Stephen Plog

Stephen Plog is a notable American archaeologist and anthropologist, who specializes in the pre-Columbian cultures of the American Southwest. As the Commonwealth Professor of Anthropology at The University of Virginia, he currently teaches undergraduate and graduate students, and is working to digitize all the research on the Chaco Canyon through the Chaco Research Archive. On May 1, 2006 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Election to the academy is among the highest distinctions for a scientist, and is based on outstanding and ongoing achievements in original research. He was also a visiting fellow at the School of American Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2001-2002. Plog's research focuses on understanding culture change in the prehistoric American Southwest. He is particularly interested in the changing nature of ritual, social organization, exchange and demography from approximately 1000 C.E. to the historic period. Plog, who joined the U.Va. anthropology department as an assistant professor in 1978, is an archaeologist whose work focuses on understanding cultural change among prehistoric cultures in the American Southwest.