Douglas Bamforth is an archaeologist who works mainly on the Great Plains; he has also worked in the Colorado mountains, coastal California, the California desert, the Great Basin, Germany, and Ireland. He has a major technical interest in the study of how ancient people made and used stone tools. His research has focused on how human use of the Plains landscape responded to long-term environmental change during the Paleoindian period (from roughly 11,000 to 8000 BC); recently, his interests have shifted toward the archaeology of farmers on the central and northern Plains during the last 1,000 years. He is currently involved in a long-term field project that examines the archaeology of the Ceramic Period along the Pine Ridge in northwestern Nebraska.