian: An Examination of Native American Tribal Web Sites (published in Plains Anthropologist 45(172):53-67 (2000))

 

1998

Jesse Ballenger (University of Oklahoma): Late Paleoindian Land Use in the Oklahoma Panhandle: Goff Creek and Nall Playa (published in Plains Anthropologist 44(168):189-207 (1999))

 

1997

Susan Tanner (University of Nebraska): An Analysis of Use-Wear on Nebraska Phase Ceramics

 

1996

No Award

 

1995

Bruce Low (University of Saskatchewan): Swan River Chert: Its Geological Occurrence, Geographical Distribution, and Archaeological Collection - A Ubiquitous Pre-Contact Lithic Resource of the Northern Plains/Southern Boreal Forest (published in Plains Anthropologist 41(156):165-174 (1996))

 

1994

No Award

 

1993

No Award

 

1992

Elizabeth Miller (University of Nebraska): Evidence for Prehistoric Scalping in Northeastern Nebraska (published in Plains Anthropologist 39(148):211-219 (1994))

 

1991

No Award

 

1990

Jeffrey A. Huebner (University of Texas-Austin): Late Prehistoric Bison Populations in Central and Southern Texas

 

1989

Unknown

 

1988

Unknown

 

1987

Unknown

 

1986

Judith Habicht-Mauche (Harvard University): Southwestern-Style Culinary Ceramics on the Southern Plains: A Case Study of Technological Innovation and Cross-Cultural Interaction (published in Plains Anthropologist 32(116):175-189 (1987))