Dennis L. Jenkins is a research archaeologist, field school supervisor for the Oregon State Museum of Anthropology/Museum of Natural and Cultural History at the

University of Oregon The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a public research university in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1876, the institution is well known for its strong ties to the sports apparel and marketing firm Nike, Inc, and its co-founder, billion ...

, and director of the university's Northern Great Basin Field School. One of his excavations led to a new accepted date for earliest human settlement in the Americas. Jenkins' work on coprolites earned him the nickname Dr. Poop.

Education and career

From 1975 to 1981 Jenkins was an assistant archaeologist for the Museum of Natural History at the

University of Nevada, Las Vegas The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) is a public land-grant research university in Paradise, Nevada. The campus is about east of the Las Vegas Strip. It was formerly part of the University of Nevada from 1957 to 1969. It includes th ...

and a student of Claude Warren. Jenkins earned a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

from the university in 1977 and a

Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. ...

in 1981. From 1981 to 1985 Jenkins was a field director and project archaeologist for the

Fort Irwin Fort Irwin National Training Center (Fort Irwin NTC) is a major training area for the United States military in the Mojave Desert in northern San Bernardino County, California. Fort Irwin is at an average elevation of . It is located northeast ...

( U.S. Army) Archaeological Project in Barstow, California. In 1986, Jenkins began work in the Fort Rock basin. The Oregon State Museum of Anthropology hired him in 1987. Jenkins received a Ph.D. from the University of Oregon in 1991. During his four years as field director of the

Archaeological Project, his work on the late

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the '' Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed ...

and early

Holocene The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togeth ...

epochs in the

Mojave Desert The Mojave Desert ( ; mov, Hayikwiir Mat'aar; es, Desierto de Mojave) is a desert in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the Southwestern United States. It is named for the indigenous Mojave people. It is located primarily i ...

resulted in his doctoral thesis ''Site Structure and Chronology of 37 Lake Mojave and Pinto Assemblages from Two Large Multicomponent Sites in the Central Mojave Desert, Southern California''. Since 1987, Jenkins has worked on

Oregon Department of Transportation The Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) is a department of the state government of the U.S. state of Oregon responsible for systems of transportation. It was first established in 1969. It had been preceded by the Oregon State Highway Dep ...

archaeological projects. Jenkins' primary areas of research include the ancient peoples of the Americas, particularly hunter-gatherers in the Great Basin. Techniques include obsidian sourcing and hydration analysis. His

Paisley Caves The Paisley Caves or the Paisley Five Mile Point Caves complex is a system of eight caves in an arid, desolate region of south-central Oregon, United States north of the present-day city of Paisley, Oregon. The caves are located in the Summer La ...

excavation recovered the oldest known human remains on which carbon dating has been performed. Four years after Jenkins' work in 2002, prehistoric DNA expert Eske Willerslev analyzed his samples. Using

mass spectrometry Mass spectrometry (MS) is an analytical technique that is used to measure the mass-to-charge ratio of ions. The results are presented as a '' mass spectrum'', a plot of intensity as a function of the mass-to-charge ratio. Mass spectrometry is u ...

on mitochondrial DNA from

coprolites A coprolite (also known as a coprolith) is fossilized feces. Coprolites are classified as trace fossils as opposed to body fossils, as they give evidence for the animal's behaviour (in this case, diet) rather than morphology. The name is de ...

, the research determined that people in

haplogroup A haplotype is a group of alleles in an organism that are inherited together from a single parent, and a haplogroup ( haploid from the el, ἁπλοῦς, ''haploûs'', "onefold, simple" and en, group) is a group of similar haplotypes that share ...

s A2 and B2 lived in south central

Oregon Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idah ...

12,300 radiocarbon years B.P., about one thousand years earlier than the accepted date for the

Clovis culture The Clovis culture is a prehistoric Paleoamerican culture, named for distinct stone and bone tools found in close association with Pleistocene fauna, particularly two mammoths, at Blackwater Locality No. 1 near Clovis, New Mexico, in 1936 ...

. The new date of earliest human settlement, after publication in 2008, became accepted by many scientists. Since 2000, Jenkins has served as a

Chautauqua Chautauqua ( ) was an adult education and social movement in the United States, highly popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Chautauqua assemblies expanded and spread throughout rural America until the mid-1920s. The Chautauqua bro ...

Lecturer, explaining to people all over Oregon the techniques used to research the migration of early Americans.

Publications

Jenkins has authored co-authored or edited over 80 papers and publications among them are:

References

External links

Interview: Finding Pre-Clovis Humans in the Oregon High DesertNGBPP Research at the Paisley CavesResearch Gate, Dennis Jenkins
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jenkins, Dennis Living people University of Oregon alumni University of Nevada, Las Vegas alumni American archaeologists University of Oregon faculty Year of birth missing (living people)