Deborah M. Pearsall (born 1950) is an American

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

who specializes in

paleoethnobotany Paleoethnobotany (also spelled palaeoethnobotany), or archaeobotany, is the study of past human-plant interactions through the recovery and analysis of ancient plant remains. Both terms are synonymous, though paleoethnobotany (from the Greek words ...

. She maintains an online

phytolith Phytoliths (from Greek, "plant stone") are rigid, microscopic structures made of silica, found in some plant tissues and persisting after the decay of the plant. These plants take up silica from the soil, whereupon it is deposited within different ...

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases sp ...

. She is a full

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

in the Department of Anthropology at the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Universit ...

Columbia, Missouri Columbia is a city in the U.S. state of Missouri. It is the county seat of Boone County and home to the University of Missouri. Founded in 1821, it is the principal city of the five-county Columbia metropolitan area. It is Missouri's fourth ...

, where she first began working in 1978. She received her

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...

from the

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univ ...

in 1979, with a dissertation titled ''The Application of Ethnobotanical Techniques to the Problem of Subsistence in the

Ecuador Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: ''Ikwadur Ripuwlika''; Shuar: ''Eku ...

ian Formative''. Pearsall was awarded the 2002 Fryxell Award for Exceptional Interdisciplinary Research by the

Society for American Archaeology The Society for American Archaeology (SAA) is a professional association for the archaeology of the Americas. It was founded in 1934 and its headquarters are in based in Washington, D.C. , it has 7,500 members. Its current president is Deborah L. ...

Selected publications

*Pearsall, D. M. 1993 "Contributions of Phytolith Analysis for Reconstructing Subsistence: Examples from Research in Ecuador." Pearsall, D. M. and Piperno, D. R. ''MASCA: Current Research in Phytolith Analysis: Applications in Archaeology and Paleoecology'' 10, 109-122. *Pearsall, D. M. 2000 ''Paleoethnobotany: A Handbook of Procedures''. *Pearsall, D. M. 2002 "Maize is Still Ancient in Prehistoric Ecuador: The View from Real Alto, with Comments on Staller and Thompson." ''Journal of Archaeological Science'' 29:51-55. *Pearsall, D. M., K. Chandler-Ezell, and J. A. Zeidler. 2004 "Maize in Ancient Ecuador: Results of Residue Analysis of Stone Tools from the Real Alto Site." ''Journal of Archaeological Science'' 31:423-442. *Pearsall, D. M. and D. R. Piperno. 1990 "Antiquity of Maize Cultivation in Ecuador: Summary and Reevaluation of the Evidence." ''American Antiquity'' 55(2):324-337. *Pearsall, D. M. 2003 "Integrating biological Data: Phytoliths and Starch grains, Health and Diet, at Real Alto, Ecuador." In ''Phytolith and Starch Research in the Australian-Pacific-Asian Regions: The State of the Art.'' Edited by D. M. Hart and L. A. Wallis. Terra Australis 19, Pandanus Books. *Newsom, L. A. and D. M. Pearsall. 2003 "Trends in Caribbean Archaeobotany." pp. 347–412 in ''People and Plants in Ancient Eastern North America'', edited by P. Minnis. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C. *Pearsall, D. M. 2006 "Modeling Agriculture through the Paleoenvironmental Record: Theoretical and Methodological Issues. In ''Rethinking Agriculture: Archaeological and Ethnoarchaeological Perspectives''. Edited by T. P. Denham, J. Iriarte, and L. Vrydaghs. University College London Press. *Pearsall, D. M. (ed.) 2008 ''Encyclopedia or Archaeology.'' Academic Press, San Diego and Oxford, UK.

External links

Deborah Pearsall's CV
1950 births Living people American archaeologists Ethnobiologists 21st-century American botanists Writers from Columbia, Missouri University of Missouri faculty American women archaeologists 20th-century American women scientists 21st-century American women scientists Archaeobotanists 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American women writers American women academics University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni {{US-archaeologist-stub