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Overview

An archaeologist who has worked and taught throughout South America and the United States, Jack Rossen specializes in studying plant remains and stone tools to determine the organizational structure of ancient cultures. His expertise in archaeobotany and lithic technology was crucial to Tom Dillehay’s paradigm-shattering work at the Monte Verde site in Chile in the 1980s.

Rossen currently focuses on native peoples in Hawaii and the Northeastern United States. His six-week summer field schools allow him and his students to investigate the origins of the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) Confederacy and to study the east shore of Cayuga Lake, the site of 43 Cayuga villages destroyed during the Sullivan Campaign of 1779. A co-founder of the college’s Native American studies minor, he focuses his research on site protection and respecting sacred areas and burial grounds.

Among the courses he teaches are The Iroquois and the Neighbors; People, Plants and Culture; and Origins of Agriculture.

Publications

Rossen has published articles in Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Anthropology News, Journal of Archaeological Science and numerous other journals on:

• Research findings from ancient and prehistoric sites in Peru, Argentina, Chile, California, Arizona, Kentucky, Illinois, Alaska and West Virginia
• Research findings from Iroquois and Cayuga sites in the New York Finger Lakes region
• Implications of plant food for peopling the New World

Research

Monte Verde, Chile
Clovis, New Mexico
South American prehistory
North American prehistory
Hunter gatherers
Northeastern Native Americans
Ethnobotany
Ethnoarchaeology
Lithic technology
Archaeology
Eastern U.S. woodlands
10th century early Cayuga village sites
Haudenosaunee
Origins of agriculture
Iroquois and their neighbors
People, plants and culture
Archaeology
Protecting sacred Native American areas and burial grounds