TIMOTHY R. PAUKETAT
Professor

As an archaeologist, I believe that we must study the past to understand our relationships to it and to each other, which is why archaeology is among the most relevant of all the social sciences and humanities. Indeed, archaeology is the only way of gaining some perspective into well over 90 percent of all human history, especially the unwritten and unofficial histories of people in both the ancient and the not-so-ancient past. A historical perspective gives us the ability to look back and see what was particularly key, or causal, in generating the relationship under investigation. It is the only way of truly explaining anything, ranging from cultural heritage, memory, and identity to warfare and global climatic shifts. To gain such perspective, I advocate a kind of archaeology that emphasizes studying how the past was constructed, performed, practiced, and commemorated by all people, from rulers to slaves. I focus on the relationships between agency, materiality, identity, and power in ancient North America, particularly the complex pre-Columbian historical developments in the upper Midwest down through the Mid-South and Southeast. I am engaged in several projects and offer various survey and seminar courses during the year, from World Archaeology and Archaeological Theory to Field Methods in Archaeology.

CURRENT RESEARCH

Research Interests:

Materiality and identity. Landscape and memory. Chiefdoms and early states. Practice theory. Pottery. Mississippian peoples. North American archaeology.

EDUCATION:

M.A., Southern Illinois University, 1986

Ph.D., University of Michigan, 1991

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:

See my CV for a complete list of publications.

Books:

2008	Cahokia’s Big Bang and the Story of Ancient North America . Viking-Penguin Press, New York (in press).

2007

Chiefdoms and Other Archaeological Delusions. AltaMira Press, Walnut Canyon , California .

2005

(coeditor, with D. Loren) North American Archaeology (T. Pauketat and D. Loren, co-editors). Blackwell, Oxford .

2004

Ancient Cahokia and the Mississippians. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge .

2001

(editor) The Archaeology of Traditions: Agency and History Before and After Columbus. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.

1997

(co-editor with T. Emerson) Cahokia: Domination and Ideology in the Mississippian World. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln.

1994

The Ascent of Chiefs: Cahokia and Mississippian Politics in Native North America. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.

1992

(co-editor with A. Barker) Lords of the Southeast: Social Inequality and the Native Elites of Southeastern North America. Archeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association 3. Washington D.C.

Some Recent Journal Articles and Book Chapters:

2008	The Grounds for Agency in Southwestern Archaeology. In The Social Construction of Communities: Studies of Agency, Structure, and Identity in the Southwestern U.S. , edited by M. D. Varien and J. M. Potter. AltaMira Press, Walnut Canyon , California (under review).
2007	Founders’ Cults and the Archaeology of Wa-kan-da. In Memory Work: The Archaeologies of Material Practice, edited by B. J. Mills and W. H. Walker. School of American Research Press , Santa Fe (in press).
2007	Sex and the Southern Cult. In The Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, edited by A. King. University of Alabama Press , Tuscaloosa (by Susan Alt and T. Pauketat, in press).
2007	Wars, Rumors of Wars, and the Production of Violence. In Warfare in Cultural Context: Practice, Agency and the Archaeology of Violence, edited by A. E. Nielsen and W. H. Walker. Amerind Foundation and University of Arizona Press , Tucson (in press).
2005	Agency in a Postmold? Physicality and the Archaeology of Culture-Making. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 12:213-236 (by T. Pauketat and Susan Alt).
2004	Archaeology without Alternatives. Anthropological Theory 4:199-203.
2004	The Making and Meaning of a Mississippian Axe-head Cache. Antiquity 78:779-797 (by T. Pauketat and Susan Alt).
2003	Resettled Farmers and the Making of a Mississippian Polity. American Antiquity 68:39-66.
2002	The Residues of Feasting and Public Ritual at Early Cahokia . American Antiquity 67:257-279 (by T. Pauketat, L. Kelly, G. Fritz, N. Lopinot, S. Elias, and E. Hargrave).
2002	A Fourth-Generation Synthesis of Cahokia and Mississippianization. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 27:149-170.
2001	Practice and History in Archaeology: An Emerging Paradigm. Anthropological Theory 1:73-98.

COURSES TAUGHT:

ANTH 105	INTRODUCTORY WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY
ANTH 157	ARCHAEOLOGY OF ILLINOIS
ANTH 428	NORTH AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGY
ANTH 451	ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEYING
ANTH 454/455	FIELD AND LAB TECHNIQUES IN ARCHAEOLOGY
ANTH 477	POTTERY ANALYSIS
ANTH 555	CULTURAL COMPLEXITY
ANTH 561	ARCHAEOLOGICAL THEORY