Historic sites archaeology in the western United States is booming but continues to be conducted ad hoc. The demands of assessing significance for cultural resource management purposes suggests that integrative research problems must be identified. One set of such problems emerge from the frontier concept. The use of synecological models from general ecology is proposed as a new framework within which to better understand frontier phenomena. As an illustration, one aspect of Frederick Jackson Turner's “frontier thesis” — the homogenization of frontier behavior — is examined in this light and related to historic sites research. In addition patterns of frontier colonization are studied with models of island biogeography developed by the late Robert MacArthur and E. O. Wilson.
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