Deborah M. Pearsall , Professor Emerita, University of Missouri, USA Department of Anthropology. Recently retired from MU after 35 years, Debby Pearsall holds a BA from the University of Michigan and MA and PhD from the University of Illinois, all degrees in anthropology. Her interests within this discipline center on South American archaeology and paleoethnobotany--the study of people-plant interrelationships through the archaeological record. She has conducted paleoethnobotanical research in numerous locations in the Americas. Her research has two broad themes: the origins and spread of agriculture in the lowland Neotropics, and methods and approaches in paleoethnobotany. She is the author of three books, Paleoethnobotany. A Handbook of Procedures ; Plants and People in Ancient Ecuador: The Ethnobotany of the Jama River Valley; and Piperno and Pearsall , The Origins of Agriculture in the Lowland Neotropics , and was the general editor of Academic Press's 2008 Encyclopedia of Archaeology . She has published in numerous professional journals and edited books.
Praise for the Second Edition: Pearsall should be commended for bringing together ideas culled from other disciplines (geology, biology, ecology) and recasting them in an archaeological light...Overall, a book that can satisfy a wide audience. --CHOICE Praise for the Second Edition: Paleoethnobotany: An Handbook of Procedures is valuable for its comprehensive outline of approaches and techniques of research, but more importantly, it exists as the only book of its kind. Pearsall has made an effort to make the book accessible to both anthropologists and botanists and succeeds admirably. --SIDA: Contributions to Botany Praise for the First Edition: Every archaeologist planning to excavate a site needs to read Pearsall's section on sampling botanical remains before digging... --American Anthropologist Praise for the Second Edition: Pearsall should be commended for bringing together ideas culled from other disciplines (geology, biology, ecology) and recasting them in an archaeological light...Overall, a book that can satisfy a wide audience. CHOICE Praise for the Second Edition: Paleoethnobotany: An Handbook of Procedures is valuable for its comprehensive outline of approaches and techniques of research, but more importantly, it exists as the only book of its kind. Pearsall has made an effort to make the book accessible to both anthropologists and botanists and succeeds admirably. SIDA: Contributions to Botany Praise for the First Edition: Every archaeologist planning to excavate a site needs to read Pearsall's section on sampling botanical remains before digging... American Anthropologist