Beck earned her bachelor's degree from Auburn University and her master's and doctorate from the University of Washington. She has received grants from the National Science Foundation and Hamilton College. Her research interests include surface archaeology and chronology, Great Basin Prehistory, lithic artifact analysis and evolutionary and ecological theory.
Beck is a member of the Fryxell Awards Committee for the Society for American Archaeology; a member of the board of advisors for the Western Center for Archaeology and Paleontology at the University of California, Riverside; treasurer of the Great Basin Anthropological Society; editor for Book Reviews for the Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology; and was elected as a Fellow of the American Anthropological Association. She has written for many professional journals, including Journal of World Prehistory, Journal of Archaeological Science and was editor of The Oxford Companion to Archaeology for the Americas.
Jones earned his bachelor's, master's and doctorate in anthropology from the University of Washington. His professional interests encompass archaeological theory and method, evolutionary theory, hunter-gatherer adaptations to arid environments and North American Desert West prehistory. He has received National Science Foundation grants and has published in many journals, such as International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Limnology, Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, Journal of Archaeological Science and Current Anthropology. He served as a book review editor for American Antiquity, the premier scholarly journal in archaeology.
Beck and Jones are co-directors of the Hamilton College Archaeological Field School, which has taken students on research projects to Grass Valley, Long Valley, and Butte Valley, Nev. They are co-authors of numerous articles that have appeared in such publications as It's About Time: Archaeological Dating, The History of North American Archaeology, Journal of Archaeological Science , American Antiquity and Models for the Millennium: Great Basin Anthropology Today.
