College

Liberal Arts

Department

Anthropology and Geography

Category

Archeology

Areas of Expertise

Mesoamerican history and culture

Chris Fisher

Fisher focuses on the relationship that links humans to their past and present environment – anthropological archaeology – with active ongoing projects in Mesoamerica.

By using earth science and archaeological techniques to study the prehistoric record of landscape change, Fischer aims to inform modern-based conceptions of land degradation, sustainability, development, and human and natural ecological change. He has active research projects in the Malpaso Valley and the Lake Patzcuaro Basin, both in Mesoamerica.

Fisher has co-authored two books – “The Archaeology of Environmental Change: Socionatural Legacies of Degradation and Resilience” and “Seeking a Richer Harvest: The Archaeology of Subsistence Intensification, Innovation, and Change” – and he was awarded American Anthropologists’s Gordon R. Willy Prize in 2005 for his paper “Abandoning the Garden: Demographic and Landscape Change in the Lake Patzcuaro Basin, Mexico.” Fisher was named a School of Global Environmental Sustainability Fellow in 2010.

Fisher received his B.A. from Michigan State University in 1992. He then studied at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, earning his M.A. in 1994 and his Ph.D. in 2000.