Professor of Anthropology

Address:

Department of Anthropology
Trafton Science Center, N 358
Minnesota State University, Mankato
Mankato, MN 56001

You can contact me at:

OFFICE LOCATION: N-333, Trafton Science Center

OFFICE PHONE: 507 389 6504

E-mail michael.scullin@mnus.edu

What do I do at Minnesota State University?

In this day and age I am "phasing" over a three year period into ultimate retirement. In theory this means that I am finally to have the time to do all the stuff I postponed for the past thirty years. The main interest is in the Cahokia State Agricultural Test Plot where Wendy Munson and I are working out the dynamics of a Native American garden of, say, 1500 AD. I still do some teaching and also maintain the Amos Owen Garden of American Indian Horticulture. On Thursdays I typically morph into the:

I have an interest in the prehistory of southern Minnesota. My take on this topic can be found in Prehistory of Southern Minnesota

For a copy of this material in pdf format click here.(To save this, click square "diskette" in the upper left corn.)

Since 1976 I have had a garden plot demonstrating American Indian horticultural techiques and the plants most typically grown. The plants and model are essentially Hidatsa - people who lived in villages in west central North Dakota for the past several centuries..

This garden is known as "The Amos Owen Garden of American Indian Horticulture.".

Me in the Amos Owen Garden (Photo by John Cross)

Current research:

Reconstitution of lost varieties of Hidatsa maize.

Determining productivity and dynamics of Native American gardens

For details of this work refer to Wendy Munson's site The Cahokia State Agricultural Test Plot click here

For an interesting tour of a garden featuring Plants Domesticated by the Indians of North and South America which Wendy Munson and I created on campus at MSU in 2002 click here.

A similar garden is planned for 2003.

For my perspectives on Cahokia and its relationships with the Cambria Focus see:

Cambria: Easternmost of the Western or Westernmost of the Eastern?.

For an overview of a Cambria Focus site - the Price Site (21BE36)- click here.

For a key to Cambria Focus cermamics based on Ruth Ann Knutson's analysis - click here.

For a paper about the Jones Site (21BE5) which is late Cambria Focus and carbon dating thereof heard by about six people at the Plains Conference in 1998- Click Here.

Subsistence at the Price Site (Cambria Focus) from a paper given at the joint meeting of the Plains Conference and the Midwestern Archaeological Conferencein 2000 - Click here.

For some real recipes used by Native Americans before exotic spices and ingredients became available check this collection of Indian Recipes.

And for a list of plants domesticated or grown by Mesoamerican Indians click here.

E-mail: michael.scullin@mnus.edu
Last Updated: 3 April 2003