Oral Histories of Southwestern Paleoethnobotanists: A Karen Adams and Vorsila Bohrer Appreciation

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Enduring Relationships: People, Plants, and the Contributions of Karen R. Adams" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Paleoethnobotany, the study of past relationships between people and plants, rapidly developed new methods and priorities in examining plant remains from archaeological contexts during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Oral histories from two paleoethnobotanical researchers, Dr. Karen Adams and her mentor Dr. Vorsila Bohrer (1931–2021), document this development of the field over the course of their influential careers in the US Southwest. In February of 2017, Willow Powers and Mollie Toll interviewed Bohrer about her experiences as a paleoethnobotanist, and in 2017 and 2018, Abigail Dockter conducted similar interviews with Adams. These interviews form a small archive of women's histories in this field. The interview material covers topics of methodology, education, and encouragement of young analysts, and the two researchers' perspectives on their field as well as entertaining personal stories that emerged from the pursuit of that work. Such interview projects provide insight into knowledge creation in the field of archaeology as well as an appreciation of the practitioners who have devoted their intellectual lives to this research.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)   •
• Enduring Relationships: People, Plants, and the Contributions of Karen R. Adams

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39102.0