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Associate Professor Emeritus
E-mail: damick@luc.edu

Dr. Amick received his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of New Mexico in 1994.  He is an archaeologist with research interests in the relationship of humans to the environment, the early peopling of the Americas, archaeological site formation processes, hunter-gatherer lifeways, and lithic technology.  He has conducted archaeological research in several regions of North America with a focus on the ecological and economic adaptations of prehistoric hunter-gatherers.  His current research projects focus on understanding colonization and land use strategies of Late Pleistocene inhabitants of the Midwest; the organization of Early Paleoindian stone tool technology and settlement in the Midwest, Southwest, and Great Basin; and the Archaic-Woodland transition in the Prairie Peninsula of Illinois. He has also been involved in service-learning and community based research in refugee resettlement.

PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS

Dr. Amick is a past president of the Plains Anthropological Society and an Associate Editor of Current Research in the Pleistocene. He maintains memberships in the Society for American Archaeology; American Anthropological Association; Midwest Archaeological Conference; American Quaternary Association; and Illinois Archeological Survey.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

2007     Behavioral Causes and Archaeological Effects of Lithic Artifact Recycling.  In Tools versus Cores: Alternative Approaches to Stone Tool Analysis, ed. by S. McPherron, pp. 223-252.  Cambridge Scholars Publications, Newcastle. Amick_2007_Tools_versus_Cores.pdf‌

2005     Systematic Field Investigations at the Mueller-Keck Clovis Site Complex in Southwestern Illinois.  Current Research in the Pleistocene 22:39-41. [pdf]‌‎

2004     A Possible Ritual Cache of Great Basin Stemmed Bifaces from the Terminal Pleistocene-Early Holocene Occupation of NW Nevada, USA.  Lithic Technology 29(2):119-145. [pdf]‌‎

2004     The Berger Cache of Turkey-tail Points from Dunn County, Western Wisconsin.  The Wisconsin Archeologist 85(1):1-11. [pdf]‌‎

2002     Manufacturing Variation in Folsom Projectile Points and Fluted Preforms.  In Folsom Technology and Lifeways, ed. by J. E. Clark and M. B. Collins, 159-187.  Lithic Technology Special Publication No.4. [pdf]

2000     Regional Approaches with Unbounded Systems: The Folsom Record of Land Use in New Mexico and West Texas.  In The Archaeology of Regional Interaction: Religion, Warfare, and Exchange in the American Southwest and Beyond, ed. by M. Hegmon, pp. 119-147.  University Press of Colorado, Boulder. [pdf]

1999     Folsom Lithic Technology: Explorations in Structure and Variation (edited volume).  Archaeological Series 12.   International Monographs in Prehistory, Ann Arbor.

1997     Effects of Raw Material on Flake Breakage Patterns.  Lithic Technology 21(1):18-32. [pdf]‌‎

1996     Regional Patterns of Folsom Mobility and Land Use in the American Southwest.  World Archaeology 27(3):411-426. [pdf]‌‎

1994     Technological Organization and the Structure of Inference in Lithic Analysis: An Examination of Folsom Hunting Behavior in the American Southwest.  In The Organization of Prehistoric North American Chipped Stone Tool Technologies, ed. by P. Carr, pp. 9-34.  Archaeological Series No. 7.  International Monographs in Prehistory, Ann Arbor. [pdf]‌‎

1989     Experiments in Lithic Technology (edited with R.P. Mauldin).  BAR International Series 528, Oxford.

1989     Comment on Sullivan and Rozen's "Debitage Analysis and Archaeological Interpretation."  American Antiquity 54(1):166‑168. [pdf]‌‎

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

2008     Early Paleoindian Colonization of the North American Midcontinent.  Conference and workshop organizer, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (April 25-26, 2008).

2007     Way Out West: Cody Complex Occupations from the Northwestern Great Basin.  Paper presented at the 65th meeting of the Plains Anthropological Society, Rapid City.

2007     What Were Great Basin Chipped-Stone Crescents Used For?  Poster presented at the 72nd annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Austin.

2006     Another 300 Folsom Points and Preforms from South-Central New Mexico.  Paper presented at the 64th meeting of the Plains Anthropological Society, Topeka.

2006     The Clovis Archaeological Record of the Western Great Lakes.  Paper presented at the 52nd annual meeting of the Midwest Archaeological Conference, Urbana-Champaign (with T. Loebel).

2005     Early Paleoindian Settlement and Mobility Patterns on the Northeastern Edge of the Great Plains.  Paper presented at the 63rd meeting of the Plains Anthropological Society, Edmonton.