During Adovasio's graduate years at the University of Utah, he processed a deluge of perishable artifacts (baskets, strings, and cords) from Hogup Cave.

[4] Though it can at times be frustratingly meticulous work, Adovasio claims archaeology is also an incredibly rewarding field with unparalleled opportunities for interdisciplinary study.

Adovasio has also worked on a multitude of excavations in North America and internationally, including Meadowcroft Rockshelter, where he has been involved for the past 40 years.

His peers elected him as a fellow for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and he has served as a lecturer for the Archaeological Institute of America since 2008.

Skeptics like James Mead and C. Vance Haynes have repeatedly questioned Meadowcroft's age based on concerns about contamination of radiocarbon samples and the absence of Pleistocene fauna.

Additionally, all of the assayed samples derive from firepits and fire features with directly associated cultural material of indisputable anthropogenic origins.

Further, the highly localized vitrinite is separated from the Stratum IIa occupational floors by approximately 30–50 cm of undisturbed deposits.

Additionally, microstratigraphic analyses by Paul Goldberg and associates has conclusively indicated absolutely no groundwater movement and hence, no vehicle for transporting contaminants in any of the sites 11 strata.

[6][7] Haynes also suggests that soluble matter may have contaminated the carbonized cut bark specimen from lower Stratum IIa, as is the case with the charcoal samples derived from fire features.

It is notable, however, that although archaeologists have called the early dates from Meadowcroft into question, Adovasio's methods of excavation have always been considered above reproach.

Adovasio also examines the adaptations and behaviors of Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene populations globally and is involved in developing the interdisciplinary relationship between archaeology and geology (geoarchaeology).

Traditionally, archaeologists have painted men in prehistoric cultures as the principal breadwinners and central figures in the economy of their respective populations.

Adovasio, however, defends the importance of women to prehistoric lifeways in his book The Invisible Sex, coauthored with Olga Soffer and Jake Page.

[11] One of the primary reasons the androcentric view has persisted is the relative absence of women from the archaeological record: the durable evidence of male handiwork (lithics) endures, but softer technologies decompose.