Professor, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Senior Sustainability Scientist, http://sustainability.asu.edu/

Ph.D., University of Michigan

Hegmon is on sabbatical AY 2017-2018

Research

Empirically, Michelle Hegmon’s research focuses on the archaeology of the US Southwest, particularly the Mimbres region of southwest New Mexico.  For many years she and Margaret Nelson co-directed the Eastern Mimbres Archaeological Project, and together they recently published Mimbres Lives and Landscapes (2010).    Their work together established that the occupation of the region continued even after the end of the spectacular pottery for which it is known (Hegmon et al. 1998; Nelson et al. 2006), a finding that has become a key example of reorganization in archaeological applications of resilience theory.  

Hegmon has a long-standing interest in social theory.  She  and is known for her theoretical work, including a review article in American Antiquity (2003) that defined the approach taken in North American archaeology as “Processual-plus,” meaning theoretically broad and methodologically rigorous study of subjects ranging from religion to subsistence.   Hegmon’s work often involves translating  complex theoretical concepts into dimensions and variables that can be assessed archaeologically.  For example, her 2008 article in American Antiquity shows that social rigidity – sometimes taking the form of a rigidity trap – is associated with particularly severe transformations fraught with human suffering.   

Her current work has three inter-related foci:

The Archaeology of the Human Experience (AHE) is an emerging paradigm developed by Hegmon and colleagues.  It develops ways of assessing human well being (or lack thereof) in the past archaeologists study, and investigating how the human experience affects and is affected by social transformations.  A volume entitled Archaeology of the Human Experience on the subject, edited by Hegmon, was published in 2016 by the American Anthropological Association.  AHE is also the basis of a volume on entitled The Give and Take of Sustainability: Archaeological and Anthropological Perspectives on Tradeoffs, just published (2017) by Cambridge University Press.

She was a co_PI of the NSF-funded Long-term Vulnerability and Transformation Project (LTVTP http://ltvtp.shesc.asu.edu/), which involved the comparative study of five long-term cases in the US Southwest and northern Mexico.   She continues work on the human experience of social transformations, comparing the LTVTP cases to several cases (including Greenland and Iceland) studied by the North Atlantic Biocultural Organization.

Hegmon leads a team establishing the Mimbres Pottery Image Digital Database (MimPIDD), which contains photos and data on almost all known Mimbres black-on-white pottery (10,000+ cases).  MimPIDD is now available through the Digital Archaeological Record  (http://core.tdar.org/project/377852). 

Teaching

Hegmon teaches a graduate seminar on the use of theory in archaeology as well as various courses on Southwest archaeology at both the graduate and undergraduate levels.

Major Recent Publications

(many availabale at http://asu.academia.edu/MichelleHegmon)

2017 (editor) The Give and Take of Sustainability: Archaeological and Anthropological Perspectives on Tradeoffs.

2016 (editor) The Archaeology of the Human Experience. Archaeologial Papers of the American Anthropological Association 27.

Hegmon, Michelle, James R. McGrath and Marit Munson

2017   The Potential and Pitfalls of Large Multi-Source Collections: Insights from the Analysis of Mimbres Gender Imagery. Advances in Archaeological Practice. 

Hegmon, Michelle, Jacob Freeman, Keith W. Kintigh, Margaret C. Nelson, Sarah Oas, Matthew A. Peeples, and Andrea Torvinen

2016    Marking and Making Difference: Representational Diversity in the US Southwest. American Antiquity 81:253-272.

Russell, Will G., and Michelle Hegmon

2015    Identifying Mimbres Artists: A Quantitative Approach.  Advances in Archaeological Practice 3(4):358-377.

Nelson, Margaret C., and Michelle Hegmon, editors (2010) Mimbres Lives and Landscapes. SAR Press, Santa Fe.

Hegmon, Michelle, compiler (2010)    The Archaeology of Tribal Social Formations: Selections from American Antiquity and Latin American Antiquity, 1982-2006. Society for American Archaeology, Washington D.C.

M. Nelson, M. Hegmon, S. Kulow, M. Peeples, K. Kintigh, A. Kinzig (2011) Resisting Diversity: A Long-term Archaeological Study.  Ecology and Society 16(1): 25. http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol16/iss1/art25/

 Anderies, J.M., and M. Hegmon (2011) Robustness and Resilience across Scales: Migration and Resource Degradation in the Prehistoric U.S. Southwest. Ecology and Society 16 (2): 22. http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol16/iss2/art22/

Hegmon, M., Peeples, M., Kinzig, A., Kulow, S., Meegan, C. M. & Nelson, M. C. (2008). Social transformation and its human costs in the prehispanic U.S. Southwest. American Anthropologist 110:313-324. 

Hegmon, M. , editor (2008) The Archaeology of Regional Interaction: Religion, Warfare and Exchange in the American Southwest. University Press of Colorado, Boulder. Editor.  Paperback reissue of 2000 volume with minor edits. 

Hegmon, M. & Sunday Eiselt, B. (Eds.) (2005). Engaged anthropology: Research essays on North American archaeology, ethnobotany, and museology: Papers in honor of Richard I. Ford. Anthropological Papers. Ann Arbor: Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan.

Nelson, M.C., M. Hegmon, S. Kulow, and K.G. Schollmeyer (2006) Archaeological and Ecological Perspectives on Reorganization: A Case Study from the Mimbres Region of the U.S. Southwest. American Antiquity  71:403-432.

Hegmon, M. and S. Kulow (2005) Painting as Agency, Style as Structure: Analyses of Mimbres Pottery Designs from Southwest New Mexico.  Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 12: 313-334. 

 Hegmon, M. (2003)  Setting Theoretical Egos Aside: Issues and Theory in North American Archaeology. American Antiquity 68:213-243.

Hegmon, M. (2002) Recent Issues in the Archaeology of the Mimbres Region of the North American Southwest. Journal of Archaeological Research, 10:307-357.