Climate Change Institute
University of Maine
S Stevens Hall
Orono, ME 04469-5774
207-581-1893 Ph/Voicemail
207-581-1823 Fax
Sobolik at maine.edu
My main research interests include prehistoric populations of the southern North American deserts and adaptations to desertic environments. My research involves reconstructing environmental and ecological surroundings that may have influenced prehistoric population movement and structure. Presently I am conducting archaeological fieldwork in the Chihuahuan Desert to answer questions centering on chronology, population patterns through time and across space, prehistoric use of diverse ecotones and microhabitats and the effects environmental shifts had on human populations using diverse resources. I specialize in paleonutrition, zooarchaeology, paleoethnobotany, and coprolite analyses.
Sobolik, Kristin D, 2003. Archaeobiology, book 7 in The Archaeologist's Toolkit Series, L.J. Zimmerman and W.Green, eds. Altimira Press.
Poinar, Hendrik N., Melanie Kuch, Kristin D.Sobolik, Ian Barnes, Artur B. Stankiewicz, Tomasz Kuder, W. Geofferey Spaulding, Vaughn M. Bryant, Alan Cooper, and Svante Pääbo, 2001. What was for Dinner? Dietary Diversity of Three Archaic Native Americans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In Press. This research, with interviews by Hendrik Poinar and myself, was featured in the Science News Section of Science 289(5479):530-531, Divining Diet and Disease from DNA.
Sobolik, Kristin D., 2002. Children's Health in the Prehistoric Southwest. In: Children in the Prehistoric Puebloan Southwest,K.A. Kamp, ed., Chpt. 6, The University of Utah Press.
Sobolik, Kristin D., 2000. Dietary Reconstruction as Seen in Coprolites. In: The Cambridge World History of Food , Vol. I, K.F. Kiple and K.C. Ornelas, eds., pp. 44-51, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Sobolik, Kristin D. and Richard Will, 2000. Calcined turtle bones from the Little Ossippee North Site in Southwestern Maine. Eastern North American Archaeology 28:15-28.
Mead, Jim I., Arthur E. Spiess, and Kristin D. Sobolik, 2000. Skeleton of Extinct North American Sea Mink (Mustela macrodon). Quaternary Research 53:247-262.
Spiess, Arthur E. and Kristin D. Sobolik,1997. Blanding's Turtle Specimens from the Turner Farm Archaeological Site, North Haven, Maine. Herpetological Review 28 (1):24-25.
Sobolik, Kristin D., Laurie S. Zimmerman, and Brooke Manross Guilfoyl,1997. Indoor vs Outdoor Firepit Usage: A Case Study from the Mimbres. The Kiva 62(3):283-300.
Sobolik, Kristin D.,1996. Lithic Organic Residue Analysis: An Example from the Southwestern Archaic. Journal of Field Archaeology 23:461-469.
Sobolik, Kristin D. and D. Gentry Steele,1996. An Atlas of Turtles to Facilitate Archaeological Identifications. The Mammoth Site, Inc., Hot Springs, South Dakota,117 p.
Sobolik, Kristin D., Kristen J. Gremillion, Patricia Whitten, Patty Jo Watson,1996. Sex Determination of Prehistoric Human Paleofeces. American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 101(2):283-290.
Gremillion, Kristen J. and Kristin D. Sobolik,1996. Dietary Variability Among Prehistoric Forager-Farmers of Eastern North America. Current Anthropology 37(3):529-539.
Sobolik, Kristin D.,1996. Nutritional Constraints and Mobility Patterns in the Northern Chihuahuan Desert. In: Case Studies in Environmental Archaeology,Elizabeth J. Reitz, Lee Newsom, and Sylvia Scudder, eds, Chpt. 11, pp. 195-214, Plenum Press, New York.
Sobolik, Kristin D.,1996. New Frontiers in Palynology: Pollen as a Guide to Prehistoric Diet Reconstruction. In: Palynology: Principles and Applications, J. Jansonius and D.C. McGregor, eds, Vol 3, Chpt. 23, pp.927-931, American Association of Stratigraphic Palynologists Foundation.
Sobolik, Kristin D., 1994. Microscopic Epidermal Identification of Some Common Desertic Plants. North American Archaeologist 15(4):359-372.
Sobolik, Kristin D. (ed.)1994. Paleonutrition: The Diet and Health of Prehistoric Americans, Center for Archaeological Investigations Occasional Paper Series 22, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, 321 p
Sobolik, Kristin D.,1993 Direct Evidence for the Importance of Small Animals to Prehistoric Diets: A Review of Coprolite Studies. North American Archaeologist 14 (3): 227-244.
Sobolik, Kristin D. and Deborah J. Gerick, 1992. Prehistoric Medicinal Plant Usage: A Case Study from Coprolites. Journal of Ethnobiology 12 (2): 203-211.
Sobolik, Kristin D., 1992. Microscopic Epidermal Identification of Yucca and Agave for Archaeological Use. Texas Journal of Science 44 (2): 187-199.
Sobolik, Kristin D., 1991. Prehistoric Diet from the Lower Pecos Region of Texas. Plains Anthropologist 36 (135): 139-152.
Sobolik, Kristin D., 1990. A Nutritional Analysis of Diet as Revealed in Prehistoric Human Coprolites. Texas Journal of Science 42 (1): 23-36.
Sobolik, Kristin D., 1988. Diet Change in the Lower Pecos: Analysis of Baker Cave Coprolites. Bulletin of the Texas Archeological Society 59: 111-127.
Sobolik, Kristin D., 1988. The Importance of Pollen Concentration Values from Coprolites: An Analysis of Southwest Texas Samples. Palynology 12: 201-21