Wesley Stoner
Wesley Stoner
Post-doc, University of Missouri Research Reactor, 2011-2014
PhD in Anthropology, University of Kentucky, 2011
MA in Anthropology, University of Kentucky, 2003
BA in Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, 1996
I am an anthropological archaeologist interested in economic production and exchange and urbanism in ancient complex societies. I approach those topics through a three-fold methodology. First and foremost, I am broadly trained in anthropological theory and archaeological field methods. I have done extensive survey and excavation in Mexico and parts of the US. Second, the materials gathered from those field projects provide the basis for specialized laboratory analyses. In particular, I focus on the production and exchange of ceramics as a way to investigate interaction networks. Ceramics are a flexible medium capable of expressing complex information to the viewer, including religious iconography, aspects of identity, and economic production and exchange. Chemical and petrographic analysis of ceramics can be used to determine their source, the regions in which they were produced, which can be used to identify ancient trade relationships. Third, I have recently become more involved in remote sensing archaeological features using LiDAR and multispectral satellite imagery. This is a way to quickly generate large databases that would take decades of fieldwork to achieve.
Stoner, Wesley D. and Barbara L. Stark. 2023. Distributed Urban Networks in the Gulf Lowlands of Veracruz. Journal of Archaeological Research. 31:449–501.
Stoner, Wesley D. and Barry J. Shaulis. 2021. Chemical Mapping to Evaluate Post-Depositional Diagenesis among the Earliest Ceramics in the Teotihuacan Valley, Mexico. Minerals 11(4):1-29
Stoner, Wesley D., Barbara L. Stark, Amber VanDerwarker, and Kyle Urquhart. 2021. Between land and water: Hydraulic engineering in the Tlalixcoyan basin, Veracruz, Mexico. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 60:1-20.
Stoner, Wesley D. and Deborah L. Nichols. 2019. Pottery Trade and the Formation of Early and Middle Formative Style Horizons as Seen from Central Mexico. Ancient Mesoamerica 30(2):311-337
Stoner, Wesley D. 2017. Risk, Agricultural Intensification, Political Administration, and Collapse in the Classic Period Gulf Lowlands: A View from Above. Journal of Archaeological Science 80:83-95.
Stoner, Wesley D. 2016. The Analytical Nexus of Ceramic Paste Composition Studies: A Comparison of NAA, LA-ICP-MS, and Petrography in the Prehispanic Basin of Mexico. Journal of Archaeological Science 76:31-47.
Stoner, Wesley D. and Christopher A Pool. 2015. The Archaeology of Disjuncture: Classic Period Disruption and Cultural Divergence in the Tuxtla Mountains of Mexico. Current Anthropology 56(3):385-420.
Stoner, Wesley D., John Millhauser, Enrique Rodriguez, and Lisa Overholtzer. 2014. Taken with a Grain of Salt: Experimentation and the Chemistry of Archaeological Ceramics from Xaltocan, Mexico. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 21(4):862-898.