• Ph.D. in Anthropology at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
• M.A. in Anthropology at University of Texas
• B.A. in Classical Anthropology at University of Michigan

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Humid Egypt? Researchers find clues in snails' shells Feb. 2, 2005 -- David Kilper / WUSTL Photo WUSTL researchers are trying to infer the Egyptian climate from the fossil evidence. Download Earth and planetary scientists at Washington University in St. Louis are studying snail fossils to understand the climate of northern Africa 130,000 years ago. While that might sound a bit like relying on wooly bear caterpillars to predict the severity of winter, the snails actually reveal clues about the climate and environment of western Egypt, lo those many years ago. They also could shed light on the possible role weather and climate played in the dispersal of humans "out of Africa" and into Europe and Asia.

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Recently I participated in new projects in Mexico (northern Chihuahua) and Arizona. In Chihuahua, I'm involved in the excavations at Cerro Juanaqueña, a terraced hill (trincheras) site dating to 3000 B.P., occupied by some of the earliest agricultural people in the Greater Southwest. In Arizona, I have studied archaeobotanical collections from Hohokam sites to assess the significance of cultigen amaranth and chenopod in the economies of ancient desert farmers. This westward shift allows me to participate in the study of subsistence change across North America during many different time periods. Another recent project involved working with Cherokee colleagues in eastern Oklahoma to interview modern makers of ku-nu-che, the traditional hickory nut soup, to gain ethnoarchaeological insights.

Graduate Courses

Advanced Paleoethnobotany, Experimental Paleoethnobotany, Pathways to Domestication (team-taught with colleagues), Selected Issues in North American Archaeology.

Selected Publications

Fritz, Gayle J.

2001 (with Virginia Whitekiller and James McIntosh). The ethnobotany of ku-nu-che: Cherokee hickory nut soup. Journal of Ethnobiology (in press).

2000 Levels of 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.

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.

1999 Gender and the Early Cultivation of Gourds in Eastern North America. American Antiquity 64(3):417-429.

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, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Southern Research Report No. 11.

1997 A Three Thousand Year Old Cache of Crop Seeds From Marble Bluff, Arkansas. In People, Plants, and Landscapes: Studies in Paleoethnobotany, edited by K. J. Gremillion, pp. 42-62. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.

1995 New Dates and Data on Early Agriculture: The Legacy of Complex Hunter-Gatherers. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 82:3-15.

1994 Are the First American Farmers Getting Younger? Current Anthropology 35:305-309.