Dr. Jones joined the Cal Poly faculty in 1998. His research interests include North American prehistory, hunter-gatherer ecology, and maritime adaptations. His area of geographic expertise is the central California coast, where he has conducted field research for the last 25 years. He is actively involved in several major scholarly debates-- one concerning the possible impacts of late Holocene climatic variability on Native populations of western North America, another involving prehistoric overexploitation of marine mammals in the northeastern Pacific,and most recently, prehistoric Polynesian contact with the New World. He is a former southern Vice President of the Society for California Archaeology.
Articles
Archaeological Perspectives on the Effects of Medieval Drought in Prehistoric California (with Al Schwitalla), Quaternary International (2008)
Inspired by Stine's [1994. Extreme and persistent drought in California and Patagonia during Medieval Time....
Seasonal Stability in Late Holocene Shellfish Harvesting on the Central California Coast (with Douglas J. Kennett, James P. Kennett, and Brian F. Codding), Journal of Archaeological Science (2008)
Oxygen isotope determinations from 92 California mussel (Mytilus californianus) shells from ten archaeological sites in...
The Protracted Holocene Extinction of California's Flightless Sea Duck (Chendytes lawi) and its Implications for the Pleistocene Overkill Hypothesis (with Judith F. Porcasi; J. M. Erlandson; H. Dallas, Jr.; T. A. Wake; and R. Schwaderer), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (2008)
Bones of the flightless sea duck (Chendytes lawi) from 14 archaeological sites along the California...
Diablo Canyon Archaeology: Prehistoric Hunting along California Coast, California Sea Grant College Program (2007)
Anthropologist Terry Jones of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo has evidence suggesting prehistoric human hunters...
Diablo Canyon Archaeology: Trans-Holocene Faunal Exploitation Along the Central California Coast, California Sea Grant College Program (2007)
The objectives of the Diablo Canyon Archaeology project were to (1) refine the dating of...
Book Chapters
Culture or Adaptation: Milling Stone Reconsidered, Monographs in California and Great Basin Anthropology - Avocados to Millingstones: Papers in Honor of D.L. True (2008)
Of interest to D. L. True throughout his career was the California Milling Stone Horizon,...
The Prehistory of Big Creek, Views of a Coastal Wilderness: Twenty Years of Research at Big Creek Reserve (2001)
Archaeological research began at Big Creek in 1983 with the first of four summer field...