Paul Minnis

Paul E. Minnis (PhD, University of Michigan, 1981) is a professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Oklahoma now living in Tucson, Arizona, where he is a visiting scholar at the School of Anthropology at the University of Arizona. He conducts research on the prehispanic ethnobotany and archaeology of the northwest Mexico and the U.S. Southwest. Although he has worked throughout the region, his first intensive archaeological research in the area was on the ancient Mimbres tradition centered on southwestern New Mexico, his primary field research has focused since 1984 on Paquimé and its regional setting in northwestern Chihuahua, Mexico, and co-directed research projects in the area beginning in 1989. In addition, he has published extensively on ethnobotany, most recently on the topic of famine foods, He is the author or editor of 16 books and numerous articles. He was the president of the Society of Ethnobiology, treasurer and Press editor for the Society for American Archaeology, and co-founder of the Southwest Symposium. He has received the E. K. Janaki Amal Medal from the Society of Ethnobotanists of India, the Byron Cummings Award and the Catherine Cerino Award from the Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society, the Distinguished Ethnobiologist Award from the Society of Ethnobiology, and was a Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturer.