Research Focus 

      My work explores prehistoric human-plant interrelationships through the excavation and analysis of archaeological plant remains.  The cultural, biological, and ecological aspects of subsistence continuity and change are within the scope of this research.  I am especially concerned with the processes and sequences leading to the development of agricultural systems in North America. Recent studies focused primarily on the Lower Mississippi Valley and Trans-Mississippi South, where I have been modeling the transition to farming made by sedentary fisher-gatherer-hunters in that region.  Because of Washington University’s proximity to Cahokia and other archaeological sites in western Illinois, I have been drawn into American Bottom archaeology.  I helped direct students enrolled in our Excavation Techniques course at Mound 1 of the Cahokia Site, and analyses of archaeobotanical material from Cahokia’s sub-Mound 51 and other Illinois sites are underway or recently completed in the Paleoethnobotany Laboratory.  Students, research assistants, and I have also analyzed samples from sites in Missouri, Arkansas, Michigan, Kentucky, Texas, New Mexico, Chile, Peru, Greece, and Yugoslavia. 
      Recently I participated in new projects in Mexico (northern Chihuahua) and New Mexico.  In Chihuahua, I’m involved as “amaranth specialist” in the excavations at Cerro Juanaquena, a terraced hill site dating to 3000 BC., occupied by some of the earliest agricultural people in the Greater Southwest.  In New Mexico, I worked with archaeologists determine the nature of agricultural systems at Canada de Cochiti, an historic Spanish Land Grant.  This westward shift is broadening my perspectives and allowing me to contribute to the study of subsistence change across North America during many different time periods. 

Courses 

Advanced Paleoethnobotany, Experimental Paleoethnobotany, Archaeobotany and Ethnobotany, Pathways to Domestication (team-taught with colleague), Selected Issues in North American Archaeology, Ancient Mound Builders of the Mississippi Valley, Native Americans at Contact and Westward Expansion. 

Selected Publications 
 

1994	Pre-columbian Cucurbita argyrosperma ssp. argyrosperma in the Eastern Woodlands of North America.  Economic Botany 48(3):280-292.
1995	New dates and data on early agriculture:  The legacy of complex hunter-gatherers.  Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden, 83:3-15.
1996	A three thousand year old cache of crop seeds from Marble Buff, Arkansas.  In People, Plants, and  Landscapes:  Case Studies in paleoethnobotany, edited by K. Gremillion, pp. 42-62.  University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.
1998	The Development of Native Agricultural Economies in the Lower Mississippi Valley.  In The  Natchez District in the Old, Old South, edited by V.P. Steponaitis, pp. 23-47.  Center for the Study  of the American South, UNC-Chapel Hill, Southern Research Report #11.
1999	Gender and the Early Cultivation of Grounds in Eastern North America.  American Antiquity  64(3): 417-429.
2000	Native Farming Systems and Ecosystems in the Mississippi River Valley.  In Imperfect Balance: Landscape Transformations in the Pre-columbian Americas, edited by D. Lentz,  pp. 225-250.  Columbia University Press, New York.
2000	Levels of Native Biodiversity in Eastern North America.  In Biodiversity and Native America, edited by P.E. Minnis and W. Elisens, pp. 223-247.  University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.