At present, I’m pursuing two different research interests. In an extension of my dissertation research on the relationship between past environments and precontact activity in the Cypress Hills of southeastern Alberta, I’m looking at similar issues in the montane forest of the Eastern Slopes of the Alberta Rockies and the parkland of central Saskatchewan, both of which, like the Cypress Hills, appear to have been heavily used by Plains precontact groups but are ecologically divergent from the grassland environments which we typically associate with such groups. I’m also undertaking an archaeometric study of Beaver River Sandstone, an important tool stone in the precontact archaeological sites of northern Alberta and Saskatchewan. Specifically, using the high-resolution analytical capability of the Canadian Light Source, our national synchrotron facility, I’m trying to learn more about how heat treatment was used to improve the stone’s working characteristics, while at the same time developing a better understanding of precontact trade and exchange in this region by collecting data that will help us link artifacts made of this material to specific source localities.