Karen R. Adams (Ph.D. University of Arizona, 1988) is an independent consultant currently serving as the archaeobotanical analyst at Crow Canyon. Karen trains and supervises summer interns in the analysis of archaeobotanical samples. In addition, she is working on a synthesis of Crow Canyon’s archaeobotanical projects.
Karen has been a full-time practicing archaeobotanist in the US Southwest for over 40 years, and has experience in all major Southwestern US culture areas including in Chihuahua, Mexico. She also has experience in all time periods from the Archaic to the Historic. She has an extensive publication list that includes journal articles, book chapters, and contract literature reports (available on request). She has written about the archaeological plant record from the standpoint of individual plants, ancient human communities, geographical sub-regions, and the US Southwest as a whole. Her double-training in Anthropology (1968 B.A., Miami University, Ohio) and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (1988 Ph.D., University of Arizona) has allowed her to integrate both disciplines in all projects that she works on. Her most recent publications include a study of a poorly known New World domesticate, little barley grass; a synthesis of the archaeology and agronomy of ancient maize farming; and tobacco found inside yucca quids recovered from Antelope Cave in northwestern Arizona.