Rate My Professor Michael Neeley

Michael Neeley is Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Montana State University, where he has served as Department Head since 2016. His research focuses on archaeology, lithic technology, and hunter-gatherer adaptations in the Northwestern Plains and Near East. Neeley conducts fieldwork in Jordan, including Epipaleolithic sites in the Wadi al-Hasa and Natufian settlements in Wadi al-Qusayr, as well as projects in Montana such as the Beaucoup Field School (24PH188/189), Marias River Canyon geoecology studies, and drivelines and hunting strategies in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. He specializes in stone artifact analysis, prehistoric settlement organization, and mobility patterns during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene.

Neeley earned a B.A. in Anthropology from Grinnell College in 1984, an M.A. in Anthropology from Arizona State University in 1989, and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Arizona State University in 1997. He joined Montana State University as Visiting Assistant Professor in 1998, became Assistant Professor in 2000, Associate Professor in 2006, and full Professor. His scholarship is supported by grants exceeding $700,000, including U.S. Bureau of Land Management Project Archaeology ($280,000, 2015-2020), National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Grant ($4,650, 1994), and multiple MSU Scholarship and Creativity Grants. Awards include the MSU Faculty Award for Excellence (2012) and USIA/ACOR Research Fellowships (1993, 1999). Key publications encompass monographs like The Camp Baker Quarry (24ME467): 2001 (2014, with T.E. Roll) and The Tafila-Busayra Archaeological Survey 1999-2001 (2004); journal articles such as Microcores and microliths in Northwestern Plains and Rocky Mountain front lithic assemblages (2016, Plains Anthropologist), Assessing Cortex Ratios: An Example from the Beaucoup Site (2020), and Changing Settlement Organization in the Late Pleistocene of the Wadi al-Hasa (2024, Journal of Paleolithic Archaeology). Neeley teaches archaeology courses, directs field schools, and mentors undergraduate researchers through MSU's Undergraduate Scholars Program.