This summer, Associate Curator of Paleoethnobotany, Kandi Hollenbach, led a field school through the Department of Anthropology at UT’s Cherokee Farm. She is targeting 2,000 year-old deposits that will hopefully yield native cultigens like goosefoot (Chenopodium berlandieri) and maygrass (Phalaris caroliniana).

She also teamed with Leslie Chang Jantz, the museum’s Curator of Education, Pickett State Park rangers, and Emma Wiley from the museum’s Student Advisory Board, to develop an “archaeology in a box” program. With funding from a UT Community Engagement Incentive Grant, this program will bring local archaeology to families and classrooms in Pickett and Fentress counties, with plans to expand it to other areas of the state.