Ellis Home Page

Academic Background

Professor (University of Western Ontario, 2004-present)
Associate Professor (University of Western Ontario, 1993-2004; Department Chair from 1993-2001)
Assistant Professor (University of Waterloo, 1988-1990, University of Western Ontario, 1990-1993)
SSHRCC and Dean of Arts Post-Doctoral Fellow/Research Assistant Professor (University of Waterloo, 1985-1988)
Archaeological Researcher (Parks Canada, 1984-85)
PhD (Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, 1984; Click here for a pdf copy of my dissertation)
M.A. (Anthropology, McMaster University, 1979);
Hons. B.A (Anthropology, University of Waterloo, 1976)

Research/Supervisory Interests

I am an anthropological archaeologist with major theoretical and topical research interests in hunting and gathering societies, settlement and subsistence practices, chronology building and stone tool technologies. I am an active participant in both our applied MA and regular MA & PhD graduate archaeology programs. My most recent research has focused on hunter-gatherer mobility practices including the development of more sedentary lifestyles, as these have been traditionally seen as central to understanding these peoples. I am particularly interested in how one can measure, document or sort out the varying effects of differing kinds of mobilities in the archaeological record (range mobility, residential mobility, entrenched mobility, etc.) and of course, how one can explain the mobility strategies used by different groups and why they change.

The geographical focus of my investigations has been on Ontario and more broadly, Great Lakes, archaeology. Since the 1970s I have explored my research interests largely through work on the earlier, preceramic (Paleoindian and Archaic), time period over 3000 years old. Many of my graduate students have and continue to work on stone tool assemblages from such sites. Click here or on the research link above for an overview of my current research and potential graduate student thesis research projects.

I am currently editor of the Journal Ontario Archaeology and, while I have focused on preceramic occupations, I find just about any aspect of Ontario archaeology utterly fascinating. I have been involved in fieldwork and/or reporting on a wide range of later sites across southern Ontario, from Early Woodland lithic assemblages in areas in the southwest to Middle Woodland mound sites in the Trent-Severn waterway to Late Woodland Huron and Neutral village excavations in southcentral Ontario to historic Euro-Canadian sites in the Rideau Waterway. I have also supervised graduate theses on these later dating (as well as earlier dating!) Ontario archaeological sites/collections ranging ranging from Middle Woodland faunal remains to Late Woodland Iroquoian lithic assemblages to Historic EuroCanadian ceramic assemblages (see list of titles by clicking on the teaching tab link above) as well as theses on the archaeology of areas farther afield that fit my broader theoretical/substantive interests.

Select Recent Publications
(electronic copies of many of my published papers as well as information about books I have published can be obtained by clicking here or on the Publications/Papers link above).

D. B. Deller and C. J. Ellis (with contributions by J. R. Keron and R. H. King and a foreword by H.T. Wright) - 2011 - The Crowfield Site (AfHj-31): A Unique Paleoindian Fluted Point Site from Southwestern Ontario. Memoirs of the Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan No. 49. Ann Arbor, Michigan. xiii + 209 pages.

C. J. Ellis, D. H. Carr and T. J. Loebel – 2011 - The Younger Dryas and Late Pleistocene Peoples of the Great Lakes Region. Quaternary International 242(2):534-545.

C. J. Ellis - 2011 - Measuring Paleoindian Range Mobility and Land-Use in the Great Lakes/Northeast. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 30(3):385-401.

C. J. Ellis - 2011 - Lithic/Stone Technology of the Debert Site (Discussion paper and discussion transcript). In Ta’n Wetapeksi’k: Understanding Where We Come From, Proceedings of the 2005 Debert Research Workshop, Debert, Nova Scotia, Canada, edited by T. Bernard, L. M. Rosenmeier, and S. Farrell, pp. 91-109. Eastern Woodland Print Communications, Truro, Nova Scotia.

K. Snarey and C. J. Ellis - 2010 - Evidence for Bow and Arrow Use in the Smallpoint Late Archaic of Southern Ontario. In The "Compleat Archaeologist": Papers in Honour of Michael W. Spence, edited by Chris J. Ellis, Neal Ferris, Peter Timmins and Christine D. White, pp. 21-38. London Chapter Ontario Archaeological Society, Occasional Paper No. 9 (co-published as journal Ontario Archaeology 85-88).

C. J. Ellis, P. Timmins and H. Martelle - 2009 - At the Crossroads and Periphery: The Archaic Archaeological Record of Southern Ontario. In Archaic Societies: Diversity and Complexity Across the Midcontinent, Thomas E. Emerson, Andrew C. Fortier and Dale McElrath (eds.), pp. 787-839. State University of New York Press, Albany, New York.

D. B. Deller, C. J. Ellis and J. R. Keron - 2009 - Understanding Cache Variability: A Deliberately Burned Early Paleoindian Tool Assemblage from the Crowfield Site, Southwestern Ontario, Canada. American Antiquity 74(2):371-397.

C. J. Ellis - 2008 - The Fluted Point tradition and the Arctic Small Tool tradition: What’s the Connection? Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 27:298-314.