Dr. Julie Zimmermann
Title: Professor and Chair
Phone: 650-2157
Email: julzimm@siue.edu
Office: PH 0211
Degree : PhD - New York University
Advising : Archaeology
Teaching Interests
I am an archaeologist, and I have taught many of the archaeology courses offered by our department. Some of these courses cover archaeological method and theory, while others cover topics in prehistory. The method and theory courses cover both laboratory and field. Some of these courses, especially the field school and senior project, give students the opportunity to learn about anthropological archaeology by doing it. The highlight of my career has probably been winning SIUE's Paul Simon Outstanding Teacher-Scholar Award in 2014.
Courses Taught
- ANTH 111: Introduction to Anthropology
- ANTH 205: Introduction to Native American Studies
- ANTH 325: Archaeological Method and Theory
- ANTH 333: New World Cities and States
- ANTH 334: Origins of Agriculture
- ANTH 336: North American Prehistory
- ANTH 340: Cultural Ecology
- ANTH 430: Zooarchaeology
- ANTH 432: Prehistory of Illinois
- ANTH 475: Archaeology Field School
- ANTH 490: Senior Assignment
- ANTH 491: Senior Project
- IS 363: Living Ecologically
Field School Site Reports
- 2002: A.E. Harmon 11MS136
- 2006: D. hitchins 11MS1124
- 2009: Gehring 11MS99 & 11MS157
- 2013: Gehring 11MS99
- 2014: Gehring 11MS99
- 2016: Gehring 11MS99
- 2018: Gehring 11MS99
- Click here to see a video from the 2009 field school
- Click here to see a video from the 2018 field school
- Click here to hear a St. Louis on the Air interview with Dr. Zimmermann and former SIUE students Kelly Sopek and Payne Gray
- Click here to view the Madison County Historical Society's online speaker series episode, "In Our Own Backyard: The SIUE Excavation of the Gehring Site"
- Click here to view the Edwardsville Public Library's Facebook Live event, "Dig Deeper with Dr. Julie Zimmermann"
Segue Radio Show
- Click here to hear Dr. Zimmermann and Dean Budzban discuss "Bringing the Past to the Present"
- Click here to hear Dr. Zimmermann and Dean Budzban discuss "Professor Unearths Ancient History"
Personal History
I'm originally from Barnhart, Missouri, the youngest of five children and one of the first members of my family to attend college. I went to Washington University in St. Louis on scholarship, where I got my B.A. in anthropology. I was always interested in other cultures, but after I went on my first archaeological excavation at age 18, I decided that past cultures were the cultures that interested me most. In college I studied prehistoric ceramics, flintknapping, and human osteology before I decided that I wanted to specialize in zooarchaeology, the study of animal remains from archaeological sites. My M.A. and Ph.D. are from New York University. At NYU I studied European archaeology for a year before I decided that Midwestern archaeology interested me more.
I have been teaching at SIUE since the fall of 2000. I have been lucky to have a career only an hour away from my family back in Barnhart. SIUE is also conveniently located right in the middle of my research area. I love teaching and working with students, most of whom are from the area where I grew up.
Research Activities
I am interested in the Native American (pre)history of western Illinois , particularly the American Bottom (the portion of the Mississippi River valley that stretches from Alton to Chester ) and the Illinois Valley. For my master's thesis I analyzed animal remains and features from a Terminal Late Woodland-Emergent Mississippian site (ca. AD 800-1000) near Cahokia . For my dissertation I analyzed animal remains and features from Middle Woodland-early Late Woodland sites (ca. AD 100-500) farther north, in the Illinois Valley. Fortunately, SIUE is centrally located within my research area. Unfortunately, the rich archaeological record of this area is rapidly being destroyed due to development. By teaching field schools in this area, I have the opportunity to do my research, educate students, and document a small portion of that archaeological record before it disappears.
My specialty is zooarchaeology, the archaeology of animal remains. Animal remains obviously give information about the environment and human diet in prehistory; however, they can also tell us about prehistoric socioeconomies and ancient belief systems. Beyond zooarchaeology, I am more broadly interested in the interaction between humans, animals, plants, and the rest of the environment. I enjoy living in the area where I do my research; on a daily basis I can see many of the same animals, plants, and features of the landscape that ancient Native Americans saw. I must admit that the prehistoric human-plant relationship of western Illinois was more dynamic than the human-animal relationship. Native Americans hunted deer and fished throughout most of prehistory, and while their preference for one animal vs. the other varied during different periods and in different places, that variation is pretty subtle. Variation in human-plant relationships is much more dramatic, given that Native Americans domesticated a number of native weedy species several thousand years ago and imported maize about a thousand years ago. However, as much as I love looking for, and sometimes finding and even eating these native weeds, I really don't want to look at seeds underneath a microscope all day! To save my eyes and my sanity, I'm going to stick to animal bones.
Beginning in 2009, I directed the archaeology field school on campus at the Gehring Site, 11MS99. You can find all of my excavation reports above. My primary research interests in the site pertain to the Middle Woodland (Hopewell) occupation, but virtually all archaeological time periods are represented at the site, most notably a Mississippian component. Recently, my students and I published an article in Illinois Archaeology about the Middle Woodland Hopewellian occupation at the site. Check it out!
In recent years I've also become interested in why Cahokia became the largest Native American settlement north of Mexico during the Mississippian period, approximately AD 1050-1350. In 2009 I published an article titled "Rethinking the Ramey State: Was Cahokia the Center of a Theater State?" in American Antiquity. Check it out! Since then I've become convinced that the Native American hero Red Horn was the key to Cahokia's ability to attract supporters. Some of my ideas about Red Horn and his importance at Cahokia can be found in "Ritual Objects and the Red Horn State: Decoding the Theater State at Cahokia," which was published in Illinois Antiquity in 2013. Check it out!
