UMaine Archaeologist Honored for ‘Pioneering Interdisciplinary Studies’

An international group dedicated to advancing science for the benefit of all people is honoring Daniel H. Sandweiss, an archaeologist at the University of Maine.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) elected Sandweiss a Fellow for his distinguished contributions to archaeology.

Alan Leshner, CEO and executive publisher of Science, says Sandweiss’ notable discoveries include his “pioneering interdisciplinary studies of early colonization of South America and the origins of El Niño.”

Sandweiss, a professor of anthropology and quaternary and climate studies and cooperating professor of Earth and climate sciences and global policy, has been at UMaine since 1993.

“I am honored by election as a AAAS fellow,” he says. “It would not have been possible had I not found such a collaborative, interdisciplinary group of colleagues in UMaine’s Climate Change Institute and across campus.”

Sandweiss has authored and contributed many chapters and peer-reviewed journal articles including 10 in Science, the AAAS journal. His recent papers include: “Paleoindian Settlement of the High-Altitude Peruvian Andes” with Kurt Rademaker, Gregory Hodgins, Katherine Moore, Sonia Zarrillo, Christopher Miller, Gordon Bromley, Peter Leach, David Reid and Willy Yépez Álvarez, in Science; “The Effect of the Spanish Conquest on Coastal Change in Northwest Peru” with Daniel Belknap in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences; and “Archaeological Contributions to Climate Change Research: The Archaeological Record as a Paleoclimatic and Paleoenvironmental Archive” with Alice Kelley in Annual Review of Anthropology.

His numerous other positions and affiliations include being chief cooperating curator at the UMaine Hudson Museum and founding editor of Andean Past. He has been elected to the Board of Directors of the Society for American Archaeology and as Northeast regional vice president and member of the Board of Directors of Phi Kappa Phi National Honor Society.

Sandweiss is one of 401 Fellows elected in 2014. Each Fellow will be presented with a certificate and a blue-and-gold rosette at the AAAS annual meeting at 8 a.m. Feb. 14, 2015, in San Jose, California.

The election of AAAS Fellows began in 1874; the AAAS Council annually elects Fellows whose “efforts on behalf of the advancement of science or its applications are scientifically or socially distinguished.”

Eight other UMaine scientists have previously been elected AAAS Fellows: Susan Brawley, Edward Grew, Irving Kornfield, Joyce Longcore, Paul Mayewski, Malcolm Shick, Bruce Sidell (deceased) and Bob Steneck.

Sandweiss, whose tenure home is in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, is the first UMaine AAAS fellow on record outside of UMaine’s College of Natural Sciences, Forestry, and Agriculture.

Contact: Beth Staples, 207.581.3777