Thomas K. Harper, Pennsylvania State University

Current Position

My archaeological work has been heavily influenced by previous experience in the fields of horticulture and agricultural extension, and my overall focus is the study of food production and human responses to the environment throughout time. As such, I am most keenly interested in the functional aspects of culture that develop as adaptations to environmental constraints. Much of what it is to be human has been defined by the complex interrelationships between social and environmental systems, and I believe that by studying the past we may gain greater perspective on current efforts to understand and adapt to global climate change.

Ancient agriculture, adaptation to climate change, settlement systems, population dynamics, GIS and spatial analysis, human diet and subsistence, analytical archaeology, prehistoric Ukraine.

I am a member of the Society for American Archaeology, the Institute of European and Mediterranean Archaeology (IEMA) and an associate of the Social Systems GIS Laboratory at SUNY Buffalo. Much of my work is done in close association with members of the Institute of Archaeology at the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences (IANANU).

2012 - Ozhevo-Ostrov, Ukraine (Tripolye B1 settlement), led by D.K. Chernovol
2011 - Talianki, Ukraine (Tripolye C1 giant-settlement), led by V.A. Kruts

2014 Honorarium, Santa Fe Institute; consulting
2013 Honorarium, IEMA; volume editing
2012 IEMA Travel Scholarship; for conference attendence, fieldwork, and developing international collaborations

Diachenko, A., and T.K. Harper
2016. The absolute chronology of Late Tripolye sites: a regional approach. Sprawozdania Archeologiczne 68 (forthcoming).

Harper, T.K.
2015. Вплив змін клімату на популяційну динаміку Кукутень-Трипільського культурного комплексу и формування західнотрипільських поселень-гігантів. Вісник рятівної археології (Acta Archaeologiae Conservativae) 1:44-66.
Ukrainian (2886KB)

Weninger, B. and T. Harper.
2015. The Geographic Corridor for Rapid Climate Change in Southeast Europe and Ukraine. In Neolithic and Copper Age between the Carpathians and the Aegean, edited by E. Schultze, pp. 475-505. Archäologie in Eurasien 31. DAI, Berlin.
English (8340KB)

Harper, T.K.
2013. The effect of climatic variability on population dynamics of the Cucuteni-Tripolye cultural complex and the rise of the Western Tripolye giant-settlements. Chronika 3:28-46.
English (889KB)

Harper, T.K.
2011b. Thoughts Regarding Agronomic Yields, Soil Nutrients, and the Tenure of a Tripolian Giant-Settlement. In Earliest Farmers of Southeastern Europe, pp. 98-101. Institut Arkheologii NAN Ukrainy, Kiev and Tal'yanki
English and Russian (3118KB)

Harper, T.K.
2011a. Visualizing Agricultural Production during the Eneolithic: A Case Study from the Tripolye Giant-settlement of Talianki. Chronika 1:27-32, 61-62.
English (197KB)

Harper, T.K., L.F. Kyme, and S.A. Cornelisse
2010. A Guide to Farming in Pennsylvania. Electronic document, http://extension.psu.edu/farm-business/guide, accessed 31 August 2011.

Harper, T.K.
2016. Climate, migration, and false cities on the Old European periphery: a spatial-demographic approach to understanding the Tripolye giant-settlements. Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, SUNY at Buffalo.
(Electronic copy available on request)

Harper, T.K.
2012. Sustaining Talianki: a model of Eneolithic subsistence economics at a giant-settlement of the Tripolye culture, Ukraine. Unpublished M.A. Thesis, Department of Anthropology, SUNY at Buffalo.
English (1741KB)