Phil Dering
Dr. J. Phil Dering
Associated Faculty
Email: jpdering75@gmail.com
Education:
Ph.D. – Anthropology, Texas A&M University 1996
M.S. – Botany, Texas A&M University 1979
Research Interests:
Paleoethnobotany; prehistoric subsistence systems; Archaic period archaeology and art of the lower Pecos River region, Texas and Mexico; identification and interpretation of archaeological plant materials recovered from western Texas and eastern New Mexico.
Phil Dering is an archaeologist specializing in the analysis of plant materials recovered from archaeological sites. He studies the role of plant use and plant production during the Archaic and Late Prehistoric periods in west Texas and southeastern New Mexico. He also works with his wife, Carolyn Boyd, whose primary interest is the documentation and interpretation of Pecos River style pictographs in southwest Texas and Coahuila, Mexico.
Current Research:
Dering works with Carolyn Boyd on The Hearthstone Project, a research program with Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center. Funded primarily by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Science Foundation, the Hearthstone Project synthesizes expertise from archaeological science, formal art analysis, and Indigenous consultants. For more information about the project see the blog posts on Carolyn E. Boyd’s website or on the Shumla website.
He is conducting plant surveys and vegetation analyses in southeastern New Mexico, studying vegetation composition and structure near rock art sites in conjunction with the project, Cooperative Rock Art Recording in the Guadalupe Mountains of New Mexico and Texas.
Selected Publications/Technical Reports:
Boyd, Carolyn E., J. Phil Dering, and Karen L. Steelman
2023 The Hearthstone Project: Applying Archaeological Science, Formal Art Analysis, and Indigenous Knowledge to Rock Art Research. American Indian Rock Art, Volume 49, edited by Amy Gilreath, Ken Hedges, and Anne McConnell, pp. 135-150. American Rock Art Research Association.
C. Britt Bousman, Rob Curran, Phil Dering, Michael Mudd, James K. Feathers, Abby Payton, Holly Meier, and Christopher R. Lintz
2022, Site occupation spans at Middle Ceramic Antelope Creek phase sites in the Southern Plains of Texas. Plains Anthropologist, Volume 67 (262).
Graves, Tim, and Myles Miller
2022 Macrobotanical Remains. In, Excavations at Two Village Settlements in Training Area 30 of Fort Bliss, Otero County, New Mexico. US Army Corps of Engineers Tulsa District and Fort Bliss Cultural Resources Report No. 20-10. Directorate of Public Works, Environmental Division, Fort Bliss Garrison Command, Fort Bliss Texas. Swift River/Versar Joint Venture Report No. 204004-1, Versar Report of Investigations No. 896EP, Versar, Inc. El Paso, Texas. NMCRIS Activity No. 147723.
Graves, Tim, Myles R. Miller, Katherine Jones, Amanda Maldonado, Nancy Wilkins, Lillian Ponce, J. Phil Dering, Susan G. Smith, and David Rachal
2022 Data Recovery at Early Dona Ana Phase and Middle Archaic Period Villages in Training Area 30 of Fort Bliss, Otero County, New Mexico. US Army Corps of Engineers Tulsa District and Fort Bliss Cultural Resources Report No. 21-14. Directorate of Public Works, Environmental Division, Fort Bliss Garrison Command, Fort Bliss Texas. Versar Report of Investigations No. 902EP, Versar, Inc. El Paso, Texas. NMCRIS Activity No. 149126.
Miller, Myles R., Tim B. Graves, Charles Frederick, Mark Willis, John D. Speth, J. Phil Dering, Susan J. Smith, Crystal Dozier, John G. Jones, Jeremy Loven, Genevieve Woodland, Jeff Ferguson, and Mary Ownby
2021 Macrobotanical Remains from the Merchant Site: Implications for the Subsistence System of a Late Formative Village on the Mescalero Plain. In, Pueblo on the Plains: The Second Season of Investigations at the Merchant Site in Southeastern New Mexico. Versar Cultural Resources Report No. 872-4EP. Volume 1 and Volume 2. Versar, Inc., El Paso, Texas. NMCRIS Activity No. 142063.
Miller, Myles R., Tim B. Graves, Charles Frederick, Mark Willis, John D. Speth, J. Phil Dering, Susan J. Smith, Crystal Dozier, John G. Jones, Jeremy Loven, Genevieve Woodland, Jeff Ferguson, and Mary Ownby
2021 Ochoa Phase Investigations on the Mescalero Plain. Versar Cultural Resources Report No. 872-6EP. Versar, Inc., El Paso, Texas. NMCRIS Activity No. 142063.
Hanselka, J. Kevin, Leslie Bush, and J. Phil Dering
2021 Eagle Nest Canyon Archaeobotany: Lessons So Far. Journal of Texas History and Archeology.
Dering, Philip
2017 Plant Remains. In, La Belle: The Archaeology of a Seventeenth-Century Ship of New World Colonization, edited by James E. Bruseth, Amy A. Borgens, Bradford M. Jones, and Eric D. Ray, pp. 763-780. Texas A&M University Press. College Station.
Dering, J. Phil and Susie Smith
2016 Plant and Pollen Remains from the Merchant Site. In, The Merchant Site: A Late Prehistoric Ochoa Phase Settlement in Southeastern New Mexico, edited by Myles R. Miller, Tim B. Graves, and Robert H. Leslie. Versar Cultural Resources Report No. 836EP, NMCRIS No. 132077.
Dering, Phil
2014 Plant Analysis. In, Three Millennia of Village Settlements in the Western Tularosa Basin: Excavations at Four Sites near the Organ Mountains on Fort Bliss in Doña Ana County, New Mexico. Ed. by Myles Miller, T. Graves, and M. Landreth). Cultural Resources Report No. 13-25, Environmental Division, Fort Bliss Garrison Command, Fort Bliss, Texas.
Dering, J. Phil
2008 Late Prehistoric Subsistence Economy on the Edwards Plateau. Plains Anthropologist 53 (205):59-77.
Dering, J. Phil
2007 Assessment of Botanical and Faunal Assemblages from Paleoindian and Early Archaic Components on the Periphery of the Southern Plains. Bulletin of the Texas Archeological Society 78: 177-195.
Terry, Martin, Karen L. Steelman, Thomas P. Guilderson, J. Philip Dering, Marvin W. Rowe
2006 Lower Pecos and Coahuila peyote: new radiocarbon dates. Journal of Archaeological Science 33: 1017-1021.
Dering, Phil
2005 Ecological Factors Affecting Variation in the Late Archaic Economy of the Lower Pecos River Region of Southwestern Texas. U.S.A. and Coahuila, Mexico. In Current Research on the Late Archaic Along the U.S/Mexican Borderlands. University of Texas Press. Austin.
Dering, Phil
1999 Earth Oven Plant Processing in Archaic Period Economies: An Example from a Semi-Arid Savanna in South-central North America. American Antiquity 64(4).
Dering, Phil
1996 Boyd Carolyn E. and J. Phil Dering. Medicinal and Hallucinogenic Plants Identified in the Sediments and Pictographs of the Lower Pecos, Texas Archaic. Antiquity 70:256-275.