Research Interests: My research interests involve prehistoric materials conveyance, the ways in which different modes of acquisition, production and use are reflected in the archaeological record, and the relationship between these material signatures and past social, exchange, and ceremonial systems of different scales. My analytical specialization in x-ray fluorescence spectrometry has been directed toward investigating contrasts and continuities in material acquisition through time in far western North America- California and the Great Basin in particular. Other research interests include linguistic prehistory and archaeology and shell bead and ornament studies.
Representative Publications:
1986 Early Trade. In Handbook of North American Indians, Vol. 11, Great Basin. Warren L. d'Azevedo (ed.), Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C., pp. 238-255. (by Richard E. Hughes and James A. Bennyhoff).
1986 Diachronic Variability in Obsidian Procurement Patterns in Northeastern California and Southcentral Oregon. University of California Publications in Anthropology Vol. 17.
1987 Shell Bead and Ornament Exchange Networks Between California and the Western Great Basin. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History Vol. 64, Part 2. (by James A. Bennyhoff and Richard E. Hughes).
1992 California Archaeology and Linguistic Prehistory. Journal of Anthropological Research Vol. 48, No. 4, pp. 317-338.
1993 Archaeology, Geology and Geochemistry in Obsidian Provenance Studies. In Julie K. Stein and Angela R. Linse (eds.), Effects of Scale on Archaeological and Geoscientific Perspectives. Geological Society of America Special Paper 283, pp. 79-91. (by Richard E. Hughes and Robert L. Smith).
1994 Mosaic Patterning in Prehistoric California-Great Basin Exchange. In Timothy G. Baugh and Jonathon E. Ericson (eds.), Prehistoric Exchange Systems in North America, pp. 363-383. Plenum Press, New York.
1998 On Reliability, Validity, and Scale in Obsidian Sourcing Research. In Ann F. Ramenofsky and Anastasia Steffen (eds.), Unit Issues in Archaeology: Measuring Time, Space, and Material, pp. 103-114. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.
2006 The Sources of Hopewell Obsidian: Forty Years After Griffin. In Douglas K. Charles and Jane E. Buikstra (eds.), Recreating Hopewell, pp. 361-375.University Press of Florida, Gainesville.
2007 Prehistoric Material Conveyance. In Terry L. Jones and Kathryn A. Klar (eds.), California Prehistory: Colonization, Culture and Complexity, pp. 259-271. Altamira Press, Lanham, MD (by Richard E. Hughes and Randall Milliken).
