Scott Dersam

About Scott

Dr. Scott W. Dersam is Cofounder, Codirector, Principal Investigator, and Principal Researcher of the Alpine Ecosystems Research Institute (AERI), formerly the Beartooth Ecosystems Alpine Archaeological Research (BEAAR) Project. Scott holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Montana and an M.A. from the University of Wyoming. Dersam has years of experience in varying forms of archaeological research, spanning the foothills and mountains of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, the High Plains, the Great Basin, and Yellowstone National Park. Dersam has taught at the University of Montana, Missoula, and currently teaches at Montana State University, Bozeman, instructing on various archaeological and anthropological topics. He has worked for multiple cultural resource management firms and the USDA Forest Service in Wyoming. Dersam’s field and laboratory research specializes in high-elevation North American hunter-gatherer settlement patterning, alpine occupation duration, spatial statistical modeling, Pleistocene landscapes, and the evolving cultural mountain adaptations of the Rocky Mountains. Scott has supervised public and professional archaeological research efforts in the mountain ranges of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, focusing primarily on the Beartooth Wilderness of Montana since 2018. Dersam’s research has appeared in a special issue of The Journal of Hunter-Gatherer Research (2023), guest edited by Dersam, as well as the National Forest Overview of the Gallatin National Forest (2023).